Thursday, December 15, 2005
Hanoi Jane Redux
I know I'm late to the party on this one, but it seems Jane Fonda is up to her old tricks. She now claims that US troops are being trained to commit atrocities against innocent civilians. She says the source of this revelation is "secret meetings" with military psychologists.
Oy!
One needs only to review how Operation Iraqi Freedom was conducted to see how inane Ms. Fonda's pronouncements are.
The purpose of any military is, bluntly stated, to kill people and break things. It so happens that the US military is orders of magnitude better than any other armed force on the planet at killing military people and breaking military things while sparing nearby civilians. Knowing of our national concern about killing innocents while waging war, the bad guys purposely locate military installations within, next to, under or on top of such civilian structures as schools, hospitals, places of worship and homes. They also unabashedly use civilians, especially women and children, as human shields when engaging US troops. These practices are, of course, gross violations of the Geneva Convention, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone except Americans, in particular American military leaders.
In response to these tactics, America has developed such things as "smart" bombs and battle techniques that are specifically designed to minimize the destruction of anyone other than the military targets that are to be destroyed. Ms. Fonda, of course, ignores this, conveniently forgetting that the alternative to smart weapons and advanced techniques would probably be carpet bombing or massive artillery barrages that literally flatten the target and everything and everyone near it.
It is true that the American military is more lethal than any other military is, or has ever been. You don't want to be the recipient of its careful attention. But the whole purpose of such lethality is to convince the enemy that they don't stand a chance against it, so they will save their lives by surrendering. If they don't surrender, the best way to fight a war is to kill the other guys as fast as you can, because that will shorten the war and in the long run save both American lives and those of noncombatants.
It disgusts me that someone like Ms. Fonda, who at best is a know-nothing and at worst is a traitor to the country that made her wealthy and famous, gets so much publicity for her misinformed statements. And by the way, that "apology" for her love affair with North Vietnam? How sincere does that seem now?
Oy!
One needs only to review how Operation Iraqi Freedom was conducted to see how inane Ms. Fonda's pronouncements are.
The purpose of any military is, bluntly stated, to kill people and break things. It so happens that the US military is orders of magnitude better than any other armed force on the planet at killing military people and breaking military things while sparing nearby civilians. Knowing of our national concern about killing innocents while waging war, the bad guys purposely locate military installations within, next to, under or on top of such civilian structures as schools, hospitals, places of worship and homes. They also unabashedly use civilians, especially women and children, as human shields when engaging US troops. These practices are, of course, gross violations of the Geneva Convention, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone except Americans, in particular American military leaders.
In response to these tactics, America has developed such things as "smart" bombs and battle techniques that are specifically designed to minimize the destruction of anyone other than the military targets that are to be destroyed. Ms. Fonda, of course, ignores this, conveniently forgetting that the alternative to smart weapons and advanced techniques would probably be carpet bombing or massive artillery barrages that literally flatten the target and everything and everyone near it.
It is true that the American military is more lethal than any other military is, or has ever been. You don't want to be the recipient of its careful attention. But the whole purpose of such lethality is to convince the enemy that they don't stand a chance against it, so they will save their lives by surrendering. If they don't surrender, the best way to fight a war is to kill the other guys as fast as you can, because that will shorten the war and in the long run save both American lives and those of noncombatants.
It disgusts me that someone like Ms. Fonda, who at best is a know-nothing and at worst is a traitor to the country that made her wealthy and famous, gets so much publicity for her misinformed statements. And by the way, that "apology" for her love affair with North Vietnam? How sincere does that seem now?
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