Neither Richard Blumenthal nor any of the rest of us, be we combat vets, reservists, war protesters, or draft dodgers, should be ashamed to speak from our experiences of the Vietnam War. Everyone has something valuable to share.
The internal justification for area bombing either espoused a view that civilians were collateral damage to attacks on the industrial war machine or that in modern warfare, the civilian/combatant distinction was not viable or important. In some cases, bombing of civilians was, ironically, presented as humanitarian and in keeping with the larger goals of the law of war, in that collapse of the enemy could be precipitated faster, and at a lower cost in human life overall, if civilian morale could be broken from the skies.
The Big Picture Home Page | Previous Big Picture Column | Next Big Picture Column War Powers Page | Previous War Powers Column | Next War Powers Column War Powers, War Lies: A Series Part 4: Willingly Deceived Published in the Maryland Daily Record April 29, 2005 Last time, we considered the dishonesty of President Lyndon Johnson in […]