dagblog - Comments for "How Foreign Policy People Think, Part IV"

I don't have the link cause

Richard Day — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 10:01:18 +0000

In reply to How Foreign Policy People Think, Part IV

I don't have the link cause it is the middle of the night, but I read this critique of Slaughterhouse-Five.

Vonnegut is attacked because 120,000 folks were not killed in the Dresden Bombings--just 20 or 30 thousand.

I cannot laugh at this.

I want to because the critique seems so MAD!

Collateral Damage. One hell of a phrase.

I am not in charge, I have not read the files (neither have any of the media critics) and it is hard for me to judge.

If I am in London from 1940 on, I could give one goddamn how many Germans were killed during the Dresden bombings.

I am sure about that.

We have lost 6,000 soldiers in two wars in a decade? And the way I figure it from the readings I have seen, hundreds of thousands of 'the enemy' are dead? Remember Vietnam? Every single week we were told that ten times our 'losses' were incurred by the 'enemy'.

I have before about 'collateral damage' and of course those 6,000 we have lost amounts to tens of thousands through suicide and such.

It is not enough to just conclude that war will always be with us.

But to see Dicky Cheney boasting about his wonderful ethos, enrages me to no end.

I am meandering again, but thank you for this series.

I just am having problems dealing with the real issues here.

The idea that civilian

Michael Maiello — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 04:39:03 +0000

In reply to Human Rights Watch said that

The idea that civilian casualties are acceptable is offensive to me. Wrong place, wrong time? What about their dramas and comedies? One human life contains multitudes.

Not intervening in Rwanda May well have been a great choice. But nobody will get credit for that.

Human Rights Watch said that

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 23:47:47 +0000

In reply to How Foreign Policy People Think, Part IV

Human Rights Watch said that we killed about 72 Libyan civilians. While you may not consider that "acceptable", it is low. Civilian casualties are a good reason to be antiwar, but I can't concede that any war in which any civilians are killed is immoral. That would make the defeat of genocide in Rwanda immoral, and World War II, of course, would have to be written off.