By now most people have heard about the U.S. airstrike in a remote section of Pakistan on Friday. Immediately after the airstrike of a house where a dinner party (which may have been celebrating Eid al-Adha) was taking place, there were whispers that that among the dead may have been Al Qaeda’s number two himself, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was the intended target. By yesterday morning officials were saying that the initial missile (probably launched by an unmanned Predator) must have just missed his departure, or perhaps he hadn’t shown up yet. Today all hell has broken loose:
U.S. television networks CNN and ABC cited sources saying that unmanned U.S. drones had fired missiles at the village of Damadola, some 200 kilometers northwest of Islamabad. Their target: top Al-Qaeda figures believed to be in the area, including Osama bin Laden’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Those reports said it’s possible al-Zawahiri was killed in the strike. If officially confirmed, al-Zawahiri would be the most senior Al-Qaeda figure captured or killed so far.
However, unnamed senior officials in Pakistan told Reuters and AP that al-Zawahiri was not present at the site of the attack.
And angry villagers in Damadola have also denied al-Zawahiri was there and thousands were today protesting the strike in a nearby town. [Link]
Later came came confirmation that al-Zawahiri never showed up:
Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader was invited to dinner at one of the houses struck by a purported CIA airstrike on a Pakistani border village, but he did not show up, a newspaper and intelligence officials said Sunday…On Sunday, the Dawn newspaper quoted unidentified senior Pakistani officials as saying al-Zawahri had been asked to dinner in Damadola along with two clerics…
A Pakistani intelligence official said al-Zawahri might have been in the area to meet with his wife, who is from the Mahmoond tribe that is predominant there, for last week’s Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. [Link]
This strike marks the most visible instance where the U.S. has undeniably violated Pakistani sovereignty and it puts the General in a precarious political position:
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry condemned the loss of civilian lives and said it had delivered an official protest to the American ambassador in Islamabad. The information minister, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said in Islamabad that the government wanted “to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to reoccur,” The Associated Press reported…On Saturday, a Central Intelligence Agency spokesman declined to comment on any raid that might have taken place. The agency is known to operate armed Predator aircraft, but the missions remain classified and are not generally acknowledged by the C.I.A…
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan mentioned the attacks during a meeting on Saturday with officials from the town of Sawabi, according to a local reporter. He was quoted as saying: “We are looking into it, as to who has done it. We are looking into it, that there were people who came from outside.”
Thousands of tribesmen, led by a local parliamentarian, protested the killings on Saturday, chanting anti-American and anti-government slogans in the town of Khaar, the central administrative center of Bajaur. [Link]
Just two days ago I watched the MTV documentary Aftershock and was feeling pretty good about the U.S. military’s campaign to win hearts and minds in rural Pakistan where many militants come from. This incident unravels everything. If I were an aid worker in Pakistan right now I would probably start watching my back. When the Bush administration failed to find Osama and his #2 in the year or two following 9/11 they started arguing that these two men weren’t that important and that in reality Al Qaeda the organization had been dealt a crushing blow. At the time most people attributed such excuses to failure, and they probably were just excuses. Now, a few years later, I am beginning to reconsider. It is true that if the airstrike had succeeded we’d all be jumping for joy right now. But it failed. And in failing it has dealt us a major blow in the “War on Terror.” Is one or two men, largely isolated, worth the extreme risk (in terms of losing hearts and minds) that we sometimes take in bagging them? Villagers in the area claim to have seen the Predator overhead for several days. It would only seem logical that al-Zawahri might stay away. I have a strong belief that a patient hand will eventually be able to deliver justice to an evil heart. America should never stop trying to kill Bin Laden and all of his lieutenants. However, I hope someone at the top sees that if you break too many eggs you aren’t going to enjoy your omelet.
See more pictures of protests against America in Pakistan.
The key issue is precision. If they killed a bunch of A-Q lieutenants, I’m all for it. But if they killed a bunch of innocent bystanders…
They did kill a few lieutenants sent by al-Zawahri in his place. I am not blaming our government for trying. This was a fairly good attempt on paper. What I am saying is that in trying for small tactical victories they may be suffering larger strategic defeats. Killing women and children on Eid plays right into the hands of the terrorists.
Then the only way to do that is to have trained operatives on the ground! The ground intelligence must be of good quality, the one that carries the ISI mark is suspect.
