Misguided Views on Precision Guided Missles

The world's view of "precision weapons" has become so unrealistic that it has created a stunningly perverse consensus of how combat may be carried out during a war. This is especially true among the media, to whom the U.S. sold the idea of "precision" during the first Gulf War. The Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is a perfect example of this perversity.

The Israelis have precision guided weapons. Therefore, if they kill civilians the media immediately questions how they could do such a thing. Since the weapons are "precision" the media now believes that precison weapons should never miss a military target and hit civilians.

Conversely, and perversely, Hezbollah has unguided Katyusha rockets that they shoot off into Israel without any regard to where they fall or how many innocent civilians are killed. The media does not hold Hezbollah to any standard at all for killing innocent civilians, since Hezbollah doesn't have "precision" weapons.

This leads to the stunning and appalling conclusion that, in the age of televised war, you may be better off without precision guided weapons. Then, like Hezbollah, you can launch unguided missles all over an adversary's territory and never have to answer for the wanton and purposeful killing of innocent civilians.

It is logic turned upside down.