Posted on 06/28/2002 11:50:42 AM PDT by robowombat
Letter on The Coming Massacres in Afghanistan Richard E. Rubenstein
Prof. of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs October 10, 2001
Dear Friends,
Up to this point, the war in Afghanistan seems relatively "clean." This is partly because the primary U.S. targets have been military facilities, most of them outside heavily populated areas, and reported Al-Qaeda camps, most of them empty -- and also because, for obvious reasons, the Afghan government will not publicize the number of soldiers' lives lost in these raids. In addition, we know that there are civilian refugees dying because hundreds of thousands have been forced to leave their homes and are on the road or in camps without proper food, clothing, shelter, or medical facilities.
Now, however, things are going to get much worse. Having apparently destroyed most of Afghanistan's air defenses, the American forces will target Taliban troops. These men, defenseless or not, will be considered fair game because they are "military assets," not "innocent civilians." Never mind that many of them are teenagers recently rounded up and put in uniform, or young men who joined the army because it provides them with enough food to avoid starvation, or patriotic Afghanis who, having gotten rid of the Russians, don't want to replace them with the Americans or the sinister warlords of the Northern Alliance. They will be killed by the thousands, very likely by the tens of thousands, and not one American public figure will protest. Why not? Because we have committed ourselves to a grotesque distinction between innocent civilians, whom we are not supposed to hurt except "collaterally," and enemy soldiers, whom it is perfectly acceptable to butcher like cattle, even if they are no more able to defend themselves than my Aunt Phoebe. Recall that in the Gulf War, after gaining air supremacy, U.S. bombers, fighters, and helicopter gunships killed tens of thousands of defenseless Iraqi troops while suffering virtually no casualties on their part. That glorious victory was followed up by a ground attack that featured U.S. armored vehicles equipped with bulldozer heads burying several thousand helpless men alive in their trenches, again without any public outcry or protest by any American politican. In the justifiable outrage over Iraqi babies dying after the war as a result of U.S.-imposed sanctions, we seem to have forgotten that the war itself may have killed as many as 50,000 young men -- a bloodbath that virtually nobody called "cowardly" or "terrorist," because people in uniform are considered targets, not people.
Like father, like son. The strategy of Bush II in Afghanistan, like that of Bush I in Iraq, will be to murder enough soldiers from a distance to induce the rest to give up the fight, or else, wounded and exhausted, to face a massive ground attack by fresh, better equipped forces. The theory behind the strategy is that it will probably not be necessary to murder too many of them, since most are not enthusiastic soldiers anyway. But if some prove to be determined (i.e., "fanatical") enough to survive the air war and resist ground attacks, that will justfy our murdering them to the last man.
Given the likely dimensions of the coming massacre in Afghanistan, it strikes me that the Biblical "eye for an eye" may not be the primitive recipe for retaliation that many of us had supposed. It is also a limiting formula. It would prevent state terrorists from taking ten lives -- or fifty -- for every life taken by non-state terrorists.
We "civilized" folk who characterize our enemies as "barbaric" will shortly see how civilized we are. But this time, when the massacres start, let's not stand by silently because civilians are allegedly being spared. Soldiers are civilians in uniform. Their lives are as precious in the sight of man and God as those of people in street clothes, and gunning them down when they are not threatening us is as much a moral outrage as killing civilians. The right to life is not limited to civilians! This is a message we might take to the churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples throughout our area when the killing starts in earnest. Rich www.gmu.edu/departments/ICAR/sept11/letter2.html
Shots ring out.... the rope was made, sold and then used on its maker.
Reply: "And we believe them."
If you really want to: rrubenst@gmu.edu
A famous gunslinger comes looking for the Judge (Newman) planning to kill him. So deadly is he that all of Newman's deputies run for it, leaving the Judge to face him alone.
While the killer is out in the street, calling him out for a face-to-face gunfight, Newman takes his buffalo gun, slips down the street, around the corner, into the hayloft of the barn behind the gunfighter. Takes careful aim, and blows a hole through him the size of a coffee cup.
Emerging from hiding, Bean's deputies remark, "But he never had a chance..."...
"No", says Bean, "he never did".
The strategy of Bush II in Afghanistan, like that of Bush I in Iraq, will be to murder enough soldiers from a distance to induce the rest to give up the fight, or else, wounded and exhausted, to face a massive ground attack by fresh, better equipped forces.Sounds like a good definition of "war" to me.
... it strikes me that the Biblical "eye for an eye" may not be the primitive recipe for retaliation that many of us had supposed. It is also a limiting formula.He's right on this count. The "eye for an eye" formula prohibited excessive retaliation - but here's where he's wrong:
It would prevent state terrorists from taking ten lives -- or fifty -- for every life taken by non-state terrorists.The Biblical principal is for interpersonal conflict. It is not intended to be a method of governing or executing a war any more than "turn the other cheek" was.
We have some descriptive terms for nations that are governed that way - former, conquered, and extinct.
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