More on Atrocities
Well, since the war has stirred me up again, I might as well work on it some more here in the blog. After all, who reads this nonsense anyway?
What upset me was the atrocity talk. Always it's American atrocities in war. Seldom (I'm tempted to say never) are the atrocities of the other side (Vietcong, Al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgency, or even whatever comes next--and it will come) even mentioned.
Once early in the Iraq war, I was corresponding with a flaming pacifist who told me that it was acceptable that an Iraqi could blow himself up in an Iraqi market killing Iraqis, but it wasn't okay that one stray American bomb should kill one civilian. I was so angry I couldn't see straight at the unfairness of that double standard. I'm still angry at the double standard.
Most people don't know (and some who do know simply refuse to believe) how hard the American military works to avoid civilian casualties. I do know since that was part of my job when I served in Vietnam. Someone would call in a target request for what were no doubt enemy positions that needed to be eliminated. If the position was too close to a village, we couldn't strike it. If it was in a pagoda, we couldn't strike it, even if the enemy had put a .51 cal. machine gun in it and was shooting at our helicopters.
I know, I know that others can tell stories exactly opposite to what I've said above. Everyone seems to know the quote by an American officer during one of the Tet offensives about how he had to "destroy a village to save it." I know atrocities happen. I'll say it again: All War is Atrocity. There is no such thing as a good war, a clean war, a war without atrocity. Every action in a war is an atrocity. And yet I also know how hard most of the military works most of the time to prevent more bloodshed than is necessary to carry out the mission. I've even had fighter/bombers abort runs on cleared targets because they didn't like the chance of missing their target and hitting something they didn't want to hit.
But we don't hear those stories, do we? Is it that we don't want to know? Is it that we've made up our minds already? It is obvious to me that Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Vietcong, and other insurgencies that come to mind, do not have thoughts about "collateral damage" (to quote a terrible euphemism for killing innocents) unless it is to determine how to get more random death into every attack.
I guess the thing that still upsets me, even as I approach my 59th birthday, is the unfairness of one-sided criticism. Unfairness has always bothered me, and I guess it always will. I know life isn't fair, and I don't like that. I know that, in this modern world, we make arguments because we want to win the debating point, not because we want to improve understanding (ours or others), and I don't like it.
What upset me was the atrocity talk. Always it's American atrocities in war. Seldom (I'm tempted to say never) are the atrocities of the other side (Vietcong, Al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgency, or even whatever comes next--and it will come) even mentioned.
Once early in the Iraq war, I was corresponding with a flaming pacifist who told me that it was acceptable that an Iraqi could blow himself up in an Iraqi market killing Iraqis, but it wasn't okay that one stray American bomb should kill one civilian. I was so angry I couldn't see straight at the unfairness of that double standard. I'm still angry at the double standard.
Most people don't know (and some who do know simply refuse to believe) how hard the American military works to avoid civilian casualties. I do know since that was part of my job when I served in Vietnam. Someone would call in a target request for what were no doubt enemy positions that needed to be eliminated. If the position was too close to a village, we couldn't strike it. If it was in a pagoda, we couldn't strike it, even if the enemy had put a .51 cal. machine gun in it and was shooting at our helicopters.
I know, I know that others can tell stories exactly opposite to what I've said above. Everyone seems to know the quote by an American officer during one of the Tet offensives about how he had to "destroy a village to save it." I know atrocities happen. I'll say it again: All War is Atrocity. There is no such thing as a good war, a clean war, a war without atrocity. Every action in a war is an atrocity. And yet I also know how hard most of the military works most of the time to prevent more bloodshed than is necessary to carry out the mission. I've even had fighter/bombers abort runs on cleared targets because they didn't like the chance of missing their target and hitting something they didn't want to hit.
But we don't hear those stories, do we? Is it that we don't want to know? Is it that we've made up our minds already? It is obvious to me that Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Vietcong, and other insurgencies that come to mind, do not have thoughts about "collateral damage" (to quote a terrible euphemism for killing innocents) unless it is to determine how to get more random death into every attack.
I guess the thing that still upsets me, even as I approach my 59th birthday, is the unfairness of one-sided criticism. Unfairness has always bothered me, and I guess it always will. I know life isn't fair, and I don't like that. I know that, in this modern world, we make arguments because we want to win the debating point, not because we want to improve understanding (ours or others), and I don't like it.
posted by Tom | 1:20 PM
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