BTW, Matt, I hadn’t gotten around to reading this post until now! Wonderful! This is EXACTLY what Michael and I talk day in and day out: the incredible inconsistency of Novak and company.

Thanks for bringing our attention to the NPR story. Did you get the gentleman’s name? I’d like to learn more.

I agree. Too bad she’s not the host. I don’t like gladiator news. When Joe is down in Florida the program is much better with her at the helm.

I might throw something together on public diplomacy. People-to-people relations are needed to build a new foundation for international politics. Right now, our policies have to contend with the hatred and enmity of populations. Given that predicament, even the best policies would have trouble succeeding.

Maybe just something on Zbigniew Brzezinski?

I have been reading through the Choice and Second Chance in my spare time and find him so prudent, realistic and yet powerfully affirmative of our spiritual potential.

And anyone who raised someone as delightful and sharp as Mika deserves our admiration…!!

I give some thought to what I can do along the lines you suggest. It’s such a huge topic to bring down to a few hundred words.

I’ve had the highest regard for Zbigniew Brzezinski for nearly four decades. Being Polish, he has developed a view of international politics that is rooted in a deep appreciation of the human spirit. His perspective is not limited to a military/economic framework such as one finds with Kissinger and others of the realist school. Brzezinski’s realism reaches deep into cultures, nationalities, languages, histories, and the spiritual depths of the human person which underpins and ultimately determines human behavior.

Dang. Well said.

Matthew, good call on the Michael Baxter quote. I love that interview. Wish he’d publish a damn book already!

I agree with everything said in your last post. That weapons are more discriminate does not mean they won’t kill innocent civilians. We shouldn’t become so coarsened that the loss of more than, for instance, 10 human lives (or whatever number is “acceptable”) is considered trifling. Rather, the knowledge that even precise weapons can kill innocents should make us that more reluctant to resort to war. However, as long as the latter remains a possibility, I believe that those who participate in armed conflict and those who produce and distribute arms, should be moral individuals who value the dignity of human life and want to limit harm to it.

“That said, however much I may disagree with Novak et al., they seem correct in pointing out that, generally speaking, weapons have in fact become more discriminate since the Second World War (a war which Benedict seems to think had just cause) and that they have the capacity to become even more discriminate.”

A B-2 bomber can drop a smart bomb from a distance of 20, 30, or more miles and hit its target within a radius of ten feet. That’s pretty accurate.

But, a two thousand pound bomb is still a two thousand bomb, no matter how accurate or smart it is. Such a bomb has a wide radius of destruction. It is indiscriminate in its slaughter. What pilot flying at 50,000 feet knows how many innocent people are in and around any given target? Does intelligence know? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s a judgment call. And then, what are 20, 50, or 200 lives worth when a high value target is in a bomber’s sights?

Four thousand Americans have lost their lives in Iraq. This we know. But how many Iraqis have been killed since the first hours of Shock and Awe? The estimates range from a few to many — from 40,000, let’s say, to 650,000. No one knows for sure. Part of the problem in getting an accurate count is that under wartime it is not in the US interest to have such figures made public. Then, there are are other problems, including those of a methodological nature.

But, apart from US dead, we know there have been over 95,000 Americans soldiers who have been seriously injured, maimed, or otherwise brutalized, physically and psychologically. These people are still alive and being treated. We know these numbers accurately. We also know vaguely and in the abstract that their families and friends will never be the same. Even then, we really haven’t a clue as to how they have been damaged in the concrete. Those who work closely with them know more. The stories they relate are filled with anguish and despair. But even they, or members of a wounded soldiers immediate family members, do not know what is going on inside — in an afflicted person’s spiritual interiority.

All this carnage to dispose a dictator!!!

Yes, weapons are more accurate. Yes, we do not have to destroy huge chunks of cities to knock out a ball bearing factory. But does that mean the toll is any less to those who are impacted? I hardly think so. To reduce the dignity of the human person to a function of numbers simply doesn’t wash. How can we tell them they did not sacrifice in vain?

So, from my perspective, there is something fundamentally coarse about Novak’s statement that weapons are more and more discriminate. The closer one gets to the scene the more callous his statement truth becomes.

I think we should pause before we go down the road laid out by Novak’s argument. For there is a great danger that we will simply acquiesce to a coarsening of human life. When that happens we will discover that this entire nation will have become a victim to its spiritual indifference. This is all the more true when there exists alternative strategies that could have accomplished the desired end without having to resort to war.

Contrary to “drillbit”, I do not believe we can know the contents of Michael Novak’s heart – rather, all the evidence points to him being an honest seeker of truth, and if you guys could really show that he was wrong I’m sure he would change his mind.

But I guess if you can’t do that insulting him is the mature thing to do.