A Question of Honor: Suicide Bombers vs. U.S Military Bombers
DriftingByTheStorm
Posts: 8,684
Here is a "refreshing" break from conspiracy theory.
Let us examine the cultural bias that has been spread through our own necessarily biased media coverage of war.
Here is a great documentary that i watched last night:
War Made Easy
In it many facets of this bias are discussed,
but one thing in particular struck me the most.
In the middle of a discussion over "precision" bombing and the concept of destroying an enemy you can't see or relate to, under the cover of a media that does not report from the position of the bombed but from the POV of the remote bomber, at around 42 Minutes, the movie goes over the following statistics:
The movie then enters a dialogue about "suicide bombers" and relates that to our perception that the bombings our army perpetrates are somehow "honorable" ...
So let us look at the following question, and bring some perspective regarding the ensuing debate:
A man feel that his country is suffering a great wrong at the hands of the only remaining super power in the world. That man has no money, and no ability to afford a weapon. Even if so, that weapon would be of no consequence in attempting to engage the overwhelming force of the US Army.
In lieu of any real military alternative for expressing his displeasure at US Foreign Policy, the man straps a homemade bomb to his waist and wanders out in to a crowded area known to consist mainly of US Nationals. This man believes so strongly in his convictions that he detonates a weapon attached to his own body, killing a dozen or two civilians along with himself.
In contrast, the U.S Army routinely, and seemingly preferably, engages in the deployment of state of the art massive payload carrying bombs -- deployed often in intensely urban situations -- in order to "neutralize" a "known strategic target" ... these targets seem to inevitably go hand in hand with massive civilian deaths. These same bombs that kill so many civilians don't even jeopardize the welfare of a single US Soldier.
One need only do the math to arrive at the conclusion in the last sentence.
If nearly 5,000 us soldiers have died, and they only account for 10% of the death toll, that means that 45,000 civilians have died (and from other accounts, that number is actually a low estimate!) as a direct result of our military actions.
Is this any more honorable and should we necessarily think of ourselves and the methods of our military strategy as any more "just" or "honorable" than the methods of our opposition -- an opposition of often destitute and impoverished circumstances with little means of traditional military recourse?
Is is acceptable to knowingly and deliberately shift the burden of war off of the military body that is engaging and ofter starting said war and placing that death-burden on to the lives of innocent civilians?
In this respect is our policy fundamentaly any more justifiable, acceptable, or paletable than that of a suicide bomber?
Let us examine the cultural bias that has been spread through our own necessarily biased media coverage of war.
Here is a great documentary that i watched last night:
War Made Easy
In it many facets of this bias are discussed,
but one thing in particular struck me the most.
In the middle of a discussion over "precision" bombing and the concept of destroying an enemy you can't see or relate to, under the cover of a media that does not report from the position of the bombed but from the POV of the remote bomber, at around 42 Minutes, the movie goes over the following statistics:
War Made Easy wrote:World War I - 10% of all casualties were civilian
World War II - 50% of all casualties were civilian
Vietnam War - 70% of all casualties were civilian
Iraq War - 90% of all casualties were civilian
The movie then enters a dialogue about "suicide bombers" and relates that to our perception that the bombings our army perpetrates are somehow "honorable" ...
So let us look at the following question, and bring some perspective regarding the ensuing debate:
A man feel that his country is suffering a great wrong at the hands of the only remaining super power in the world. That man has no money, and no ability to afford a weapon. Even if so, that weapon would be of no consequence in attempting to engage the overwhelming force of the US Army.
In lieu of any real military alternative for expressing his displeasure at US Foreign Policy, the man straps a homemade bomb to his waist and wanders out in to a crowded area known to consist mainly of US Nationals. This man believes so strongly in his convictions that he detonates a weapon attached to his own body, killing a dozen or two civilians along with himself.
In contrast, the U.S Army routinely, and seemingly preferably, engages in the deployment of state of the art massive payload carrying bombs -- deployed often in intensely urban situations -- in order to "neutralize" a "known strategic target" ... these targets seem to inevitably go hand in hand with massive civilian deaths. These same bombs that kill so many civilians don't even jeopardize the welfare of a single US Soldier.
One need only do the math to arrive at the conclusion in the last sentence.
If nearly 5,000 us soldiers have died, and they only account for 10% of the death toll, that means that 45,000 civilians have died (and from other accounts, that number is actually a low estimate!) as a direct result of our military actions.
Is this any more honorable and should we necessarily think of ourselves and the methods of our military strategy as any more "just" or "honorable" than the methods of our opposition -- an opposition of often destitute and impoverished circumstances with little means of traditional military recourse?
Is is acceptable to knowingly and deliberately shift the burden of war off of the military body that is engaging and ofter starting said war and placing that death-burden on to the lives of innocent civilians?
In this respect is our policy fundamentaly any more justifiable, acceptable, or paletable than that of a suicide bomber?
If I was to smile and I held out my hand
If I opened it now would you not understand?
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
What a croc, imagine for a moment in your US home.....you're asleep in the middle of the night and armed men bust into your home, gather up outside, searched, interrogated, men separated from women then those men are taken away maybe never to be seen again. You may wonder on what grounds/basis, cause you may have a weapon trying to protect your home. Also having to deal with for several years with hardly any running water, electricity, curfews, no sewage, hardly any medical care.
