"Acts of injustice can be perpetrated in the course of a just war"

Something to think about in These Great Times as we march relentlessly towards "saving Iran," with the Right's quasi intellectuals already declaring "diplomacy will fail," while making references -- once again --to latter-day Saladins and the collapse of Western Civilization.

Jonathan Yardley reviews Among the Dead Cities, a philosophical analysis of the morality of killing civilians, even in what is still considered "a just war."

"In the cellars, otherwise unscathed people suffocated to death. Police reports and eyewitness accounts later confirmed many of the horror stories told 'of demented Hamburgers carrying bodies of deceased relatives in their suitcases -- a man with the corpse of his wife and daughter, a woman with the mummified body of her daughter, or other women with the heads of their dead children.' "

At about this time, Winston Churchill watched "a film showing RAF bombers in action over the Ruhr." According to one who was present, Churchill suddenly blurted out: "Are we animals? Are we taking this too far?" Quite to the contrary was the view of Bomber Command, in particular its commander, Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris, who "wanted to make a tremendous show" (the words are his own) in Hamburg and got what he wanted. But the question remains: Was the indiscriminate bombing of civilians -- in Hamburg, in Dresden, in Tokyo, in Hiroshima, in Nagasaki -- justifiable militarily, or was it "in whole or in part morally wrong"?

This is the question addressed in Among the Dead Cities by Grayling, a professor of philosophy at the University of London and one of Britain's more prominent and outspoken public intellectuals. Almost immediately one senses what his answer will be -- an unequivocal "Yes" -- but he must be given full credit for reaching that conclusion only after a careful, nuanced analysis that gives full credit to the views and intentions of the bombers as well as making clear that the Allied bombing, however terrible, was "nowhere near equivalent in scale of moral atrocity to the Holocaust of European Jewry, or the death and destruction all over the world for which Nazi and Japanese aggression was collectively responsible: a total of some twenty-five million dead, according to responsible estimates," by contrast with the toll of "about 800,000 civilian women, children and men" exacted by Allied bombing.

As I said, something to think about in advance of more "shock and awe."

Last month, in a paper given at a conference on Middle East security in Berlin, Colonel Sam Gardiner, a military analyst who taught at the National War College before retiring from the Air Force, in 1987, provided an estimate of what would be needed to destroy Iran's nuclear program. Working from satellite photographs of the known facilities, Gardiner estimated that at least four hundred targets would have to be hit. He added:

I don't think a U.S. military planner would want to stop there. Iran probably has two chemical-production plants. We would hit those. We would want to hit the medium-range ballistic missiles that have just recently been moved closer to Iraq. There are fourteen airfields with sheltered aircraft. . . . We'd want to get rid of that threat. We would want to hit the assets that could be used to threaten Gulf shipping. That means targeting the cruise-missile sites and the Iranian diesel submarines. . . . Some of the facilities may be too difficult to target even with penetrating weapons. The U.S. will have to use Special Operations units.

Calling such strikes "tactical" doesn't change the "facts on the ground." Yes, our precision weaponry is really quite astonishing and makes for excellent television as we follow the glare of "smart bombs" appear to flawlessly destroy the ministry of propaganda or naval bases on the Gulf. There are people living in or near those "assets" who, even if they're not killed by the bombs' explosions, must still deal with their aftermath. And none of us know what that aftermath will be if it involves nuclear weapons.

Yes, something to think about. But the people who will ultimately decide the fate of thousands upon thousands of Iranian civilians -- and our own troops -- won't.

In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been “no formal briefings,” because “they’re reluctant to brief the minority. They’re doing the Senate, somewhat selectively.”

The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”