Originally Posted by
Oscar
When several hundred thousand innocent civillians are killed in Iraq over the last decade, where are the ravers about "Radical Westeners" or "Crazy Christians"?
In general, yes, this is bad. No question. Civilian deaths are awful. I repeat, I agree they are bad.
But there are some real differences.
When a bunch a hijackers fly planes into big buildings they are specifically aiming to kill civilians. It's their direct aim, regardles of their wider motives. And these are civilians that either can only vaguely be linked to the target of these hiajckers; or the target of these hijackers really is just "the people".
On the other hand, the deaths of civilians in Iraq come from a different kind of action.
The U.S. (in general*1) does not aim to simply kill civilians. For example, they did not use B52's to carpet bomb downtown Baghdad, World War II style; they used precision bombing*2. (I recall an event (first gulf war) where a precision bomb was sent down an air vent and blew up a bunker - killing a whole lot of Women and Children. That was certainly a cynical ploy by the Iraqi's; those civilians would have been safer at home - houses in general were not the American target; bunkers were (because that's where the leaders were expected to be - not random civilians).
The civilian deaths that have continued in Iraq are also not the sole "blame" of the U.S. (and Western allies). It's not like the U.S.(*1) just goes out and bombs a house for no particular reason. The thing is, they are fighting an enemy that hides within the civilian population. Why ask 'where are the ravers about "Radical Westeners" or "Crazy Christians"?' - why not ask 'where are the ravers about "insurgents" or "non-Iraqi foreign anti-American fighters"?'
Also, plenty of the civilian deaths are not caused by the U.S. as such, but by the general carnage dealt by the people there. They bomb police recruits. They bomb markets. They bomb muslims of the "wrong kind". They bomb each other.
The U.S. armed forces have actually operated under some pretty strict guidelines ("rules of engagement"). Even Vietnam was affected. The "linebacker" operations served their purpose by making the North go to the negotiation table, but the U.S. never really unleashed World War II style "total war" on the North Vietnamese. World opinion would not stand for it. Today, military units often need to go through a few steps of approval gathering before they can start the shooting.
They do not aim to kill civilians, and they should not shoulder the full burden.
Then, to simply say "go home, then" is a simplistic answer. The place is a mess, and abandoning it won't help.
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*1 you'll note that as some soldiers are found to have "done bad" they have been exposed and put on trial. Sure, not all, but it's something. The "free press" eventually exposes the "bad stuff" and things "happen".
*2 I think this is one of the lessons they need to learn. The Iraqi army was smashed in weeks. So what was the point of bombing all the water treatment plants and power stations? The U.S. then had to spend all that time and money fixing those things when they took over the country. If their strikes had been aimed more at direct military targets and less on general infrastructure, they'd still have "won" the military battle but had less trouble making the civilians happy afterwards. (Even in WWII, the Germans were able to increase production of certain things even while the bombing of cities (which, again, didn't happen this way in Iraq) increased. At the end, fields of aircraft were found - they had the planes, but no fuel or trained pilots. This should have been a lesson.)
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Measure once, cut twice. Practice makes perfect.
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, stop iiiiitttt
I didn't think!!! I experimented!!!
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