At some point you might just say enough is enough.
Just for a moment....just imagine that happening to you. You may not want to strap on a bomb but if you could you may want to do some harm to those super powers that be.
By the way a F-16 is a Homicide Bomber.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
If someone innocent is blown up in his home by an airstrike, it is counted as a civilian death... But if someone with a rocket launcher fires at a humvee driving down the street and then is killed by another soldier, he is also labeled as a civilian too. Without a uniformed army, they are all "civilians", terrorists and innocent people alike.
And someone who straps a bomb to himself and blows up a crowd of people, including innocent people, then he has no honor... neither does a general who orders airstrikes on a village or neighborhood where innocent people also live. Saying one side has more "honor" then the other is ludicrous...
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
World War I was fought in trenches in No Man's land. There weren't too mant civilians in the trenches... and if there were, they were part of the fight.
World War II had several battle fields of varying terrain. Many of the villages were vacated as the refugees fled from their homes... many well in before the Normandy invasion.
Viet Nam was fought in scattered population regions.
Iraq is being fought in an urban environment and is basically a military occupation. Most of the refugees fled the cities after the fall of Hussein.
Factor in the destructive power of the weaponry of today versus the weaponry of 1917... and there you have it.
Hail, Hail!!!
Honor is relative.
I agree completely. What they are doing is no different than what the revolutionists did to the British. The way we fought, guerilla style, was considered cowardly by the British.
That said, if that was happening to me, you bet your ass I would fight back. However, strapping a bomb to myself to kill as many of my fellow countrymen as possible would not be my way of doing so.
This promises to be the most distilled truth within the entire thread.
Thank you.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
but see.. that really is the point. Everyone we kill in Iraq now IS a cilvilian. They don't even have a military. We are occupying .. labeling people that don't want us occuping.. and killing them.
I dont think the Us military are evil, but I also think they may be treating it a bit more lightly than they should, and being a bit too liberal with what is being deemed acceptable. They do like to highlight their precision bombs, but a lot of bombing is still conventional and inaccurate, I would claim the vast majority, as it was in the first Gulf War.
Point is, it shouldn't just be shrugged off that quickly.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
I'm not justifying or rationalizing the results... just making the point that the battlefields are completely different.
Yes, commanders need to understand that if you drop a 500 lb. bomb in a rice paddy or a city block... the explosion is the same... the people around the explosion is different. The American people need to understand this, too.
Sure, 'surgical strikes' on a T-72 tank out in the desert is one thing... Americans need to look out of their bedroom windows... out of their kid's bedroom windows... at their neighbor's house and ask themselves, "What would a 5000 lb. bomb do to my neighbor's house?"
AND... would I be okay with any 'collateral damage' that is done to mine?
...
Your point is taken... It's not a 'Surgical strike' if you take out a whole block trying to get one house. Yeah... you get the bad guy in the house you targeted... but, you've created a whole lot more people with a reason to want you dead, now.
Hail, Hail!!!
World War I - 10% of all casualties were civilian
World War II - 50% of all casualties were civilian
Vietnam War - 70% of all casualties were civilian
Iraq War - 90% of all casualties were civilian
Is a civilian life worth more than a military personal life?
Which is better a WWI scenario of 90 soldiers and 10 civilians dying or an Iraq scenario of 2 soldiers and 18 civilians dying?
As overall death counts go down we seem more and more willing to engage in war. I wish war were more horrific, it would make us think again before engaging in it.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
I think the major difference are:
Soldiers have weapons... not all citizens do.
Soldiers are in the fight... civilians are bystanders.
Soldiers come from other countries... civilians live there.
...
And... to me... War ia already horrific... it always has been... from the days of fighting with battle axes and broad swords to today's weapons that can saw a person in half. We, the people, need to understand this and quit glorifying War to fit our pride and quit equating War with Patriotism.
Hail, Hail!!!
This is what I meant by saying a F-16 is Homicide Bomber.
Take a look and see how quickly a decision can be made with no regards as to whether this is the enemy or civilians running for cover. 30-40 lives eradicated just like that. That's honor for ya OH DUDE!
End this fucking war, hopefully many will be saying just that this Saturday here in Washington DC.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Very nice post, Cosmo.
but the illusion of knowledge.
~Daniel Boorstin
Only a life lived for others is worth living.
~Albert Einstein
It's just like that. New "terrorists" are created every day. I think a lot of Americans would all be taken away into prisons and tortured because so many of them own guns. They would all be considered hostile terrorists to a foreign enemy.
Nobody wants to try on the other shoe, or have to think about it. Some would rather walk barefoot over glass.
Some actually get it. But they usually get bashed and insulted by people who are racist and by those who are uneducated and oblivious to it.
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
I always wondered how they seem to be a steady stream of freedom fighters. However, when you see videos like this F-16 is Homicide Bomber.
One can see why they would want to rid themselves of their US invasion force.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
It looks like there were a couple of survivors to spread the word.
Two best lines that should be sound slips "Take em out" and "Oh Dude"
I guess they thought they were just playing a video game. :(
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
It's scary to think some of our US soldiers has this kind of a mentality.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)