October 25, 2007
Determined to gain the upper hand in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush has turned large portions of the two countries into near free-fire zones where any resistance, even in populated areas, is met with aggressive tactics that often kill civilians.
Though more attention has been focused on trigger-happy Blackwater “security contractors,” Bush’s military strategy has employed its own indiscriminate firepower – from loose "rules of engagement" for U.S. troops, to helicopter gun ships firing on crowds, to jet air strikes, to missiles launched from Predator drones.
3 comments:
Every "killer" U.S. soldier and marine, not to mention every fat and sassy college-age chickenhawk, owes a debt of gratitude to the antiwar New Left of the Vietnam War era for getting in bed with Richard Nixon and Milton J. Friedman to end the military draft and put Selective Service on standby.
How much "collateral damage" of this sort would we tolerate in the U.S.A. if we hit terrorist nests in this country with that kind of fire power? What kind of outcry would we hear if even one innocent U.S. civilian got hit?
But then I suppose it's "OK" to have countless thousands dead as collateral damage as long as it's Arab foreigners' children, grandmothers, etc.?
I also suppose this makes Bush a great champion of human rights around the world? Look at all the other places where human rights are violated in ways every bit as gruesome as Hussein's killings and tortures, but which don't have any oil? I guess we're just supposed to ignore the blatant double standard and pretend that oil has nothing to do with anything because believing in peak oil is going to jerk the security blanket right out of our selfish little hands?
COLLATERAL DAMAGE, n. A military term referring to dead and maimed civilians. See also "Regrettable Necessity".
REGRETTABLE NECESSITY, n. An avoidable atrocity. The term is often employed by presidents and prime ministers when announcing bombings of civilian targets and invasions of small countries.
HYPOCRISY, n. The hallmark of American culture, a character trait more popular even then football, cruelty, or bestiality, and as pervasive as credulity and imbecility combined. It is a prominent characteristic of all strata of American society---from priests who take vows of celibacy and then make careers of molesting small children, to lawmakers who loudly proclaim their devotion to individual liberty and then pass draconian laws against drug use (while simultaneously voting for subsidies for tobacco growers), to hippies who regard sugar as strychnine and will rattle on for hours about the benefits of healthy living, and who will then go home to inhale the combustion products of burning vegetable matter into their lungs. As with Traditional Values, the United States would not be what it is today without this typically American trait.
Source: The Devil's Dictionaries: Bierce & Bufe
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