Rationalizing

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Society
April 15th, 2003 • 4:02 pm

I suppose one can “rationalize” the civilian deaths as the unavoidable cost of waging war against a cruel tyrant.

I suppose one can “rationalize” the destruction of social structures and life-saving infrastructure as part of the necessary “rebuilding” process.

I suppose one can “rationalize” putting a higher priority on “securing oil fields” than on protecting lives as a way to ensure the quick return to an self-sufficient economy that produces its own sustainable protection structures.

I suppose one can “rationalize” the military casualties through “friendly fire” as simply inevitable blips in the technology and plain old human error.

I suppose one can “rationalize” the glorifying of the hapless young female private rescued by a powerful commando with extraordinary resources as being more “inspiring” than the very ordinary deaths of all these others hapless young privates that weren’t so lucky.

But how on earth does one rationalize the fact that no effort is being made to rescue this poor little Iraqi boy named Ali Ismail Abbas who has already lost both his arms through US bombing and is now slowly dying in the care of a helpless Iraqi hospital doctor? Now that the worst of the war is surely over, what exactly is preventing the US or Great Britain army from devoting at least some of its enormous resources to that particular “rescue” and to the rescue of the hundreds or thousands of other innocent, badly injured civilians? Is this boy’s life worth so much less than the life of Private Jessica Lynch?


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