"In the last five months of World War II, American bombing raids killed more than 900,000 Japanese civilians, not counting the casualties from the atomic strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki." -Read the rest of the numbers here.
The minimum death toll for Iraqi civilians since the invasion in 2003 is just under 102,000.
The United States would have to suffer 9/11-level attacks on its civilians every year for the next 35 years to reach the level of casualties that the people of Iraq has sustained in the last 8 years.
I have hard time seeing how this is morally justifiable.
My knowledge of "just war" theory is slim, but I do believe that even if the causes for war are deemed just, the actual carrying out of that justified war can invalidate the whole endeavour if it is carried out in an unjust manner. Slaughter of civilians in the hundreds of thousands seems to be a potential candidate for such invalidation.
I was telling Cassie the following the other day:
ReplyDeleteThe minimum death toll for Iraqi civilians since the invasion in 2003 is just under 102,000.
The United States would have to suffer 9/11-level attacks on its civilians every year for the next 35 years to reach the level of casualties that the people of Iraq has sustained in the last 8 years.
I have hard time seeing how this is morally justifiable.
My knowledge of "just war" theory is slim, but I do believe that even if the causes for war are deemed just, the actual carrying out of that justified war can invalidate the whole endeavour if it is carried out in an unjust manner. Slaughter of civilians in the hundreds of thousands seems to be a potential candidate for such invalidation.
ReplyDelete