Sr. Joan's Appeal to Emotion

Sr. Joan's NCR essay seemed more like an emotional anti-American (or at least anti-government) diatribe than a reasoned argument against the war.   Just as the pro fetal stem cell research crowd used Christopher Reeve and Mary Tyler More as a ploy to appeal to the emotions of Americans, Sr. Joan uses the horrible tragedy of one 12 year old Iraqi girl and her family to suggest that the United States views the children of Iraq as our enemy and defines bravery in this war and this century as the courage to kill children and their civilian parents:  "We are killing children.  The children are our enemy.  And we are defeating them."  "My government has the courage to kill children and their parents.  And I'm supposed to be impressed." 

Couldn't this same picture be painted in any war?  I am sure that similar tragedies occurred in the revolutionary war, the Civil War, and our war against Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II.  In short, Sr. Joan's essay might be an expose on the horrors of war or may be a partial argument in favor of pacifism, but it is not an argument against this war or even how this war is being waged. 

Sister Joan does cite United Nation's statistics suggesting that the number of civilian causalities in war have risen from 15% in WWI to 65% in WWII to 75% in the mid-90's.  Several questions and one observation arise from her use of these statistics.  First, the observation - these statistics don't tell us anything about United States' inflicted civilian causalities in the Iraqi conflict since that conflict post-dates the statistics.  Second, are these figures accurate?  Third, are these worldwide statistics and do they include conflicts in which there is no U.S. presence?  Fourth, do they include causalities inflicted only by Americans or by all combatants and non-combatant aggressors?  Fifth, has the nature of fighting (at least by technologically advanced countrys) changed to reduce civilian causalities (i.e., guided precision bombs v. carpet bombing)?  Sixth, has the nature of fighting changed to increase the potential for civilian causalities (i.e., the use of woman, children, and un-uniformed personnel as aggressors)?  Seventh, does the United States do better or worse than other nations in limiting civilian causalities?

In the end, Sr. Joan's essay denigrates the acts of bravery and courage of soldiers who are being asked to put their lives on the line in the hope that Iraqis will be able to obtain political liberty. 

We can argue about whether it was prudent or just to enter into this war and we can argue about the structure and speed of an exit strategy, but these issues and the consequences of the choices made are too serious for blatant play for emotion and visceral reaction.

Michael