Posted on 09/06/2004 7:57:31 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
War creates its own ethical imperatives
United States Civil War General William Tecumsah Sherman, who cut a swath across [U.S.] Georgia that devastated everything in his path, later reflected that "war is hell." He was not speaking in a regretful mode. On the contrary, he meant that war is a process of delivering hell to one"s enemies. His position was that to exercise restraint is to prolong the war and increase the number of casualties.
From 1931 until 1944, along with many other countries, the United States condemned the bombing of civilian populations. We condemned the Japanese militarists for bombing the Chinese; Mussolini"s air force for bombing the North Africans; Franco for bombing his own people in Spain, and the Nazis for bombing London and Coventry.
When Franklin Roosevelt became assured of the Allies ultimate victory in the Pacific, he decided that there would be no negotiated peace with the Japanese. "Unconditional surrender," became the new war cry, and the British, the Chinese, the French and the Russians agreed.
The possibility that the Japanese would not yield without an invasion of their homeland led to a drastic change in American policy. To forestall a huge loss of combat personnel, we bombed civilians. We killed 100,000 souls in the fire bomb raids over Tokyo; 100,000 in Hiroshima, and another 75,000 in Nagasaki. It worked. The Japanese surrendered, and the Second World War was over.
Today, there are only two possibilities respecting "the war on terrorism."
If the phrase is being used merely as a strong figure of speech, then a different rhetoric should be adopted. Otherwise, the concept of victory would be reduced to an abstraction. On the other hand, if there is a real war, then it seems to me that it must be fought in earnest.
Thus far, we have seen no armies of terrorism: the terrorists are individuals. Each is willing to sacrifice his or her own life, but more to the point, they believe that their death will be the only price they might have to pay for their atrocities. Perhaps it is time to raise the ante; that is to say, to increase the price we exact from them exponentially, like Sherman"s march through Georgia or America"s dropping not one, but two atomic bombs on Japan.
Since we know most of their identities, I propose that we kill the mothers, the fathers, the sisters, the brothers, the spouses and the children of the terrorists. Killing the mother of a terrorist renders her no more dead and no more innocent than the victims murdered by her son or daughter.
Previously, one of the arguments against this approach has been that the terrorists might be more willing further to kill relatives of their intended victims. Recent events in Russia put the lie to that argument. Where terrorists murder civilians, including women and children, by the hundreds, the destruction of their own families, where they live, becomes a proportional response.
The so-called liberal approach to terrorism involves an assessment and a remediation of "root causes," such as poverty and ignorance. I put it to you that poverty and ignorance are two of the very terrorist justifications for murder. We need not adopt their social premises, let alone abide their religious adventurism, while there is a desperate need to safeguard our own lives.
Our first obligation as a civilization is to enforce our right to navigate the skies, to educate our children, to defend our culture, and to protect our economies. Terrorists have wreaked terrible havoc on our societies. Anything short of killing their mothers, their fathers, their sisters, their brothers, and their children would represent nothing less than our own unconditional surrender.
Harvard Hollenberg
is a writer and a lawyer in New York City
Hollenberg was the attorney for Abe Hirschfeld, quixotic multimillionaire, [''He was willing to be parted from $1 million blithely in the interest of ending this national nightmare'']in the Bill Clinton/Paula Jones sexual harassment case settlement.
How to end terrorism, my view.
Terrorists are lowlife subhuman creatures that are breathing air.
To end terrorism all that is required is to stop the above mentioned lowlife subhuman creatures from breathing air. Problem solved.
At the risk of being labeled a War Criminal, I think this is probably the only way to stop terrorists, and I think it would have an immediate effect. Many of the terrorists are more than willing to sacrafice their own lives, but how many would be so eager if they knew that it meant they were sacraficing their entire family?
..."...Perhaps it is time to raise the ante; that is to say, to increase the price we exact from them..."...
I'd start with the cube in Mecca. Then, Medina. Then, family by family living in the US.
"Our first obligation as a civilization is to ..."
Somehow, the first sentence doesn't jibe with the second. Do civilized societies kill innocents?
Kill innocents in retaliation? Fine, that's one possible solution. Just don't presume to call yourself civilized.
No truer words were ever spoken.
Kaiser Sholse`.
Do like Alexander the Great did and salt the earth of those who still knowing perpatrate and harbor terrrorists.
Editorials that make you go hmmmm.
Pearls of wisdom from Annie!
Robertpaulsen, would you agree that many "innocents" died in Japan when we dropped the nuclear bombs? Would you also agree that, innocent or not, it was absolutely the best thing we could have done to end the war? Innocents die in wars. That's what wars do.
I find it very interesting that this was published in Pravda.
Better: proclaim that anybody contributing money to the terrorists is declared an enemy combatant and a legitimate target.
I agree. Erase the DNA of terrorist beasts from the human bloodline. Anyone who shares blood with a terrorist separated by less than three generations should be put to the sword. Then we'll see an end to terrorism.
Not enough. Obliterate every villiage and neighborhood that supports a terrorist madrassa also.
I think we should first contact the United Nations and hold meetings for 8 months. We should pleed with all the countries doing business with the terrorist and make sure we don't interupt their business transactions without compensation. We should make sure no innocent person that wears the same garb as these terroist be searched or questioned without diect film that incriminats that person.
Just the beginning of my plan when I take the presidency!
John Kerry
Bump
It would be quicker and easier on western sensitivies to bury the terrorists wrapped in pigskin.
For those who don't think that would work - remember we are dealing with "people" who think God wants them to murder babies and that when they die doing it, they will be instantly welcomed to what we could only call "heaven as whorehouse".
Not hard for me to accept that they would also believe that the pigskin would deny them paradise. It's not about what we believe but what they believe.
Definitely worth a try. No better time than now in Russia.
But I guess this would fall under the rest of the world still isn't ready to do what it takes.
The only problem with this is that the morale of your own troops suffers. Trained Western soldiers are not programmed to kill women and children.
It has been suggested elsewhere, and on this thread, that bombing islamic holy places would be an option. I would hope that someone is at least looking at the ramifications of such actions. They sure do seem to have a lot of "holy cities". If their top 30 or 40 shrines are tuned into glass, what happens to their religion? Is there a point to jihad, which is a holy war, if your religious symbols have been vaporized and your "god" has truly forsaken you?
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