Questions, Questions

Robert Crow asks: "Does anyone know how many Arab non-combatants have been killed in the struggle compared to the number of Israeli non-combatants? Somehow this does not get reported. My impression is that many more Arabs have perished at the hands of Israelis than vice versa"

Jerry Sanders answers "And my question is: Does anyone know how many German and Japanese non-combatants were killed in the struggle (WWII) compared to the number of US non-combatants? Somehow this does not get reported. My impression is that many more Germans and Japanese perished at the hands of Americans than vice versa. My good men, what point would this factoid prove?

My comment: In all these discussions, an important distinction has been completely lost: that between traditional war, which is fought among armies, and total war, in which civilians are a legitimate target. The carpet bombing of German cities and the atom bombing of Japan were acts of total war, as was the World Trade Center disaster, which killed comparatively few people. So the basic question is Who started the war? Who is therefore responsible?

Ronald Hilton - 10/3/01