I found this excerpt at Today in Iraq
"Beyond the futility of armed force, and ultimately more important, is the fact that war in our time inevitably results in the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of people. To put it more bluntly, war is terrorism. That is why a ``war on terrorism" is a contradiction in terms. Wars waged by nations, whether by the United States or Israel, are a hundred times more deadly for innocent people than the attacks by terrorists, vicious as they are.
The repeated excuse, given by both Pentagon spokespersons and Israeli officials, for dropping bombs where ordinary people live is that terrorists hide among civilians. Therefore the killing of innocent people (in Iraq, in Lebanon) is called accidental, whereas the deaths caused by terrorists (on 9/11, by Hezbollah rockets) are deliberate.
This is a false distinction, quickly refuted with a bit of thought. If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a vehicle on the grounds that a ``suspected terrorist" is inside (note the frequent use of the word suspected as evidence of the uncertainty surrounding targets), the resulting deaths of women and children may not be intentional. But neither are they accidental. The proper description is ``inevitable."
So if an action will inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral as a deliberate attack on civilians. And when you consider that the number of innocent people dying inevitably in ``accidental" events has been far, far greater than all the deaths deliberately caused by terrorists, one must reject war as a solution for terrorism. "
The original source is piece by Howard Zinn in the Boston Globe 9/2/06.
The United States military force structure was designed to fight the conventional, and possibly chemically enhanced forces of the Soviet Union in central Europe. It has proved itself twice to be more than adequate to defeat the conventional forces of Saddam Hussien's Iraq. The US Army, however, wasn't well prepared for irregular forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
And the force currently deployed in Iraq, Army and Marine Corps, is absolutely the wrong force today. It doesn't have the skills to be a colonial occupation force. But we're not in Iraq to occupy it as a colony, blah, blah blah. We unfortunately what needed or rather what was needed in 2003 was a colonial occupation force. Now its probably too late, chaos reigns.
Murtha and Hackett are right, there is no reason for our military to continue in Iraq. There is no mission that they can accomplish. Well there is one, we could take one side or the other in the civil war join in the killing, but that doesn't sound very noble. But the idea that we are going to continue to referee the situation, is just ridiculous.
"Beyond the futility of armed force, and ultimately more important, is the fact that war in our time inevitably results in the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of people. To put it more bluntly, war is terrorism. That is why a ``war on terrorism" is a contradiction in terms. Wars waged by nations, whether by the United States or Israel, are a hundred times more deadly for innocent people than the attacks by terrorists, vicious as they are.
The repeated excuse, given by both Pentagon spokespersons and Israeli officials, for dropping bombs where ordinary people live is that terrorists hide among civilians. Therefore the killing of innocent people (in Iraq, in Lebanon) is called accidental, whereas the deaths caused by terrorists (on 9/11, by Hezbollah rockets) are deliberate.
This is a false distinction, quickly refuted with a bit of thought. If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a vehicle on the grounds that a ``suspected terrorist" is inside (note the frequent use of the word suspected as evidence of the uncertainty surrounding targets), the resulting deaths of women and children may not be intentional. But neither are they accidental. The proper description is ``inevitable."
So if an action will inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral as a deliberate attack on civilians. And when you consider that the number of innocent people dying inevitably in ``accidental" events has been far, far greater than all the deaths deliberately caused by terrorists, one must reject war as a solution for terrorism. "
The original source is piece by Howard Zinn in the Boston Globe 9/2/06.
The United States military force structure was designed to fight the conventional, and possibly chemically enhanced forces of the Soviet Union in central Europe. It has proved itself twice to be more than adequate to defeat the conventional forces of Saddam Hussien's Iraq. The US Army, however, wasn't well prepared for irregular forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
And the force currently deployed in Iraq, Army and Marine Corps, is absolutely the wrong force today. It doesn't have the skills to be a colonial occupation force. But we're not in Iraq to occupy it as a colony, blah, blah blah. We unfortunately what needed or rather what was needed in 2003 was a colonial occupation force. Now its probably too late, chaos reigns.
Murtha and Hackett are right, there is no reason for our military to continue in Iraq. There is no mission that they can accomplish. Well there is one, we could take one side or the other in the civil war join in the killing, but that doesn't sound very noble. But the idea that we are going to continue to referee the situation, is just ridiculous.
posted by Roger at 6:12 PM
1 Comments:
Tragically, I couldn't agree you (and Howard Zinn) more about the horrible conditions of our illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq. While there is much talk about the tragedy of war,it's the venality, the stupidity, and the casual indifference that have led us to the precipice we currently contemplate.
The singular truth is death: many have died and many more will follow, especially if we proceed with our current plans to nuke Iran. We who survive this may not be winners, we may only not be dead.
Post a Comment
<< Home