A truly Orwelling [sic] phrase...
I'm quite sure you meant "Orwellian." But at any rate, I think your characterization of a preemptive strike against a state that has supported terrorism as anything but defensive in nature is, well, doubleplusungood.
...to describe a sudden shock and awe [sic?] attack...
An "awe" attack? (Aw.) And I'd hardly describe any impending attack, at such time as it arrives, as "sudden" (given the U.N. waffling). We've given the Iraqi military far too much time to prepare for what's almost certainly coming, and assuredly to the greater peril of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
...on a population[...]
To the extent that their military forces constitute a subset of their population, you'd better believe they'll be hit, and hard. Hundreds of cruise missiles, B-52 strikes, the works. Happily, we don't intentionally strike (and overwhelmingly take pains to avoid) civilian populations, which is contrary to the operational mantra of the types of organizations which Hussein's Iraq supports.
...half of which are age 15 or less.
Again, all the more reason why it's wonderful - indeed, morally right - that we don't attack civilian populations.
I was hoping that you had some kind of documentation to back up this assertion, but I really have no reason to doubt it at face value.
In considering it, though, a more immediate issue comes to mind: if you're using this as a reason not to attack preemptively, what would you recommend the child:adult ratio be before we commit troops in a given situation? 4:1? 10:1? And via what logic or calculation does that proportion find its derivation?
By this laughable rationale, isn't the next generation of national defense a baby boom?
LPS5 |
