Dear Friends,                                                                            Always wrong forever

Attacking, maiming, killing civilians is always wrong. Bombing civilians in city or country is always wrong. Do I need to show you pictures? I have, and you do also innumerable pictures of the absolute crime of killing civilians. The pictures of devastated cities may be the most powerful, but look at the devastation of rural Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos.

Killing civilians is always and forever wrong. Don’t even try to make excuses. And yes, this has implications for killing enemy combatants. If you can’t kill civilians what’s the point of killing the other guys, the ones with lots of weapons aimed at you? My answer is: no point at all. But you'll all have to figure that one out for yourselves.

Why say this now? (Well I’ve actually said it before, see Strategy, for example.) Because Israel and Iran are now engaged in a stupid game of chicken while the non-existent US foreign policy administration attempts to promote self-congratulatory headlines. Yes, the Trump regime is ridiculous, grotesque, whatever. But real lives are at stake here.

 Utopia: each country sees the life of one of their citizens as equal to the life of a citizen of any other country.

I have strong views about the overall conflict – and they do not at all come down to any simple these guys are right the others are wrong view. But that’s not the point right now. The point is that civilians are being killed. Forget about numbers, forget about relative strength in armaments. Forget about war aims.

Civilians are being killed. It must stop.

Neither the Israelis nor the Iranians have any reason at all to be killing each other’s  citizens. Yes, the Iranian nuclear program. First why is that a reason to kill Iranian citizens? Second, that’s a whole other kettle of fish, to which we will return.

No one gains from killing civilians. Everyone loses. Look at history. So maybe combatants shouldn’t be so keen on killing each other either.

Love and solidarity,

            Bobby