I disagree. This isn’t a hot war like WWII, immediate self-defense (e.g. they’re firing at a manned plane) or averting an impending terrorist attack. Absent those conditions, killing innocents is immoral. We’ve posted so many times about two guys mistakenly killed in the U.S. and UK, but killing 30,000 civilians in Iraq and Pakistani villagers we don’t even mention. I agree with GGK, we need assassins on the ground, Munich-style.
As do I. Who knows, maybe we do.
Re: the location of Osama and his main men, it seems like intelligence-wise, the CIA has been flailing for a while now.
I’m all for precision strikes, but as Kosovo and Iraq have shown, they’re far less likely to hit intended targets, than test results indicate.
The question then becomes: how much longer is Bushie going to look the other way when dealing with Mushie & Co.? Notwithstanding the fine pickle they’ve got themselves into, there needs to be a more public effort to recognize that Pakistan is in fact a foremost fomentor of discontent in the region – that might better buttress both their military and humanitarian campaigns.
Did anyone else find it weird that the pic has a poster demanding that the US Army be withdrawn from Afghanistan and Kashmir???? Is the US Army carrying out ops in Pakistani Kasmir?
Yes. Quake Relief. U.S. helicopters are all over. See the MTV link. That is what makes this so sad.
some relief work. PS they have been attacked with RPGs for that effort
Really? Can you point to any reports? I blogged about one such incident on SM but it was later retracted. My understanding was that all Kashmiri militant groups had ordered their members to not lay a hand on any aid workers civilian or military.
lesson(s) for next time around –
1) Be careful who you invite for dinner. I sure wish the other side put their Michael Moore’s / Cindy Sheehan’s on the tele to talk about “blowback” and “look what we’ve brought upon ourselves.” (not that I’m holding my breath).
2) Sovereignty isn’t just a right but also carries responsibility — you’ve gotta police your internal crap or stand helplessly by when someone else comes in to do it for you.
3) The fog of war means we’ll never have 100% precision. Even Munich had many “innocent” victims.
4) Our opponents have a “media wing” (Al Qaeda’s, for ex., is partially described here) – My first reaction to seeing Kashmir & Afghanistan conflated was that these guys are in full effect. I’m certainly not quick to assume that the protests were grassroots efforts. It doesn’t eliminate the “damage” from an “indelicate” attack but, there’s a huge grain of salt. Dubya had a quiver of reasons for going after Iraq but played up the WMD angle as the most media receptive, these guys have a full quiver of tactics for achieving their goals including direct media manipulation.
But we should strive for it.
This single attack had more collateral damage than Israel’s entire operation:
Not to mention the 30,000 mistakenly killed in Iraq.
So you’re drawing an equivalence between Dubya’s lies about the war with fundie Islamist propaganda? 😉
Yes Israel does this all the time and this is why they are plagued with regular terrorism. Nothing but bad can come from these kind of missions done openly. Bad PR for the USA.
Oh hell yeah. Why doesn’t the CIA’s special Ops have this already? This is the right solution. Not sending in some unmanned (read cowardly) aircraft to blow up a bunch of houses in a village. Thats realy really bad PR.
I have the feeling that there is a great deal of misinformation in the mainstream reports including BBC and CNN. No foreign militants had been reported in the area, only civilians have been reported to be amongst the dead, the US military in Afghanistan have denied American operations in the area, while the CIA is reported to be responsible for the attacks. ICH argues that this incident is a a side-effect of “spineless Musharraf’s” bowing to Bush and Blair after September 11, and now ‘turning the other cheek’ to receive the aggression of the US.
The problem with America is that it is trying to wage a war on terrorists, but not on terrorism. It’s war on specific terrorists like Bin Laden has been a losing battle. And in doing so they’re actively fuelling the flame for the war on terrorism. Which they are also losing, sadly, not just for themselves but the entire world.
The way to engage in a war on terror is to seek out the causes for terrorists springing up everyhwere and to kill those CAUSES and educate the terrorists about western / non muslim culture and educate themselves about Islam and the way the world sees each other. Not by trying to take an eye for and eye and act like a big, childish hit man.
Manish – how do you know we don’t strive for 100 % accuracy? What’s your metric? What’s your experience? About the same as mine, I’d gather….
Also, how many of the 30,000 are coalition casualties? Seems every day I hear about another mosque, school, or police station blown up in Iraq. They are not blown up as a result of a stray US bomb, rather, they are the intended target of a suicide bomber.
