In one of the horrible incidents that can only happen in the fog of war (an illegal one at that):
"A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces unlawfully killed a British television journalist in the opening days of the Iraq war."
Chances are, we've killed tens of thousands in Iraq with "accidents", among them, Tarik Ayoub, who was "accidentally" killed while broadcasting from a roof in Baghdad.
An immoral situation breeds immorality, so I'm not going to blame our soldiers. The blame belongs to the achitects of this immoral situation. The blood is on the administration's hands. We had no business there in the first place.
I take your point, Wizard, about it being a fucked-up, immoral situation. However, saying that you don't find "soldiers" culpable I disagree with because part of--and perhaps the driving force behind-- the "soldiers" are loads of officers: Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marines. I would argue that such people, who are willing, "gung-ho" and much more informed than your average ill-informed enlisted recruits, are both "soldiers" and architects of this immorality, thereby making them fully culpable.
ReplyDeleteI might cut our enlisted personnel only a little slack in their culpability in this "war" because, as I suggest, they are typically ill-informed about the geopolitics involved and the far-reaching consequences and are more often than not looking for some measure of job security and continuity outside of their strained economic situations. However, these enlisted "soldiers" do, in the end, sign on the dotted line--which we should be reminded that they do not have to do--and that they do end up pulling a trigger, tossing a grenade and/or launching mortars and bombs.
I would argue that there is--or should be--a discernable difference between supporting American troops to come home safely because they are, after all, fellow human beings, and supporting American troops because they are, well, our men and women in uniform in harm's ways.
Existential choice can be instructive here to think about whether, where, how and why to lay blame in this immoral "war."
-Charles