01-26-2005, 05:20 AM
"But you don't hide in a corner, paralyzed with fear, because something might go wrong today. You go forth and do your darnedest to get it right. "
For a fireman, I'm sure that makes a lot of sense. Sure, you get things wrong, and people might die. That's why you try your best, you train hard, you lobby for the best equipment. The people were doomed anyway if you didn't try. You are necessary.
But a pilot is not a fireman. Their job is to kill people, and to do so in a way that is known to kill lots of people you didn't intend to, even given extreme skill and the most sophisticated weaponry.
What I'm wondering is how people get this conviction that what they're doing is "right", not only in the sense that it is towards some nebulously moral objective, but is worth the known problems of killing and maiming people who didn't have very much at all to do with the war. I can understand how one might think fighting on the ground is worthwhile, where you're unlikely to kill too many things that you didn't intend to. But air warfare is much worse for civilian casualties. That's even discounting terror bombing, which I wonder how anyone at all manages.
Jester
For a fireman, I'm sure that makes a lot of sense. Sure, you get things wrong, and people might die. That's why you try your best, you train hard, you lobby for the best equipment. The people were doomed anyway if you didn't try. You are necessary.
But a pilot is not a fireman. Their job is to kill people, and to do so in a way that is known to kill lots of people you didn't intend to, even given extreme skill and the most sophisticated weaponry.
What I'm wondering is how people get this conviction that what they're doing is "right", not only in the sense that it is towards some nebulously moral objective, but is worth the known problems of killing and maiming people who didn't have very much at all to do with the war. I can understand how one might think fighting on the ground is worthwhile, where you're unlikely to kill too many things that you didn't intend to. But air warfare is much worse for civilian casualties. That's even discounting terror bombing, which I wonder how anyone at all manages.
Jester