sh!t

[anotheranon]

Evidently, while D. and I were out at Monticello enjoying a beautiful fall day, the U.S. started air strikes against the Taliban. Just found out when I innocently went over to the Washington Post site to read Carolyn Hax.

Not sure how I feel about this. I knew military action was forthcoming, and proper considering the terrorist acts. I just hoped that they would be more precise - like they'd go in only after they'd pinpointed bin Laden's position. I've not read much on it yet but the Washington Post site makes no mention of bin Laden at all, though it does claim that targets are "anti-aircraft sites, military headquarters, terrorist camps, airfields and a concentration of Taliban tanks." I still sit with the uncomfortable notion that they are just bombing everything.

Comments

[geekchick]

I still sit with the uncomfortable notion that they are just bombing everything.

In a couple of forums I hang out in, there's the raging debate between those who think that we're recreating Dresden and those who argue that we're hitting only military targets. I personally come down on the side of "precision strikes", since the only thing that would get accomplished by just flattening entire cities of mostly innocent people is having the entire coalition that's been built up in support of this come tumbling down. What good would come out of that? While I don't have any illusions that the military is necessarily acting out of moral considerations, they're certainly aware that carpetbombing the country would end up losing them the support that they need. Rumsfeld today in his press briefing said that one of the goals of this operation was to knock out Taliban defenses to make it easier for the Northern Alliance to come in; it's not a big secret that the US government wants the Taliban out of power.

If you haven't seen bin Laden's taped statement aired today (pretty obviously taped ahead of time, as it's daylight and the attacks didn't start until after dark), see if you can catch it on CNN. It's disturbing.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I hope you're right. And though I think the Taliban regime is horrid as everyone else thinks it is, the target should be bin Laden - if the Taliban are hiding or aiding him in some way, then, yes, they are viable targets too but I think it makes more sense to go after the person charged with responsibility for 9/11.

I think I will go see if CNN has that statement...