Iraq checkpoint priorities
Cori Dauber at Ranting Profs makes a very good point about those who are criticizing US military policy on checkpoints in Iraq:
the real heart of the matter is that the troops have clearly been told to act as if any vehicle that fails to slow down after a certain number of warnings is hostile. That's where they place presumption: the risk of letting through a suicide bomber is greater than the risk of fatally shooting civilians.
And that's what's really upsetting the critics. They want presumption placed the other way. They want the troops to act as if the risk of shooting civilians, fatally or not, is a greater risk than letting through a suicide bomber or a drive-by shooter.
The dispute is absolutely that simple.
Presumption is all about what risk you believe is greater. (In the American criminal justice system, we've decided that the risk of locking up an innocent man is greater than the risk of freeing a guilty one, for example.) The military has decided which risk matters more, and the critics aren't happy with that choice.
You can be sure, by the way, that if the military flipped and put presumption the other way, the press would be all over them for that choice, too.
posted by Stan at 2:34 PM
2 Comments:
Sorry to disagree. If the priorities are flipped, the outcome will be more dead American soldiers, more dead Iraqi civilians and not a peep about the humanity of the dead, but new excuses to loudly proclaim we are failing in Iraq.
shrinkwrapped,
I think you might be right. I included the whole quote because it was worthwhile. We don't always agree 100% with every part of a quote.
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