it occurs to me that the whole "precision weaponry" myth is a double-edged sword. others have pointed out that precision weapons are hardly as accurate as they are presented to be. it's not at all clear that the use of laser guided missiles actually results in the deaths of fewer innocents. it may even increase the number of innocent death count because precision weapons are used more readily in places where lots of non-combatants are about.
the main advantage of precision weaponry is not their actual precision, it's the fact that you get to say you're being precise. the u.s. can shock and awe the hell out of baghdad without answering difficult questions about what happens to civilians who happen to live in the blasted city. so long as you have precision doo-hickies and dongles installed on your bombs and say you're only targeting bad people, then anyone who is blasted must be bad. Q.E.D.
the idea of precision weaponry has allowed belligerents to avoid limiting their military options to prevent civilian casualties. but that can cut both ways. if someone using precision weaponry hits a civilian target, it looks like they did it on purpose.
for the past two weeks israel has been bragging about its precision weaponry. that has given the israelis cover to heavily bomb a strip of land that is about the same size of detroit, but crammed with twice as many civilians. when this is over, i expect that israel's precision bombs will turn out to be about as precise as american bombs, not very if you're firing into a dense urban area. but for now, with the IDF effectively barring independent reporting from the territory (in violation of an israeli supreme court order), the world media has basically swallowed the precision weaponry line. but by that logic, the bombing of a clearly marked UN school looks even worse.
