>I would suggest that the International laws governing these issues were developed for good reason, and it would not be too much to expect the entity claiming "moral superiority", the entity with overwhelming military power, to exhibit even a modicum of restraint prior to decimating a country and it's civilians, without regard for their innocence or guilt.
Exactly. It is amazing how supposedly superior and civilized countries can apply one set of principles to dealing with issues of guilt and innocence, the rights of individuals, and what is excessive force within their borders, but when dealing with issues outside, they are happy to throw away the Geneva conventions and descend to the stone ages.
Before we sentence a child killer we spend large amounts of money on a fair trial, then house the person for decades in a prison at large expense -- because it is vital that the state and its laws are morally supreme and legitimate. But in a far away conflict, hundreds of innocent men, women and children are brutally executed without trial and without mercy for having the possibility of having an enemy in their midst or for being near what might be a military target, and this is excused. Whole villages are bombed because enemies are thought to be hiding in them -- and military commanders wipe the blood of innocent children off their hands and have the hypocrasy to call their enemies cowards. Roads, bridges, and power plants are destroyed, even if this leaves vast civilian populations without means of getting food, water, or the means to escape the conflict safely. My suspicion in both the Iraq war and Lebanon is that the wholescale destruction of roads and infrastructure had another goal -- that innocent civilians could not get out to tell their tales and the media could not get in to see it. That was the lesson of Vietnam on the part of those leading military campaigns -- not to allow victims of war to have a face, or people might start thinking they have rights and realize the level of inhumanity descended to by their military. |
