Targeting Snipers

Butler Shaffer
lewrockwell.com
February 6, 2013

When I was a child – during World War II – enemy soldiers who functioned as snipers were looked upon as particularly loathsome beings.  When American soldiers now engage in this practice, the super-patriots eagerly pronounce them “heroes,” and roundly condemn those who criticize such killings.  Those on the receiving end of such flag-waving condemnation should recall the words of John Battista: “flak means you are over the target.”  The words of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., should also be kept in mind, particularly at a time when so many soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress, leading some twenty-two per day to commit suicide: “am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East?  Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.”

This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 12:34 pm

Tags: war

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