The same intelligence which “thought” AlZawahiri was coming to feast on kebabs (after tracking him for 2 weeks), now says foreign operatives were hanging around(who?where? no idea) and these are the same men who also had concrete proof of WMD. Frankly, why should anyone of us bother to take anything from such intelligence? It’s all crap.
Empirically, because we keep killing lots of bystanders and have not switched tactics.
Good point, thanks. I looked it up, and it looks like around 40%, or 11,000. Of course, most of the remainder would not have died if not for this reelection campaign masquerading as a war.
Even if we strive for 100% and achieve 99%, you’re still going to see some bystanders killed. You’ve gotta have a denominator and not just the numerator before passing judgement on the entire system. it’s like saying “the stock market sucks” because you’ve found an instance of a stock downtick.
Your de rigeuer “Bush Lied” point aside, you still need to decide what the baseline is for comparing that 11K number. Iraq ain’t Switzerland. 11K dead sucks… BUT, if you look at some comparison stats here–
In other news,
Who is this mysterious all-seeing eye in the East?
Guys, BBC is passe, I prefer Cryptome
A good book that came out a couple of weeks ago that covers the political and issues involved in tracking Bin Laden and his ilk is “Jawbreaker” by Gary Berntsen.
The CIA has been hamstrung by incompetent bureaucrats unable to understand the situation on the ground. Berntsen talks about how Bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora because of a risk averse mentality where nobody wanted to put U.S troops on the ground in large numbers. As one of the previous posters said, without a ground initiative, it is going to be literally a shot in the dark to hope that this war will be won by high tech means. Ultimately I think it will come down to a spec ops operative in the right place at the right time positively identifying Bin Laden or Zawahiri through a telescopic sight.
DDA, man that report is so full of laughable neither-here-nor-there statements. I guess ABC Australia just wanted to fill up some blank space..and their reporter happened to be in the same bar as this prof. 🙂
17 poor villages fucking blown away and leave it to your right wing mutineers to dissect the killings as a numbers game and and as usual give us some inane perspective on relative number of deaths under Saddam. So now our new achievement is that we are not ‘killing as many civilians as Saddam was’. Hoorah! Freedom is on da march and our freedom bandwagon has a license plate which says ‘we wont kill you in the same numbers that your own dictator does’. So let me put on my red white and blue sweatshirt, hop on to the computer and add some perspective because God forbid if somebody mourns the death of the Pakis and wonder if the CIA could have exercised more caution.
Iraq ain’t Switzerland
Ha! the man says its not Switzerland. In our stock exchange of human life the P/E for an Iraqi is shit compared to the P/E for a Swiss. Of course, we will ignore the total number of deaths because of the occupation because that skews the numbers. If the relative number game is to prove whether the occupation made the life better or worse, why should we not compare the total deaths versus the total deaths under Saddam?
Manish – how do you know we don’t strive for 100 % accuracy? What’s your metric? What’s your experience? About the same as mine, I’d gather….
The metric is the dead Iraqis and the Afghanis who keep getting mowed down because they like shooting guns at their weddings. Even if we strive for 100% and achieve 99%, you’re still going to see some bystanders killed.
Lets be clear here. This is not a case of Michal Moore Inc. demanding 100% efficiency from the United States Military/CIA.
The choice is not between insisting 100% efficiency or retreat from war. The choice is between the calculus that goes into deciding whether to blow away a couple of houses in Pakistan because it has Zawahiri in it/ blow away a ‘gathering’ from air because shots are being fired from the ground OR whether we exercise restraint and not drop da bomb unless we are 100% sure that civilians will not be killed especially when their is no immediate threat to us.
There are other ways to kill or capture Zawahiri. This is not a choice between whether we should kill a terrorist standing with a suitcase bomb ready to blow up NY or whether we should try to arrest him. If you are not 100% sure that Zawahiri is not there, then exercise caution and live to kill Zawahiri another day.
No one blames the poor 18 year old grunt from Bethleham, Pa for killing a bystander when he was being shot from 3 directions in the armpit of Fallujah. What we do blame is the F-16 bomber who drops a 2,000 lb because he saw some sparks which looked like people shooting in the air. This is not self defense. When there is no threat to the F-16 they shouldnt be dropping bombs unless they are 100% sure, especially when the war is over.
