It does seem hypocritical to care about white phosphorus and not care about tank rounds, bombs, rifles, etc. Dead is dead, no matter what sort of weapon was used. We need to talk seriously about why we invaded Iraq in the first place, though I don't see that happening during this administration because if we did they'd have to be fired.
We ought to be responsible and humble with our power. Instead we are arrogant with it and therefore cause so much unnecessary death. We are continuing to develop landmines though the vast majority of landmine victims are civilians, and we have the largest nuclear weapons program in the world. We count insurgent deaths as if they were Americans but we "don't do body counts" when the dead are civilians. Tobias Wolff said "War isn't a contest between champions. It isn't even a contest between armies. War is mostly violence -- economic, emotional, physical -- against civilians." Sadly, he's right. Which is why the question shouldn't be about which weapon we used but why we used any at all.
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Date: 2005-11-16 05:09 pm (UTC)We ought to be responsible and humble with our power. Instead we are arrogant with it and therefore cause so much unnecessary death. We are continuing to develop landmines though the vast majority of landmine victims are civilians, and we have the largest nuclear weapons program in the world. We count insurgent deaths as if they were Americans but we "don't do body counts" when the dead are civilians. Tobias Wolff said "War isn't a contest between champions. It isn't even a contest between armies. War is mostly violence -- economic, emotional, physical -- against civilians." Sadly, he's right. Which is why the question shouldn't be about which weapon we used but why we used any at all.
-- Kate, Broken Windows