Jacob, are you honestly arguing that the firebombing of Dresden was factually, morally, ethicaly equivalent to the Final Solution?
I mean, you are, aren't you? For shame. Not even Kurt Vonnegut, who was living in Dresden and is our best source for the experience, wouldn't go that far. Two nights of folly destroying innocent buildings and nearby civilians aren't morally equivalent to six years of unrelenting, calculating destruction of millions of innocent human beings, surely. Not that I am condoning Dresden. Nobody does, these days, and the man who thought it up died in disgrace.
I thought of you yesterday while listening to NPR's Susan Stamberg interviewing the Pentagon's chief lawyer in the division of targetting.
After WWII, the US signed on to an international treaty promising to choose targets that were militarily appropriate, and not unnecessarily harmful to civilian interests, so there are teams of lawyers that approve targets before battle, and large teams of lawyers that approve alternative targets in real time in the heat of battle, based on intelligence.
According to the interviewee, under international law, they are only required to consider the facts that are publicly known, thus, the incident during Gulf War I where a military bunker that contained civilians was hit wasn't illegal because the Iraqis shouldn't have put civilians near military targets.
My guess is that Iraq does not have teams of lawyers deciding which targets are acceptable according to international law. Very few countries do, I'd bet.
So there you have it. Another use for lawyers.
Reminds me of the incident where the CIA had Mullah Omar in the sights of a CIA drone, but couldn't get legal approval to hit the target until the opportunity had passed. The sticking point was whether the Taliban was the legitimate government of Afghanistan. The lawyer decided that it wasn't, but too late. (Kinda funny because we were backing the Northern Alliance at the time - but it was early days during the campaign, so maybe the lawyer didn't know.)
Rumor has it that Rumsfeld kicked his trash can through the glass door of his office when he heard about it. |
