Civilians have always suffered in war

Submitted by Jason (United States), Jul 26, 2006 at 07:22

miek said: "the price they pay for this policy-the unimaginable pain of civillian bloodshed."

Welcome to the real world. This has always been THE fact of war. Only in modern times (post WWII) have we become concerned about the welfare of civilians caught in the path of a military operation. This is the same period in which terrorists have taken the lead in foreign affairs, and that is not a coincidence. Terrorists are fighting war the old fashioned way: maximum damage to the enemy by whatever means available. Failure to do so causes casualty counts to rise higher than encessary because the war drags on too long.

This is the great lesson of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the US involvement in Iraq. A great many people have died unnecesarrily, and not because of what we are doing. It is because of what we are not doing: fighting to win. We are fighting to maintain order, or fighting to a draw. General MacArthur tried to warn about this during the Korean war. He was ignored. So here we are, over 50 years later, still involved in a war in Korea, and now dealing with a nut-case with nuclear weapons. Israel is now in the same mess with the Arabs for the same exact reason, and the US is headed that way in Iraq, FOR THE SAME EXACT REASON!

What we (the West) need to do is return to letting armies fight wars. It is time to tell the do-gooders, the politicians, and the "human rights" types to mind their own business and get out of the way. The sooner the army crushes the enemy (by whatever means necessary) and wins the war, the fewer civilians will die and the less suffering there will be.

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