My sis' neighbor sent me this link to an AC130 gunship targeting video. He also sent it to my sister, Sherry and her husband, Ryan, suggesting that Sherry not watch it because there are actual people dying. Gotcha interested don't I? I enjoyed it myself. Anyway, here is Ryan's response to my sis' neighbor.
The fact that this is real vs. fictional action video does not change my emotional response. These people (Al Queda) actively participate in the murder of civilians. They promise death to all of us and even to those of their own people who do not adhere to their fanatical beliefs and behavior requirements. Not only do they peddle death against unarmed innocents, they deliberately do so without discrimination and without warning.
We chose our targets specifically to eliminate such threats and with intent to avoid the killing of innocents to the extent possible.
In my 60 years, I have learned above all else that life, human, animal, or even plant, is to be respected and valued. Your own experience probably confirms that view. There is never a time when wantonness, greed, or any of humanity's petty and antisocial justifications can justify the taking of life. I have seen death at a distance and I have seen it close at hand. It is always ugly and always chilling, because it reminds us of our own vulnerability and our own mortality. I have learned, too, that there are those who do not respect life and are perfectly willing to sacrifice yours, mine, and any others that are perceived as obstacles to their destructive impulses.
When I can protect myself from such people without killing, I will be perfectly willing to consider passive defense. When the threat persists, I will shoot and do so without compunction, because I consider it essential to my security and, ultimately, my survival. I view our actions in Afganistan as a survival issue as well. I believe we have established with certainty that our willingness to disable and destroy the organized fanatics who have proven their murderous intent toward those of us who respect life is the only means we have of stopping them; of ensuring our own security and our own survival.
No, I have no ambivalent feelings about this video.
For me, the true cause of ambivalence, in this scenario, is not whether there was real violence and death. It is rather the potential for such sophisticated technology to be acquired and employed by the "no respect for life" crowd. Or for us, knowing we are the "respect for life good guys", to wield our killing power out of a sense of moral arrogance instead of from the recognition of defensive necessity.
Therein, perhaps, lies the best justification for individual gun ownership, including individual access to weaponry, even automatic weapons, that most of us consider unnecessary under the normal purview of personal protection and security. It is not that those of us who respect life wish to destroy others. It is simply that we must ensure that those who would threaten our lives, whether from moral lack or from moral arrogance, know that the price of our destruction will be too high.
To do so, we must have the individual means to effect that destruction and the will to implement it. Having the means to destroy may serve as a deterrent to would be aggressors. Having the will to destroy may mean survival against the aggressor who will not be deterred. I subscribe, with no ambivalence, to the philosophy that individually or collectively, we must protect against deadly aggression by whatever means necessary. With respect to the very real video of the airborne attack on an Al Qaeda stronghold, I am convinced the destructive action shown is necessary. The only real risk is that too many of us may view this as "just another video"; that we will forget we are really killing humans and that we may fail to question why we must sometimes do so.
Perhaps when we see fictional video involving violence and destruction of life, and dismiss it as simply fiction, we have already begun to lose some of our respect for life. That may be cause for concern.
So Ryan, when are you starting your own blog?