The Nation: The American Air War FOR Terror

BLOG | Posted 04/14/2008 @ 10:00am
The American Air War for Terror
Tom Engelhardt



Here are a few simple propositions on the matter of air war.

First, the farther away you are from the ground, the clearer things are likely to look, the more god-like you are likely to feel, the less human those you attack are likely to be to you. How much more so, of course, if you, the "pilot," are actually sitting at a consol at an air base near Las Vegas, identifying a "suspect" thousands of miles away via video monitor, "following" that suspect into a house, and then letting loose a Hellfire missile from a Predator drone cruising somewhere over Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, or the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Second, however "precise" your weaponry, however "surgical" your strike, however impressive the grainy snuff-film images you can put on television, war from the air is, and will remain, a most imprecise and destructive form of battle.

Third, in human terms, distance does not enhance accuracy. The farther away you are from a target, the more likely it is that you will have to guess who or what it is, based on spotty, difficult to interpret, or bad information, or even outright misinformation; whatever the theoretical accuracy of your weaponry, you are far more likely to miscalculate, make mistakes, mistarget, or target the misbegotten from the air.

Fourth, if you are conducting war this way and you are doing so in heavily populated urban neighborhoods, as is now the case almost every day in Iraq, then civilians will predictably die "by mistake" almost every day: the child who happens to be on the street just beyond camera range; the "terrorist suspect" or "insurgent" who looks, at a distance, like he's planting a roadside bomb, but is just scavenging; the neighbors who happen to be sitting down to dinner in the house next to the one you decide to hit.

Fifth, since World War II, air power has been the American way of war. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=309914

It's our policy that's f-ed, not the pilotless aircraft.

I'm growing potatoes to withdraw from the global over-consumption nexus. What are you doing?

war is easier if it plays like a video game

First posted at www.tomdispatch.com:

Our "Strike Weapons" and Theirs

Here's the sorry reality: Such occurrences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the "arc" of territory that the Bush administration has, in a mere few years, helped set aflame are the norm. Our "mistakes," that is, are legion and, in the process of making them, our planes, drones, and helicopters have killed villagers by the score, attacked a convoy of friendly Afghan "elders," and blown away wedding parties. For us, "incidents" like these pass by in an instant, but not for those who are on the receiving end.

The attacks of 9/11 are usually not placed in such a context. We consider ourselves special, even unique, for having experienced them. But think of them another way: One day, out of the blue, death arrives from the air. It arrives in a moment of ultimate terror. It kills innocent civilians who were simply living their lives.

This happened to us once in a manner so spectacular, so devastating as to make global headlines. But small-scale versions of this happen regularly to people in that "arc of instability" -- and, if there were to be a global body count organization for such events, it would long ago have toted up a death toll that reached past that of September 11, 2001.

Let's remember that, after 9/11, Americans, from the President on down, spent months, if not years in mourning, performing rites of remembrance, and swearing revenge against those who had done this to us. Do we not imagine that others, even when the spotlight isn't on them, react similarly? Do we not think that they, too, are capable of swearing revenge and acting accordingly?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174917/oops_our_bad

Edited to ad link:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14077