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It's complex, but I'm going to put up a response that my brother wrote last August 2014 to a question I asked him about an article Henry Kissinger had written about World order.
Ken.....Thanks for providing. Surprised Henry still has such a deep level of intellectual insight. Must be mid or late 80s by now. Anyway, I've been trying to reconcile the same issue.
In WWII, because we were fighting nation states, we waged war on all individuals encompassed therein. Whether man, woman or child; they died. Witness: carpet bombing of German cities, firebombing of Dresden, firebombing of Tokyo, nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe we have to begin looking at "controlled areas" like nation states. Witness: Islamic State, Hammas, Hezbollah, Boko Harram and etc. In other words, put the word out to the people located within those controlled areas that, if they can't get their thugs under control (i.e., no threat to the US or our friends), then the people themselves are legitimate targets.
The logical alternative, which has hamstrung Israel and our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that, if the enemy collocates its soldiers with it's civilians, then we can't counter their attacks. The ultimate logic of that is, if the enemy sends an invasion force to the US and each enemy soldier has a civilian in tow (baby would be best), then we can't defend ourselves. Must let them kill us. A ridiculous argument.
The US is what it is because, reluctantly, in our past we were willing to make hard choices. We had "hard bark" and hard men. If we surrender that for some feel good, politically correct, defeatist, pacifistic world view, then we're .......
Brother Ray
Ken.....Thanks for providing. Surprised Henry still has such a deep level of intellectual insight. Must be mid or late 80s by now. Anyway, I've been trying to reconcile the same issue.
In WWII, because we were fighting nation states, we waged war on all individuals encompassed therein. Whether man, woman or child; they died. Witness: carpet bombing of German cities, firebombing of Dresden, firebombing of Tokyo, nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe we have to begin looking at "controlled areas" like nation states. Witness: Islamic State, Hammas, Hezbollah, Boko Harram and etc. In other words, put the word out to the people located within those controlled areas that, if they can't get their thugs under control (i.e., no threat to the US or our friends), then the people themselves are legitimate targets.
The logical alternative, which has hamstrung Israel and our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that, if the enemy collocates its soldiers with it's civilians, then we can't counter their attacks. The ultimate logic of that is, if the enemy sends an invasion force to the US and each enemy soldier has a civilian in tow (baby would be best), then we can't defend ourselves. Must let them kill us. A ridiculous argument.
The US is what it is because, reluctantly, in our past we were willing to make hard choices. We had "hard bark" and hard men. If we surrender that for some feel good, politically correct, defeatist, pacifistic world view, then we're .......
Brother Ray
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