This is a picture of Iraqi children learning in school, courtesy of UNICEF.
The following quotation is taken from the front page of the Herald today:
American forces killed 19 insurgents and 15 women and children in air strikes north of Iraq’s capital targeting suspected leaders of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the US military said last night. "We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism", Major Brad Leighton, a military spokesman said. "These terrorists chose to deliberately place innocent Iraqi women and children in danger by their actions and presence."
I have two initial comments. The first is a tiresomely persistent question: What is the difference between the suicide bomber who targets innocent civilians motivated by their own unchallengeable sense of their own rightness and justice, and a military attack in which coalition forces target terrorists who use innocent civilians as a human shield, said military forces motivated by their own unchallengeable sense of their own rightness and justice?
Secondly, the terrorist doesn’t care about the slaughter of the innocent, indeed terrorism can be defined as seeing the innocent as dispensable in pursuit of the greater goal. If the terrorists chose to deliberately place innocent Iraqi women and children in danger, why didn’t the military deliberately choose to restrain the use of lethal force? Isn’t that what defines the difference between terrorism and ‘legitimate military action’ – the respect for human life that makes such an action as deliberately targeting terrorists in civilian areas unacceptable – because making the killing of civilian innocents an acceptable cost is far too near the moral nihilism of terrorism?
I am struggling to understand the moral difference, from the point of view of the women and children, whether in the market place, or in a target area as human shields, between these decisions made by others to end their lives? There are times when I am ashamed of what we have come to tolerate. And of what the UK and the US increasingly judge acceptable levels of ‘collateral damage’ (a serpent tongued phrase if ever there was one).
Incidentally, The Herald’s coverage of this story was given less than three column inches. The story about the Speaker of the House of Commons spending £21,500 of public money defending a libel got SEVEN times as much. £21,500 might buy you a second-hand, lower end of the market 4×4; or a few components needed for the guidance system of air to surface missiles. Alongside 15 lives…………….9 of them children – subtract the first two rows from the picture above….
How long, O Lord? How long?
Leave a Reply