“Humanitarian Impulses” and the Bombing of Afghanistan

Published online at Znet (www.zmag.org) in October, 2001

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Columnist George Melloan called the current bombing campaign over Afghanistan a “humane war” in which “the US is subjecting targets…to bomb and missile attack while at the same time dropping food and medicine.” This combination “reflects the humanitarian impulses that so often guide the Western democracies.”(1) Judged in terms of the consequences of its policies, the impulses that guide the US government can hardly be considered …