Ethics and Selective Warfare: notes

The opening of the pre-emptive war with Iraq through the use of cruise missiles is a kind of warfare which I term "selective warfare".  The Polish response to Nazi and Soviet invasions was not selective in the sense which I intend - it my be termed "responsive warfare" in response to all-out attack, invasion, as opposed to sniping, border incursions, diplomatic insults and the like.  Slaughter by Nazi and Soviet forces and the doctrines animating both (Poles as "sub-humans" and Poles as "can never be trusted", respectively) bore out the need to defend the Polish people and their newly restored nation at almost all costs.

Iraq.  The direct victims of the Septenber 11 attacks on US soil number some 3000+ if one includes consideration of the health harm done to various rescuers and others during the attack and in the aftermath.  Some estimates of civilian casualties in the Iraq war place the number near 100,000 by early 2010.  If it is shown that the porous Iraq border with Syria and Saudi Arabia would allow the US to "bring the war on terror" to Iraq in a way in which sheer physical barriers had prevented a wide influx to Afghanistan (15 of the 19 attackers were from Saudi Arabia and none from a country neighboring Afghanistan), then it might be argued that a war against the Kufar had been brought onto Arab soil without justification.

If the majority of the attackers had been Iranian and their leader Persian, the war would have been fought on Iranian soil - and perhaps with UN-backing.  If the majority of the attackers had been Pakistani, then it would be reasonable to think that US forces would be today trying to establish democracy in the tribal lands of Pakistan.  But the majority were Saudi.