A Morally-Confused Marine

Last week, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by a Marine captain titled, "I Killed People in Afghanistan. Was I Right or Wrong?"

The column by Timothy Kudo, who is now a graduate student at New York University, is a fine example of the moral confusion leftism has wrought over the last half century. Captain Kudo's moral confusion may predate his graduate studies, but if so, it has surely been reinforced and strengthened at NYU.

“the US didn’t TARGET innocent women and children”

That canard goes back before sophisticated aerial warfare (Sherman, for instance), only gained steam after it became easier to strike from a distance, and has always been thin as tissue paper. Firstly part of what makes targets “strategic” is the presence of civilians. We absolutely do kill innocents on purpose, to send a message. Also, when you say they just so happen to be next to strategically important targets you fall back into the Waco dilemma. Is it worth it? What makes My Mai a crime against humanity and Hiroshima a-okay? Nothing.

Which is to avoid entirely the phenomena of placing weapons inside churches, for example, or shielding your army behind innocent civilians, on my part. At some point it becomes the other side’s fault for putting its civilians in harm’s way. But there is a fundamental problem with modern warfare, with us dating from at least the Civil War. There was a time when militaries tried, at least, to restrict combat to combatants. There were obvious exceptions, for instance sieges of cities. But nothing like the wholesale slaughter of innocents we condemn to death and suffering almost without a thought.

That canard goes back before sophisticated aerial warfare (Sherman, for instance), only gained steam after it became easier to strike from a distance, and has always been thin as tissue paper.

I can tell you this, when going into combat in Panama and the 1st Gulf War, we were SPECIFICALLY instructed to not fire upon anyone or anything that didn't have a weapon - PERIOD! We had a Marine who accidentally hit a camel with his HUMVEE (camel ran in front of the vehicle), yet the Marine was put under house arrest for an investigation for destroying personal property. THAT IS US POLICY!

Look John Kerry, I am not saying that the US has NEVER considered collateral damage as expendable (to send a message or other - Hiroshima is a good example - a military and industrial center with enough population to send a message). What I am saying is that contrary to your BS, killing innocents is not the normal, everyday tactical strategy of the US Military (My Lai is a good example, as there was NO strategic or necessary advantage to MURDERING those 300+ innocents).

If we didn't care about collateral damage, we would just literally bomb every city into submission - but that hasn't happened! Not in Afghanistan and not in Iraq!

“There was a time when militaries tried, at least, to restrict combat to combatants.”

When was that? Romans? Visigoths? Huns? The Crusades? Gengis Khan? The War of the Roses? The Reformation? French & Indian Wars? Revolution? Civil War? Indian Wars? WWI? WWII? Korea? The Congo? The various Arab/Israeli wars? Rhodesia?

Historically wars included rape, pillage, plunder, and murder, to the victor go the spoils, razed cities, slavery. The last couple of hundred years it is more genocide, strategic bombing, or collateral damage. However, I believe we (the USA) have made enormous progress in limiting civilian casualties through policy and technology in the last 30 years.

Rules of engagement fir ground troops is off topic. I remarked on our double standards for air as opposed to ground forces. For some reason the fact that you don’t have to look your victims in the eye turns murder into mere collateral damage. There isn’t any other means of explaining your condemnation of My Lai’s 300 or so deaths in caps in light of how you all but elide Hiroshima and its tens of thousands, maybe more than 100 thousand, deaths. Either it’s hypocrisy, or there’s some insane distinction I’ve not been told about.

I don’t get what you’re trying to say about the US never considering collateral innocents expendable, then saying Hiroshima’s population was big enough to sens a message. Well, which one was it? Do we not kill civilians on purpose, or do we kill civilians to send a message? I didn’t think it was possible still not to have learner, but the allies’ major aerial campaigns against the axis homelands were terror bombings. There isn’t any way to call it “strategic” bombing unless the strategy was to scare Germany and Japan by killing a lot of civilians.

“If we didn’t care about collateral damage...we would just literally bomb every city into submission”

No we wouldn’t. Unless you’re Genghis Kahn, and maybe not even him, you don’t go to war for the sake of wreaking the most destruction possible. Were that the case we’d have carpet bombed every enemy nation in every war with nukes since 1945. But we haven’t, because we fight wars with ends other than annihilation in mind.

