The Killing Fields III

Trey Smith

Bombing has no function in wars of conquest. Bombers cannot be used to hold territory, but they can destroy everything in it. Air weapons are clearly only destructive. And the destruction clearly has only one function. Although America’s military claims that American war is waged to destroy the enemy’s ability to resist, the real purpose of war from the air is to punish those who dare to resist American ambitions. It is meant merely to punish, to destroy and kill, and the killing of civilians has always been an element of wars of plunder. The lesson air war tries to teach is, Resist Uncle Sam at your peril! But consider this:

In the fourteenth century, a Mongol called Amir Timur conquered a vast empire that stretched from Russia to India and from the Mediterranean to Mongolia. The purpose of his conquests was merely to pillage and plunder. He is remembered in history as a brutal barbarian who razed cities and put entire populations to death, using the victims’ skulls to build grisly towers and pyramids. The rulers of Europe trembled at the idea that Timur’s hordes were at their borders and sent embassies hoping to avoid attacks. In Western history, he is known as Tamerlane.

No essential difference separates the actions of Tamerlane from those of Britain’s Bomber Command or American air wars. Western civilization today uses air weapons as Tamerlane used swords to intimidate and punish those who have the audacity of defy it. In cultures whose goal is plunder, human life has no value. Plunder is more valuable than life. The progress of Western Civilization stalled in the 14th century. Today our plundering elite still live in it.
~ from Retributive Warfare: Mistaking Killing and Revenge for Justice by John Kozy ~

Kozy makes another insightful point here. The whole purpose of conquest is to take the riches and/or natural resources of a country to claim as your own. How can this occur if you have gone out of your way to destroy the very things that a conqueror would desire?

For a contemporary example, look at Iraq. We literally laid waste to that nation's infrastructure. While the people in the impacted areas of Superstorm Sandy rightfully complain about weeks of no electricity, some areas of Iraq still have no reliable electricity after TEN YEARS!! Many areas of the country still have damaged or nonexistent wastewater systems -- the streets in these areas act as open sewers.

Baghdad was home to many museums that housed documents and artifacts dating back to antiquity. Instead of claiming these for our own, we allowed them to be looted at will. We even bombed their oil fields which is not a very effective way of then claiming the oil for ourselves.

Our aim was never to "bring democracy" to Iraqis. It was to punish the Iraqi people for being ruled by a homicidal maniac.

We've done a damn good job of it!