Opinion

Yes, bombing civilians is wrong

By Douglas Lummis

At the time of this writing the first U.S. warship has left Yokosuka for the Indian Ocean. U.S. President George W. Bush has called the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., "an act of war." The reason he has called them so is clear: so he can lead the U.S. into a war against whoever is behind them. The newspapers tell us that militarily, economically and spiritually, the U.S. is moving rapidly into a state of war.

In leading the country (and the world?) in this direction, the U.S. government is making a catastrophic mistake.

First, to call these mass murders "war" is to dignify them beyond what they deserve. Leaving aside what pacifists think about it, war is (under certain conditions) legal under international law and considered legitimate by the majority of world opinion. Until now, acts like these were called "terrorism," i.e. crime. By calling them "war," the U.S. government has inadvertently given them legitimacy. They are crimes Ethe crimes of mass murder. That is what they should be called and that is how they should be treated.

Many people are saying, "But to understand these attacks you have to look at all the terrible suffering the U.S. has brought to the world, all the victims it has produced with its needless wars, economic sanctions, environmental destruction (and so on: the list is long)." I agree that everybody, especially Americans, ought to look at those things. But I do not agree that they should be connected with these attacks.

I have heard no evidence that this murderer gang had any concern for poverty, for exploitation, or for environmental destruction. And I have heard no evidence that poor people around the world angry with the U.S. for its policies want to take these mass murders as an expression of their anger. It is an insult to them to suggest that they do.

The son of a Jewish-American friend of mine, in a telephone call to his father, said, "I guess this proves that bombing civilians is wrong, doesn't it?" Of course, there are countless people around the world who don't need such "proof."

Nevertheless, I find the statement extraordinary in its simple wisdom. It doesn't use the crimes of the past (e.g. the countless civilians who have been killed by U.S. bombs) to lighten the criminality of the New York and Washington attacks. Rather, it suggests that fully grasping the total criminality and horror of those attacks can be used to grasp the equal criminality and horror of similar acts in the past. And this understanding can provide solid ground for opposing all similar acts (including state terrorism) in the future.

The U.S. government has called these terrorist acts "war," and now it wants to lead the world into a "war" against terrorism. So it's to be terror vs. terror. But when both sides start saying, "My terrorism today is justified by your terrorism yesterday," our world will be a terror to live in.

Shukan ST: Oct. 5, 2000

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