In his recent column beating the drums of war in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, George Weigel says Ukraine must be provided with the tools to defeat Russia. One might wonder what he might mean by ‘tools’ and how envisions ‘defeat’.
Anon, my point for now is with his concluding words:
If other aggressors learn that hundreds of drone and missile strikes can be launched on civilian targets with impunity, they will act accordingly in the future. And more innocents will be the victims.
Deliberate strikes on civilian targets are indeed a grave moral evil, one the worst aspects of modern ‘total war’, and not unique to Russia.
Here is Mr. Weigel justifying the instantaneous and near total annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the two atomic bombs dropped by the United States. Not only were these both ‘civilian targets’ (what else does one call entire cities?), but the tens of thousands of civilian casualties were the very purpose of using the new ‘technology’. To ‘shock and awe’ the Japanese into ‘unconditional surrender’ (itself problematic, and they may likely have capitulated without the bombs).
Keep in mind that many, if not most, of those civilians were women, children, the elderly, and the sick, and almost all non-combatants. Many of those died slow lingering deaths from radiation poisoning, one of the worst ways to go. Those who perished instantly in the fireball were to be envied.
Mr. Weigel can’t have it both ways: Whether or not he deems a given war just or unjust, if the deliberate ‘targeting of civilians’ is an evil for Putin and Russia, it’s an evil for the U.S. and everyone else, semper et ubique.
