Dropping Bombs

This past Sunday I wrote about the prospect of Iran developing nuclear weapons, and the possibility that Israel will preemptively attack Iran's nuclear facilities. I suggested in that post that it would be a good idea if Israel - with or without US involvement - took that action.

I haven't changed my mind: I'm willing to advocate for a smaller evil to prevent a much larger one. But I've been stewing all week about my glib advocacy of bombing. I've been bombed and I've spent years with the maiming and death and suffering and rubble that follow the release of bombs from the bellies of distant airplanes.

Today's pictures come from a visit I made to North Viet Nam 39 years ago. The photos document the results of the infamous 1972 Christmas bombing of that country by ours. The quality of these photos has deteriorated over the years - but I wanted you to see what I saw. The photo to the right is of Bach Mai Hospital - whose destruction (denied by our government), produced a furor around the world.

The violence of arial bombing is difficult to describe. When a bomb explodes, if you're close enough, the air itself becomes a weapon, expanding so rapidly that ear drums burst and if the bombs are large enough, people die just from the displacement. Miscarriages are common. Of course many people are harmed by being crushed as buildings fall on them.

Further - there is good information floating around about the accuracy, or lack thereof, of "smart" weapons. No doubt things have changed from the days in Viet Nam when B-52's flew so high they couldn't be seen or heard. You'd know bombing had started when the bombs just started exploding. Under those circumstances, accuracy is a general concept. Even so, the data released on the use of laser-guided and other supposedly smart weapons shows that it's just not possible to confine the harm from a weapon as general as a bomb to purely military targets.

What I want to share with you today about this is that the only authentically ethical way to speak about the question of bombing Iran's nuclear weapons capacity is to work as hard as is possible to eliminate the need to bomb. I find myself agonizing over bombing Iran only because of the intricate chain of political failures rooted in Iran's history, the history of the Middle East, US policy regarding Iran since the Shah or earlier, the history and policies of Israel.....and so forth. Every terrible choice occurs in a context - ethical quandaries always have a history.

Faced with the threat of Iran deploying nuclear weapons, I think it's better to attack them first. But this choice would be less monstrous if I could cite a long history of genuine, very hard work to avert this situation. My country, including me, hasn't worked diligently enough and honestly enough to prevent the current terrible situation, and that makes all of us culpable.