What we blame is the calculus used to weigh the life of a Paki against the stategic importance of killing Zawahiri. If the ONLY way to kill Zawahiri was to kill him with a bunch of Paki civilians then maybe the calculus will make more sense. Here, its a question of convenience: We think Zawahiri is there, but we are not sure and we might end up killing 20 Pakis. So lets go ahead and drop the bomb.
I am referring to ‘we’ as people who agree with me.
This is analogous to the issue of mistaken executions. In the absence of immediate danger, when innocent lives are at stake, it’s only the numerator that counts.
Saying we’re only killing half as many as Saddam killed is setting an inanely low bar, and at its root is a conversion factor on the worth of an Iraqi life which is WAY less than for a Western one. How long would killing this many bystanders be tolerated if the operations took place in America? We’ve blogged like nine times about one dead Brazilian guy because it took place in London. Here you’ve got 20x the number of dead bystanders, and you’re giving me actuarial tables on the worth of a life, like Ford and the tobacco industry.
This is analogous to the issue of mistaken executions. In the absence of immediate danger, when innocent lives are at stake, it’s only the numerator that counts.
Exactly!
Right on Suhail. Hence my obviously tabloidlike comments.
Then we have situations like this one chronicled by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker:
Oxymoron: Military intelligence
Interesting to see the US borrowing tactics from Israel, i.e. targeted assassinations on Hamas leaders during the second intifada. Evidence actually shows that these attacks did reduce suicide bombings, but was it worth adding to existing ill will, hate, & distrust? Maybe…if in the end it brings about an opportunity for peace.
Given that Osama Bin Laden has probably shaven his beard and could very well be sitting on a beach chair sipping a mai tai in Peshawar or Baluchistan at this moment, maybe this was a good thing. And Musharaff hasn’t shown the ability to control these areas. In fact, has any other Pakistani leader? Not to discount the legitimate discontents of the Muslim world, but maybe if these regions had been controlled during the 80’s and the 90’s, 9/11 never would have happened. Then again, I believe we (the US) did send some school supplies to Peshawari madrassahs in the 80’s (probably not colored pencils & Rambo lunchboxes).
Of course Islamists in Pakistan are already at the boiling point and every day Musharaff stays alive seems like good news to me, despite his many failings. But the benefits of this kind of activity, even if there is only 99% accuracy, will not only prove beneficial to Londoners on the tube, or Americans wherever they may be, but to the increasing number of Iraqis of all brands who are desperately fighting against the Al-Quaeda led insurgency and the wide majority of Muslims who do not support violent means of political change for practical and religious principles. I’m not saying that one life can easily be forgotten, or that the attitude that an American life is worth any number of non-American lives isn’t completely unacceptable or morally repulsive. But…this is a war.
And it seems a bit unjust to compare this to the “fog of war” when I believe that term referred to American strategies that killed millions of Southeast Asians and Japanese, and for which I hope Robert McNamara finds an uncomfortable place in the hottest region of hell. Indeed, that was a holocaust that should be given more attention in high school history books and that does not easily draw comparisons.
Sadly, the fact that I am of Indian origin and I’m justifying an attack on Pakistan robs me of all credibility.
Of course, Bush has a media wing or two himself.
well, if you’re only dealing with numerators, then I guess mathematically, every decision for you becomes binary 0 or 1. Alas, the real world isn’t, uh, binary.
no, what I’m saying is that we’ve gone in and we’ve INCREASED the value of an iraqi life vs. what it was before. And hopefully, that trendline will continue….
I suppose you’re a glass is half empty sort of dude when it comes to stuff like this and won’t stop claiming total failure until the casualty rate in Iraq is the same as in Detroit (40/100,000 (violent crimes, not neces. deaths… but you get the picture)? Unfortunately, the world isn’t quite so…. binary.
Those people who are striking on the streets have too much time on their hands, they should help the victims of the earthquake, the protesters are a bunch of chickens.
The assissinations didn’t really quell the suicide bomings. Bending on Gaza by Sharone and Arafat’s death leading to internal changes and the Sharm al Sheikh summit eventually did.
The second intifada killed more children on both sides. Oslo and hardliner Netenyahu put an end to the first one but did it ever really go away and calm the emotions of the Palestinians. Also the lull between the two intifadas was a result of multiple issues, change in attitudes of neighbors and shifts in strategies within the PLO and Israeli army. The rhetoric calmed down but the sentiments have never gone away.
Hatred of this level is deep rooted in history and propoganda keeps it going. Targeted assisinations when NOT done right (Israel for the most part has been doing it “right”) are only going to perpetuate the hatred while not really getting the target.
