The lowly seer

Front line civilians

Recently reading a whinge from a right-winger on a forum, about how in Vietnam there effectively were no civilians as the VietCong not only merged in with them, they actively aided the VC; I think he was trying to justify the killing of civilians in Lebanon by relating it similar American actions in that war. It struck me as a pattern we're seeing increasingly, of conventional forces while unable to gain a normal confrontation with a guerilla army instead attacking the civilian population. Examples that readily come to mind include British army's invention of the concentration camp in the Boer War, the German army's atrocities against Belgians in the 1st World War, the depopulation of some areas of South Vietnam in the aforementioned war and just about every civil war in South America.

No surprise then that among the first targets the Israeli airforce hit incuded power stations both in Gaza and Lebanon.

posted by Les the Spaceman @ 12:13 pm