Actually, I was kind of eager to have one of you guys talk me out of my original statement, making all kinds of wise and cogent arguments to prove me wrong. No such luck. That's the nature of war fever. Logic gets thrown out the window in our eagerness to Support Our Boys.
Well, as it happens, I support them too. I won't be satisfied until the people who launched this vile attack on the US are exterminated. Those who survive should spend the rest of their lives in hiding, constantly on the run. And they should have something to run from--hit teams such as the Israelis used to fancy, scouring the planet for them and killing them wherever they're found. No trial, no mercy. Just death.
All this I favor. But what's that got to do with an observation by the appalling Mr. Maher, one that suffers from the defect of making more than a little sense? As I've pointed out in my multiple efforts to turn this into a serious debate, I am NOT saying that American military flyers are cowards. Neither did Mr. Maher. He was referring to the practice of lobbing missiles from a great distance, in an effort to avoid American casualties, despite clear evidence that such a policy hadn't a prayer of achieving the desired result. American policy planners didn't dare undertake the bloody and brutal steps necessary to achieve their ends, so they settled for some desultory bombing. It is not at all unreasonable to suggest that sheer gutlessness is one of the factors at work here. And if anyone here cares to make a rational argument in refutation of this view, I'll happily hear him out. I'm not holding my breath, though.
from: AN OPEN LETTER TO LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL SHORT
On 21 October, Reuters reported: "His voice breaking with emotion at a Senate hearing, the U.S. Air Force general who headed NATO's spring bombing of Serbia lashed out at France on Thursday for repeatedly vetoing proposed targets in Belgrade." You were also quoted as saying, "This is a personal thing with me." You explained that your son flew 40 missions in the A-10 in Kosovo and that he was hit by an SA-13, and that, "He called me that night on a secure phone and the first words were 'Don't tell mom'."
As the wife of a retired Air Force fighter pilot and the mother of two sons, I share your concern for the safety of those whom we love; however, General, just as my husband was a legitimate target when he flew his missions over Vietnam, your son was a legitimate target, unlike the civilians he bombed.
Lest what I have to say be misconstrued as being anti-military or anti- American, let me make it clear that I love our country and I have always supported our military. However, I deplore the fact that young Americans such as your son were ordered to attack a sovereign nation, in violation of international law and the basic tenants of NATO. When the initial attacks against the military and political structure of Yugoslavia failed, those young men were ordered by you and your superiors to wage a war of terror against the civilian population. Our warriors go into battle trusting in the honesty, honor and ethics of their superiors. "Theirs is not to reason why. Theirs is but to do or die." You and the other lackeys of the Clinton administration failed them.
I now ask you, General:
- Was it your son whose bombs hit a bridge in central Serbia crowded with traffic and pedestrians on a Sunday afternoon, where 17 people were wounded and nine people died, including "a priest with his head blasted away?" (Reuters, 30 May). Or was it your son who, four minutes after the initial attack, hit the bridge again just as help arrived for the surviving victims?
- Was it your son whose bombs decapitated a Serbian child? "We found the head of a child in a garden and many limbs in the mud. But you don't want to report that. CNN filmed the bodies, but they don't show them on television" (The Independent, 29 April).
- Was it your son whose bombs dismembered Serbian children making it almost impossible to match the children's torsos with their arms and legs, although several were recognized by their sneakers? (The Guardian, 18 May).
- Was it your son whose bombs buried people alive under tons of rubble from destroyed apartment buildings?
- Was it your son whose bombs hit the convoy of ethnic Albanians reducing the victims to ashes, and then have your NATO pimp spokesperson, Jamie Shea, have the gall to deny that NATO pilots, possibly your son, were responsible for this atrocity by blaming it on the Serbs?
- Was it your son who bombed hospitals, schools, orphanages, cemeteries, churches, 14th century monasteries on the World Heritage list, in a barbaric act to destroy Serbian culture, society and religion?
- Was it your son whose bombs hit oil supplies polluting the air so that civilians couldn't breath, as well as water supplies, civilian apartments, civilian factories so as to destroy the quality of life and terrorize those who were not killed? And let us not forget the pollution of the Danube caused by NATO bombs which has affected all the surrounding nations' international trade costing them millions of dollars.
- Was it the depleted uranium from the shells of the Gatling Gun on your son's A-10 that poisoned the soil and the air of the Serbian people so that their children will be born deformed, and rendered the soil unfit to produce food for the people to eat?
- Or perhaps it was your son who bombed the Chinese Embassy in another "mistake."
Besides hitting the Chinese Embassy, your not-so-smart bombs damaged the embassies of Italy, Switzerland, Pakistan, India, Libya, and Iraq. Not only could your smart bombs not find the right target, they couldn't even find the right country as they hit Macedonia once and Bulgaria five times.
and so on ...