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Posted 23 March 2003  

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During the war in the Afghan landscape I came to the idea of some kind of 'bookkeeping' towards civilian losses because of (direct) war assaults. And because I did oppose the war in the Afghan landscape very much it was even a 10 to 1 kind of bookkeeping. This means that each and every dead Afghan body could be retaliated 10 times.
So not 'eye for an eye' but ten (pairs of) eyes for one (pair of) eyes.

Since some thousand Afghani's did die in potential there is a lot of 'retaliation space' and the size of such a retaliation even scared me. In the summer of 2002 I opened this 'moral equation' for a period of 100 days, the Washington sniper wanted to stop his attacks on the last day of the equation (but he failed into contacting the authorities and therefore proceeded afterwards). Also a few days after the equation was closed the Bali bombing was observed. 
To be honest, I was a bit relieved that Bali was just 200 people dead and that it was just outside the equation period. Read more on these into the timeline (see index)

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So far the history; now we have the present war in Iraq against the Iraqi regime and my hands are more or less bounded because I made a promise to the Americans. I promised on 17 July 2002 that I would not write 'against them' in case they started a war against Iraq. 
We simply observe the events unfolding after 17 July and we can conclude that the American government and the American army is really doing its best to prevent civil losses. 

I have to thank the Americans for this but since it is one of my goals to change the face of modern warfare (yes I know this sounds very megalomanic and who the hell am I anyway to succeed in such a thing) I open the Moral Equation towards Iraqi civil losses too.
This time on a 1 to 1 scale (the simple 'eye for an eye' retaliation). And again I have to say it; 'So far it looks as if things go relatively fine'.

Long term perspective of the Moral Equation:
Truly I do hope that in the long run this sure will change the way of modern warfare and I hope that I will observe fundamental changes during my lifetime. On this place I will not spell out my favorite ways of making war, I told that often enough (two small armies of 500 soldiers each and both armies the same kind of weapons and every thing broadcasted, everything...).

Back to reality: If the report of 50 dead civilians of correct I just have to reopen the Moral Equation right now, bring in mind we have the concept of 'instant retaliation' in this particular war and if the retaliation fails the number of dead civilians will glide into the 'bookkeeping part' of the Moral Equation. So if the retaliation fails it can be 'spared up' towards future attacks.

Remark 1) With 'reopening' I mean only the bookkeeping part of it and only when the instant retaliation fails the bookkeeping needs to be done.
Remark 2) I am not sitting here with some booklet to denote this bookkeeping, that is not my role since I am not involved into planning real attacks or so. Others have to do this bookkeeping and sometimes I refer to those others as some part of the 'Backbone of humanity'.

Moral aspects of the Moral Equation:

I can understand people who get mad at me by telling the argument; Civil losses during wartime are always accidental and not done on purpose while terrorist attacks are not accidental and are done on purpose against civilians.
This is a strong argument even a very strong one. But the Moral Equation is also meant as some deterrent and it is also meant to keep civil losses as low as possible. And to be honest, a deterrent only works when it is pure hell and there is no 'morality' in pure hell.
So I can understand you hate me but what else can cage the beast called modern warfare?

Title to this AxeArt: What else can cage the beast called Modern Warfare? 

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