Personally I think it’s bullshit that the CIA doesn’t know where bin Laden or Zarquawi is. How is that even possible????
Why must Bush supporters also support the empirial project in Iraq? One of the justification for Iraq was that its ‘possible’. How arrogant. Anyways, If Bush hadnt engaged in this tactically stupid (and unjust) war in Iraq, targetted assasinations in Pakistan wouldnt have created any noise, even from the farthest left side.
Afterall, Al Queda did attack the US and that war is going on. Since they have declared war on US (and incidently even India) they strike without care for collateral damage. So, when response (from the US) causes collateral damage, its hardly unfair. (for example: Ask, the family of the professors who got shot in IISc Bangalore) But Bush’s idiotic war is fucking up the real war.
Porter Goss on why US cant go after sin laden [link]
Also watch the 2 interviews of mushsharraf one on 60 minutes with leslie stahl(before quake) and other on MSNBC with ann curry(after quake) Its obvious what carrot mushie is showing US and also what stick he is hinting at. The demands in both cases is same. I’m sorry as i did not bookmark the links for the interview.
I seem to be thinking along the same lines as AlMfD on this issue.
The problem here isn’t their end-goal or the motivations for conducting the war against Al-Qaeda, but the methods which are being deployed. If you wish to maintain any level of “ethical authority” or moral high ground, then your own conduct and military techniques need to be above reproach.
In that sense, the very modern notion of “collateral damage” is completely unacceptable, unless it is unas a very last resort and in most extreme circumstances (ideally, not even then). If such incidents are occurring regularly, then a) you need to amend your battlefield tactics, and b) plough more money and resources into military R&D to develop more precise (ie. more “surgical”) weaponry.
And yes, killing civilians is just going to add fuel to the fire and drive people into the arms of the fanatics.
*unless it is unas a very last resort
Obvious typo, should read: “unless it is as a very last resort”
This is quite rich coming from the side which supports … “You are either with us or against us”.
An update:
“The final results of from the airstrike in the Pakistani border town of Damadola are now known. In addition to Abu Khabab al-Masri, who was al-QaedaÂ’s chief bomb maker, head of the WMD program, and former terror camp commander, two other al-Qaeda commanders were killed in the strike. ABC News confirms that Khalid Habib [or Khaled al-Harbi] and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi perished in the attack.”
“The meeting in Damadola was a high value target of opportunity which could not be passed up. U.S. intelligence took the risk, pulled the trigger and bagged three senior al-Qaeda commanders. Masri, Habib, and al-Magrabi have been removed from the chain of command, and must be replaced by junior operatives who possess neither their stature, experience or connections. Al-Qaeda has been weakened.”
…Seems that our intelligence wasn’t so bad after all. But does anyone really think that this updated story on the “CIA intelligence blunder,” which actually reports a huge success in the war, will make as much news as all those previous, incendiary “bombing of innocent civilians” headlines?
Ha.
Links: http://bidinotto.journalspace.com/?entryid=334 http://inbrief.threatswatch.org/2006/01/alqaeda-commanders-almagrabi-a/
A 4:18 target:collateral kill ratio (18%) is only considered a success by the standards of an air war. In the meantime you’ve created 18 more families deeply pissed off at the U.S. and marching with ‘Death to America’ and ‘Jihad jihad’ banners in Peshawar.
The whole issue of “ethical warfare” is a fairly loaded topic…..
It all comes down to what one’s priorities are. If your cause is just, then should you also restrict your warfare strategy & tactics to “righteous means” ?
If not, then surely one risks losing any moral authority, indeed credibility, in the struggle. Not to mention the corrosive effect on one’s own psyche.
It’s a tough question: Do you aim for victory at all costs, even if it involves breaching the boundaries of what one would normally regard as ethical behaviour, or do you “draw the line” somewhere and thereby risk defeat and possible death, along with potentially disastrous consequences for the people you seek to protect ?
Do you fight the Mughals and risk being on the receiving end of torture and genocide (Sikhs), or do you reluctantly join forces with them in order to secure your own survival and to prevent any aggression against your citizens (most Rajput states) ?
Do you restrict your warfare to military personnel and sites only (even if the enemy doesn’t), or do you inflict mass bombings against civilian locations as well (most modern warfare post-WW2 inclusive) ?
Do you torture prisoners in order to extract information from them, or do you refuse to do so, even though your refusal may cost lives ?
