The Belmont Club: Hoist With One's Own Petard

The Belmont Club: Hoist With One's Own Petard: "The advent of precision munitions created the public expectation that in future American wars, all targeting would be perfect. The press would be there to film every errant missile, bomb or shell. Ironically, the very existence of precision weapons implied to the Press, that all observed hits on nonmilitary targets were therefore deliberate. War Crimes. The possibility of error, even in an era of precision weapons, was not accepted. Ironically, the moral justification shifted from the precision bomber to the area bomber. Terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, lacking sophisticated weapons, were now forgiven, even romanticized by the press for firing on civilian targets. 'What other weapon do poor men have?', they rhetorically asked, as if organizations funded by petro-dollars were somehow indigent, and men, having nothing to eat somehow found the spare change to buy billions in antiship missiles, drones, explosives and rockets. Nongovernment entitites with powers exceeding nations now attack women and children and we sing them sweetly on."