Munk’s thread from the other day has raised some big questions for me. The thread about the accidental death of that little boy.
The Cantina responded as I knew it would. An unstinting, even unthinking upsurge of smoke and condolence. In less than a moment, we understood the tearing, wailing grief the family, of the neighbourhood, of anyone connected. And people spoke of their own experiences, of the healing that’s perhaps never going to be complete. I mean to honour you all.
On another forum, there’s been a ruckus about a film crew that did several “takes” of news footage, rearranging the body of a dead Lebanese boy on a stretcher for maximum effect. He too had been smothered, under rubble. I am not meaning to take sides in the Israel/Hizbollah dispute – I’m certain that there are 7 year olds in Haifa being pulled from the rubble too.
My point? Simply, this lad is just as dead as Munk’s friend. And somewhere, his mother, his friends, his family grieves. They are feeling the same wailing, tearing grief at a senseless death.
We all feel awful, but resigned about "collateral damage." We’ve talked eloquently about how it is "necessary" though "regrettable." War really is hell, y'know?.
But the immediacy of the death Munk described - one of his son's friends, who'd eaten in his house, probably slept in a tent in his backyard, whose laugh and holler had echoed in the TV room – it’s rocked my perspective. The deaths of innocents are not justified, anywhere. We are all held in a web of relationships - and grieving is our common currency, whatever our religious or ethnic or political contexts.
I am finding it more and more difficult to accept the view that bringing death to one's opponents is an acceptable policy tool. Particularly when the political ends upheld in the war are typically questionable at best, and other means haven’t been fully explored. I do not blame the soldiers – who are typically honourable, trustworthy, and trying to do their jobs. I blame the people on all sides who set them out against each other. As Clausewitz famously said, “War is an extension of politics by other means” ... but most often (and in my view, in ALL current crises in the news) an illegitimate extension of those politics.
There are other ways, if we were willing to choose them. The deaths of children, on all sides of a conflict, shows why we need to do so.
Tom.
The Cantina responded as I knew it would. An unstinting, even unthinking upsurge of smoke and condolence. In less than a moment, we understood the tearing, wailing grief the family, of the neighbourhood, of anyone connected. And people spoke of their own experiences, of the healing that’s perhaps never going to be complete. I mean to honour you all.
On another forum, there’s been a ruckus about a film crew that did several “takes” of news footage, rearranging the body of a dead Lebanese boy on a stretcher for maximum effect. He too had been smothered, under rubble. I am not meaning to take sides in the Israel/Hizbollah dispute – I’m certain that there are 7 year olds in Haifa being pulled from the rubble too.
My point? Simply, this lad is just as dead as Munk’s friend. And somewhere, his mother, his friends, his family grieves. They are feeling the same wailing, tearing grief at a senseless death.
We all feel awful, but resigned about "collateral damage." We’ve talked eloquently about how it is "necessary" though "regrettable." War really is hell, y'know?.
But the immediacy of the death Munk described - one of his son's friends, who'd eaten in his house, probably slept in a tent in his backyard, whose laugh and holler had echoed in the TV room – it’s rocked my perspective. The deaths of innocents are not justified, anywhere. We are all held in a web of relationships - and grieving is our common currency, whatever our religious or ethnic or political contexts.
I am finding it more and more difficult to accept the view that bringing death to one's opponents is an acceptable policy tool. Particularly when the political ends upheld in the war are typically questionable at best, and other means haven’t been fully explored. I do not blame the soldiers – who are typically honourable, trustworthy, and trying to do their jobs. I blame the people on all sides who set them out against each other. As Clausewitz famously said, “War is an extension of politics by other means” ... but most often (and in my view, in ALL current crises in the news) an illegitimate extension of those politics.
There are other ways, if we were willing to choose them. The deaths of children, on all sides of a conflict, shows why we need to do so.
Tom.
