This quote from Flirting with Disaster was brought to you today by anti-war doctrinaire libertarian comicsblogger Jim Henley, who blows a motherloving gasket over the admittedly unpleasant capture of an Iraqi general’s family by US forces in order to prompt that general to turn himself in. Jim starts bandying about words like “taking hostages” and “abominaton” and “evil,” without pausing for breath long enough to consider that a) The family, since they in all likelihood had information about a suspect’s whereabouts, would have been appropriate to bring downtown and question during a criminal investigation in America, let alone in a war zone; b) the family was never in any real danger since American forces don’t execute, torture, or indefinitely imprison non-combatants, unlike certain other forces we could mention; c) the note left for the general–“If you want your family released, turn yourself in”–was a lie: the family would have been released eventually, the implied threat was just that–implied–and again, even in criminal investigations in America, authorities are allowed to lie to suspects, and again, this is a war zone. Sorry, Jim, but saying “this isn’t moral equivalence, it’s simple fact!” don’t make it so.
So much anti-war thought is myopically focused on the metaphorical letter of the law when it’s the spirit that matters, only to turn around and attribute the purest of motives to our enemies when all their actions and words say otherwise.