It's the result of the breakthrough in military technology, which has given the US the capacity to wage war from safe distances at much less cost in blood and treasure to itself. The new high-tech weaponry thus serves as an an incentive to launch wars for reasons other than self-defence, the only permissible grounds for doing so, and to bypass pitched battles with opposing armed forces to strike directly at power grids, water filtration plants, and other infrastructure in a bid to break the will of the civilian population and provoke internal uprisings.
This development, which first manifested itself in the Gulf War and Kosovo, has since led the Pentagon, encouraged by Donald Rumsfeld, to re-evaluate the conventions of war prohibiting the direct or indirect targeting of civilians, as well as the use of nuclear and other banned weapons against enemy troops.
You can access the LRB site directly (I think it's a non-sub article), or read it on www.supportingfacts.com . Sorry for any cross-posting.
Marv Gandall -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20030220/622ec962/attachment.htm>