Ready, Aim, Miss

I have just read somewhere that our troops have expended 250,000 rounds for every Iraqi killed. Now that's some marksmanship! The situation is so bad we have now had to ask Israel to furnish us with more ammunition (they apparently have plenty that we no doubt paid for). So what's the problem? Can't they shoot straight? Didn't they have to take basic target practice? Whatever happened to Sergeant York who killed 100 Germans with only 100 bullets? I guess he is no longer an inspiration for our military (who probably never even heard of Sergeant York). I don't know how much each of those rounds cost but I bet they don't come cheap. So who benefits from this apparently random shooting? Don't tell me, let me guess - the arms manufacturers! The military motto when it comes to shooting seems to be, blast away men, there's plenty more where those came from. That's the same attitude they have toward everything the military does. More tanks, more cannons, more planes, more submarines, more battleships, more, more, more. Spending more on "national defense" than all the rest of the world combined just isn't enough. We need more of everything all the time. We need all this equipment and stuff massed at our borders to keep out those guys with the boxcutters.

I hate to admit it but Gonzales was right, the Geneva Convention is indeed apparently quaint. It seems there no longer are any rules whatsoever when it comes to "war." Prior to WWII there were few, if any, civilian casualties and, as far as I know, there was no concept of collateral damage. Women and children, especially, were not targeted. The Nazis, I think, were the first to engage in carpet bombing and strafing. But we joined in quickly and bombed Dresden off the face of the planet when there was really no need to do so. And, of course, we followed it up with an even bigger show, the unnecessary atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since that time no one seems to have been interested in any kind of rules when it comes to wars. But how things have changed since the First World War. Technology has allowed us to kill masses of people without seeing them, engaging them in any way, or apparently experiencing any pangs of conscience or morality. Hey, you're thirty thousand feet up above them, you just press a button and bang, thousands die, including women and children. Collateral damage.

Now we have taken even this a bit further. An unmanned plane that can carry eight missiles and two five hundred pound bombs is about to be used against the Iraqis. This unmanned whatzit can be guided from Las Vegas to attack places thousands of miles away. Isn't this great? We can kill hundreds, maybe thousands, from very far away, all the while lounging in the hot tub or playing the slot machines. This is part of the new morality of war. Kill 'em all, they're just Iraqis. The best part of this new technology, I guess, is that it will only work on totally defenseless "enemies." If your intended victims had an air force of their own, or a sophisticated anti-aircraft system they could no doubt defend themselves from these new robot aircraft. Or if they were really sophisticated like us they could no doubt invent robot anti-whatzits. Think of he potential here - we could end up having robotic wars where no one actually gets killed, just the robots. The team with the best robot wins. Whee! Progress is being made. What country would boast of having robotic killing machines that can only decimate defenseless people? USA, USA, USA, USA! Makes you right proud to be an Amurican. Take your pick, you want universal health care or robotic machines to kill innocent and defenseless people. How about more nuclear bombs?

Bush now says he will convene a meeting of only those countries who want to see a Palestianian state in order to restart the Middle East peace process (the rest of the world doesn't count). For six and a half years he has done nothing whatsoever to solve the Israeli/Palestinian problem and everything to make it worse - and now he wants to host a peace meeting? Now that he has no credibility at all? Now that it is far too late to convince anyone that the US is a nonpartisan referee in what is the most serious problem in the Middle East, and has been all these years when he did nothing. Now that he has already agreed to starve Hamas in favor of the Abbas faction? He is obviously crazier than I think he is. No, that is not possible. So good luck Bushie boy, you've done a great job.

LKBIQ:

"In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose."
J. Robert Oppenheimer