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blue bits. red rocks.
Tuesday 19 May 2009

What I am telling you is that there is a tremendously influential force at play in the world today which is determined to see to it that artillery and aerial bombs will follow the land mine down the endangered species path already trod by gas warfare. It appears that those who propose to use “distant punishment” as national policy will soon see the day when they are considered as immoral international criminals, little different from Saddam Hussein. We cannot escape the fact that, whether we like it or not, in the eyes of an increasingly large and influential body of individuals in this post-Cold War era, those who advocate distant punishment are really asking for license to kill civilians, and tax dollars to do it with. American GIs, as combatants or peacekeepers, in the streets of a foreign nation have always been our best ambassadors, and American bombers dropping impersonal death and destruction from overhead have always been our worst. To have a national policy that relies excessively on distant punishment is to put our very worst foot forward. Dave Grossman

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