Part 3

Oh, yeah. They killed some civilians too. If they call it collateral damage, does that make the tragedy sound better?

But they are Iraqis, so I guess they don't count, right? Probably the entire citizenry are a bunch of militant ragheads and they sure as hell aren't decent Christians. Besides, if they didn't agree with Hussein's policies, they would just vote him out of office, correct?

Public relations
American PR was sharper, too. President Saddam Hussein was openly compared to Adolph Hitler. I don't say that there aren't comparisons, but the U.S. has maintained and supported political allies that were worse, when it was supposedly in American interests.

Instead of secret bombings in the Cambodia / North Vietnam tradition, CNN and other networks were practically encouraged to cover the event and bring it to us live. Government press releases -- which the journalists lapped up like thirsty dogs at a puddle -- set the tone. The broadcasts took on the language of a spectator event: specifically, a football game.

Meanwhile at home, there was massive distribution of bumper stickers proclaiming "Support our Troops". After the guilt that many citizens felt for taking out their rage over Vietnam on the ex-soldiers that they could reach -- instead of the government that they couldn't -- it was hard to argue with that sentiment. It didn't exactly address our military's methods (effective in it's brutality), and the Iraqi civilian casualties, nor the military casualties (some of them were surrendering to unarmed American news reporters) -- but bumper stickers aren't a great medium for that anyway.

Since there weren't many images of violence wreaked upon civilians by our troops personally (bombing from the air is very impersonal), there wasn't much protest. Besides, we were in and out in under two months. It probably takes longer than that to write, produce and distribute poignant protest music. Our military's methods and our government's PR worked very well.

Efficiency at the art of killing, while simultaneously convincing your own citizenry that all is well was also characteristic of Nazi Germany.

An attempt to civilize conflict
The Great War, a.k.a. WW1, was called "the war to end all wars" with good reason. Up until that time, there had never been a war that had claimed so many lives. After the deaths were counted -- 8,300,000 combatants from all nations and 8,000,000 civilians -- to say nothing of the permanently disabled -- few sane persons could envision any issue important enough to warrant fighting another war.

Click here for a soldier's perspective on the use of gas during WW1.

To this end, the War ended with the Versailles Treaty of 1919, which called for the establishment of a League of Nations to arbitrate future disputes. At the same time, the Treaty placed the burden of economic reparations ($23,000,000,000) on Germany. The United States never ratified the treaty, because of internal opposition to joining the League of Nations. Without our moral and monetary backing, the League was useful at settling small problems between countries, but ineffective at the bigger ones.

"1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal;
2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;
3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence; ..."

-Unanimous resolution of League of Nations Assembly, Sep 30, 1938.

Desperation …
It's hard for me to try to judge decisions made over 50 years ago by nations desperate for their own survival and freedom. In any case, the pendulum of perception in regards to the death of noncombatants moved. Where this tragedy was largely acknowledged as unacceptable and criminal, eventually it became merely unfortunate but sometimes necessary.

World War 2 began. The entire military might of the most industrialized countries in the world was pitted against each other. In order to sustain this war, they had to have industry. Automotive plants started building tanks and so on. Factories were viewed as legitimate military targets. Unfortunately, soldiers and sailors don't operate assembly lines.

… makes for dead noncombatants
Here is an extremely abbreviated list of actions during WW2 that involved the death of civilians:

• April 18, 1942: Jimmy Doolittle's B-25s bomb Tokyo. Although the casualties are relatively light, the Japanese military leaders were enraged so they took out their anger on East Chinese villages near where the American pilots had landed (and crashed). One hundred thousand Japanese troops shot, bayoneted, raped, drowned, and beheaded Chinese civilians and soldiers in numbers estimated in the tens of thousands. It was their way of warning the Chinese against helping American fliers in the future.
• January 20, 1944: The Royal Air Force raids Berlin, dropping 2,300 tons of bombs in an action that provoked protests in the House of Lords.
• September 8, 1944: V-2 missiles with warheads of nearly 1 ton each begin falling on Britain. Although the V-1 had been pretty much a dud, the V-2 was liquid fueled and much more effective. More than a thousand landed in Britain, killing 2700+ and maiming over 6500 citizens.
• February 13-14, 1945: British and U.S. bombers do Dresden, Germany creating a firestorm that killed 35,000.
• March 9, 1945: 100+ American B-24 bombers raid Tokyo with incendiaries. The firestorm wipes out a quarter of the city. Estimates of the loss of life range from 124,000 to 200,000.
• August 6, 1945: The B-29 Enola Gay released its single atomic bomb over Hiroshima; 50 seconds later the weapon detonated at about 2,000 feet altitude devastating the target in an enormous fireball. 100,000 Japanese die outright; another 100,000 die later from burns and radiation sickness.
• August 9, 1945: The B-29, Bocks Car releases the second atomic bomb over Nagasaki. Death toll: 75,000 immediately, 75,000 later.