What are your priorities, your “higher goals”, the “big picture” ? Is it purely “survival”, or something more ?
Breaching ethical boundaries which you know are wrong, especially if they involve attacks against civilians or sadism/torture, can be a corrosive course of action to take and corrupts the perpetrator internally, even if they find ways to justify/rationalise their actions and motives in the name of “the higher purpose”.
Some things are more important than victory, and some things are worse than death.
Questions which can be raised at this point include:
–What should have been the appropriate target:collateral kill:families-deeply-pissed-off ratio? –Shouldn’t the ratio be: target:collateral kill:families-deeply-pissed-off:American-families-who-would-be-deeply-pissed-off-if-the attack-didn’t-take-place-or-took-place-using-a-method-which-caused-US-casualties
Considering these and other variables/constraints, I think that the attack was a success…others will disagree
You think it’s a success only because it didn’t take place on U.S. soil. If this were a hostage situation in the U.S., and all were killed– 4 hostage-takers and 18 hostages– you’d think the authorities screwed up as bad as the Russians.
“You think it’s a success only because it didn’t take place on U.S. soil. If this were a hostage situation in the U.S., and all were killed– 4 hostage-takers and 18 hostages– you’d think the authorities screwed up as bad as the Russians”
I would have to agree…other variables/constraints do include location; the further away from me, the more successful I would think it is 🙂 …is that such a bad thing?
What’s your personal exchange rate from dead innocent Americans to dead innocent Pakistanis? A three-fifths compromise?
“…A three-fifths compromise?”
Trying the race card now?…I’ll raise you:
Putting the ugly racism of the 3/5 compromise aside, the 3/5 compromise states that the life of a free men is worth more than an unfree man’s, and, in the context of a war, I would have to agree. So yes, in a war, if I had to make the choice of ending the life of a civilian member of a free country as opposed to a civilian member in, let’s say, a enemy dictatorship, I would choose to end the life of the latter. Your turn now: Is location not a variable in your equation? Where would you rather have the war fought? South Dakota? What’s your exchange rate?
if I had to make the choice of ending the life of a civilian member of a free country as opposed to a civilian member in, let’s say, a enemy dictatorship, I would choose to end the life of the latter
Why is that?
Lets see:
-Civilians in a dictatorship often, unfortunately, are more likely to be a tool/instrument of the regime, and in the case of an enemy dictatorship, that’s bad –Unfortunate as it may be to end the life of an innocent civilian, the responsibility ultimately lies with the government whose role was to protect him; sadly, un-free goverments often don’t take that responsibility –Also, though we are assuming innocent civilians in this case, the innocence of a civilian is more difficult to confirm/assume in an enemy government
Do you know any reasons why civilians of an enemy government should be given higher priority than your fellow citizens in a war, how that war could be won, and actually, why that war should even be fought in the first place? I’m curious.
It’s not exactly the most idealistic philosophy to aspire to. Let me flip this around:
“A believer’s life is worth more than an infidel’s.”
“An able-bodied person’s life is worth more than the life of someone mentally and/or physically handicapped.”
“A rich, powerful man’s life is worth more than the life of a poor man.”
You get the idea. We do not want to go down this particular way of thinking. Nobody’s life is worth more than another’s, no matter what, and regardless of how one may attempt to rationalise or justify it.
Which is exactly why one should not attempt to shirk one’s own responsibility and say “it’s their government’s fault”. Innocent people should not have to pay the price for the actions/ideologies of their corrupt and/or tyrannical rulers.
Not higher priority — equal priority. Why ? Simple — the fundamental unity of the entire human race and the fundamental value each human life has, regardless of their location and status in the world.
-Superb strategic & tactical military planning & execution -Charismatic, brilliant, ethical, and inspirational leadership -Choose the right people to do the job -Use only ethical tactics: fight the right battle for the right reasons, with the right people and using the right methods -Do not attack civilians, do not torture or abuse prisoners, do not rape or mistreat women, do not engage in the concept of “group guilt/collective responsibility”, use the minimum required force in each situation (no more, no less), and do not be driven by hatred, arrogance, vengeance, or anger.
-Only in self-defence or to protect a vulnerable, innocent third-party from unwarranted aggression. -Not to gain territory, resources, or wealth. -And certainly not for “believer vs. infidel/heathen” reasons, especially if you think that killing members of other religions is somehow going to win you “bonus points” for getting into heaven.