Frostire,
Quote:
“Islamic life is like a ladder, with prayer and praising Allah as the bottom rung. The higher rungs represent helping the poor and needy, establishing schools, and supporting charities. The highest rung is jihad.”
Mosab Yousef, Son of Hamas
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When it comes to the conduct of war (and this is war), I am not too nuanced when things get to this point. Given the ladder analogy (a good analogy BTW),
destroy the ladder! We can provide nuance after the fact.
Yes, there will be collateral damage. That's why war is hell. There is also an element of personal choice from those on the bottom rung - they are supporting those on the top rung and therefore the enemy.
This is a binary, there are no degrees of goodness or badness. You are either part of the enemy or you are not. There is no middle ground. Now having defined the enemy, it is only up to us and our allies to prosecute an end to the war as quickly as possible. That is the moral and humane thing to do.
BTW, that is the same line of reasoning that lead to the justification for dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the moral thing to do and it saved hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of lives from further suffering. This enemy has made its intentions very clear and they will not stop. The time has come to put and absolute end to this evil!
And let me say that an air campaign comprised of drone strikes and half a dozen sorties a day is just piddling around and only prolongs the suffering of all concerned.
Like we did in Europe and Japan after WWII - rebuild after total absolute destruction of the enemy's infrastructure. Do this as quickly and completely as possible.