Perhaps a thorough investigation of the Hospital and Somalia incidents would be relevant in a re-evaluation of the current strategies and effects of US military efforts overseas.

You think?

...it's got to be some good shit. He'd better start sharing or the DEA will be tipped off to Hiatt's eternal regret.

Intent can be a very hard thing to prove, no?

Is there no punishment for negligence? How many civilians can you accidentally kill before it reaches the level of "crime"??!?

You really think your Government and country are so Good and Trustworthy and noble that it has the right to invade other countries at will at will -- maintain what you euphemistically call "a robust presence" -- whenever it decides that doing so will help "good guys?"

-- GlennGreenwald

If they wear black they ust be bad guys. If it wasn't for the clothes, you could never tell.

You missed one of the biggest flaws in Hiatt's argument...he doesn't tell us what he thinks we ought to be doing in Somalia.

I didn't really miss this point as much as leave it out of what I wrote, but you're right. The logical conclusion of his argument is that we should do to Somalia what we did to Iraq -- namely, invade it, occupy it and "nation-build." But he lacks the courage of his convictions to say that.

These acts must be war crimes. There was no military objective, as there is no army. We hit civilians to send a message and that is always a war crime. No?

Intent is required to establish criminality. If the missle were intended for a legitimate military target and hit a hospital due to error or something similar, then technically speaking, it isn't a war crime.

So why is this not also a cautionary example for John "Bombiranne" McCain? And should a President McCain initiate air strikes on Iran, assuming Boy George hasn't already done so by then, is there any doubt that Fred would think that bombing is, in and of itself, just a fabulous idea? Unless, of course, McCain decides to invade Iran, too. Then Fred will extol McCain's strategic brilliance at not limiting himself to problematic air strikes.

You don't understand, Glenn

The US doesn't leave a country we've attacked until either (a) they capitulate totally and unconditionally to what we want or (b) we are effectively or actually defeated.

The Army is still pissed about Vietnam. Just a few more hundred thousand troops and unrestricted bombing campaigns...

We did precisely that in Vietnam. We left before the North capitulated or we had been effectively or actually been defeated, so it wouldn't be the first time. There is precedent. We also left Iraq in GWI after they had been driven from Kuwait and capitulated. The Republican Guard units were the only effective combat units left, (regular conscripts were surrendering en masse), and the RG units were all in retreat back to Baghdad.

This is a fine doctrine when dealing multilaterally with an aggressor nation. We were the unilateral aggressor nation in Vietnam and GW II.

Do you find it somewhat odd or hypocritical to be continuously writing brilliant articles about the failures of our war mongering leaders, only to then take advertising dollars from the Pentagon?

Where do you stand? I look forward to a reply.

Actually, I think it's obnoxiously self-indulgent to limit the reach of your ideas -- even to bankrupt yourself -- just to prove how pure you are. If the Air Force wants to finance anti-war commentary, more power to them.

I think you overlooked the obvious flaw in Fred's thinking. The flaw was that there were no "good guys" to aid and abet like we have in Somalia. A robust presence isn't always a bad idea. Invading Iraq was.

I really wouldn't care what the composition of Iraq was (and the idea that there aren't magical "good guys" in Iraq like there are elsewhere is absurd). We shouldn't be invading other countries and occupying them and controlling them unless they're credibly threatening to attack us or have attacked us. That's isn't a controversial proposition in most of the world.

You really think your Government and country are so Good and Trustworthy and noble that it has the right to invade other countries at will at will -- maintain what you euphemistically call "a robust presence" -- whenever it decides that doing so will help "good guys?"

"BAGHDAD (AFP) - A US air strike damaged a hospital in the Iraqi capital's violent Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Saturday, injuring 20 people, as American forces claimed to have killed 14 militiamen. . . ."

He won't have to wonder why terrorists flew an airplane into the Freedom Tower.

How do we prepare the arena for ground invasion again? Just asking.

Glenn,

You missed one of the biggest flaws in Hiatt's argument...he doesn't tell us what he thinks we ought to be doing in Somalia.

The facts as he presents them are:

1) Ineffective/non-existant Somali government resulting in a lawless nation where terrorists can exist in relative safety.

We can:

a) Do nothing, and hope that none of the terrorists in Somalia will eventually take action against the U.S.

b) Conduct air strikes, which he contends don't solve the problems that create the conditions of chaos (true). However, assuming you've hit the right target, it does kill the terrorists.

c) Invade, occupy, and conduct nation building at enormous cost to the U.S. in lives and treasure (with mixed success at best after a number of years if we accept Iraq as the model.)

d) Try and change conditions in Somalia through internation sanctions, aid-programs or other instruments of soft power.

Instead, according to Fred our best option is e) stay in Iraq.

Blood thirsty intellectual sadist think they can hide behind the aura of intellectual respectability that inks give to their thoughts. When proponents of mass murder fanatics are match with our version, the former pale in comparison.

The deeply ironic thing about this is that Mr. Hiatt is expressing a desire to minimize the anger with the U.S. and the occurrence of violence, but he - like many other 'war advocates' - is completely unwilling to consider using some less violent approaches to achieving those goals.

Folks like him, over and over, reflexively dismiss a non-violent approach as 'showing weakness, and therefore likely to increase violence' and are so sure of their view that they refuse to even consider a non-violent approach on its own merits.

Imperialists would be a lot more tolerable if they were a bit more willing to use non-violent methods for achieving their goals.