The goal in Iraq and Afghanistan was to replace existing governments with new, fruendlier ones. Though it doesn’t seem to matter as much in medieval Afghanistan, bombing them out of civilization wouldn’t have prepared the ground well for PRO-US gubmints. There’s also public and world opinion to consider.

“When was that?”

Roughly speaking, the age of Enlightenment. Traditionally in European history from the renaissance to WWI, not counting the fiercely ideological struggles of the 30 Years Wat and tge French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, though compared to the 20th century they were monuments of restraint. It ended here in the US with the Civil War, and though not on the European continent between Europeans with the Boer War.

I don’t wish to be Pollyannaish and pretend they were all gentlemen, prone to calling a halt to an advance if a butterfly happened into their path. But this was the time of mercenary armies, when princes were seen to be fighting other princes, not nations against nations. This was also when international law was developed and people pretended to follow it.

Since then we’ve slid back into barbarism with: deliberate targeting of civilians, mass mobilization, unconditional surrender demands, forced starvation, forced relocation, war crimes trials, etc. You may say it was always thusly, citing Atolls the Hun or whomever jumps to mind. But it wasn’t. There was a time.

You place “to the victors go the spoils” somewhere in history, then leap forward to modern genocide, “strategic” bombing, and collateral damage. You pretend as if nothing happened inbetween. I call the era after and before barbarism civilized warfare. It stands in judgement of both your periods.

We haven’t made progress in restricting civilian casualties. We’ve merely stopped fighting total wars. That in itself could be seen as progress, but it wasn’t by choice. You mention technology, and that’s it, though perhaps not the way you mean it. Without nukes I’m sure there’s have been a WWIII.

I didn’t think it was possible still not to have learner, but the allies’ major aerial campaigns against the axis homelands were terror bombings. There isn’t any way to call it “strategic” bombing unless the strategy was to scare Germany and Japan by killing a lot of civilians.

Oh, I didn't think I was going to have to explain the difference in our combat motives and strategies based on the combatant, but I will show you the distinction that you refuse to see.

During WWII, we were at war with the entirety of Germany and the entirety of Japan. Therefore it was necessary to destroy their ability to create weapons, move machinery, collect and train recruits, etc... Therefore, the bombing of Hiroshima, as I explained, was based on their military existence, their industrial parks AND the number of people that would be affected by the bomb. Now, I am not saying that 100% of the German or Japanese citizens were fighting against us, but enough of them were that warranted that level of attack.

Now, Vietnam, much like Afghanistan, was a more targeted combat scenario. Specific COMBAT related targets were identified and bombed. We did not attempt to infiltrate and establish ANY encampments into North Vietnam. The bombing raids of North Vietnam were TARGETED and often hit the same destroyed buildings that were hit two weeks earlier (which might help explain their ineffectiveness). As a strategy - we simply tried to preserve South Vietnam. In Afghanistan, like Vietnam, we are NOT trying to conquer the people as a whole, we are trying to help them throw off the cloak under which they are currently suffering. We cannot convince a people that we are there to help them if we kill them in wholesale style (i.e., My Lai).

NOW, you want to create a distinction between rules of engagement for ground troops as opposed to overall US strategy and yet you are the one who compared Hiroshima and My Lai?!?!? You asserted that we kill more civilians than Al Queda (preposterous) and that shock and awe was intended to kill civilians. These implications are simply BULLSHIT.

As I stated, clearly, the US has at times used bombing as a message - just for the record, a bombing can take out a military target, an industrial target AND send a message. Can you name a single time since WWII that the US specifically targeted CIVILIANS (ala 9/11, embassy bombings, Benghazi, American-frequented clubs, etc...)? Last by not least, the US bombings during WWII were PRECISION bombings to roads, bridges, industrial plants and military establishments - the USAF SPECIFICALLY refused to engage in the British "area bombings." Ever heard of the Casablanca Compromise?

As the war drug on, the US did finally engage in area bombings from the fall of 1943 to the end of the war - as a means to drive out the last vestiges of German and Japanese resistance - which just to be completely honest may have actually CAUSED further resistance to the US surrender demands. But for you to wholesale claim that ALL our air raids were designed to kill/scare civilians, you are talking out of your butt! As a matter of fact, the US military DID want to do wholesale bombings on North Korea and the evil idiot LBJ refused to allow them to do so.

So please tell me when and where the US government and military SPECIFICALLY targeted innocent women and children.

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