People dead by the score. Innocent men, women and children killed. Civilian buildings targeted. Acts of terror from the sky. Heartless barbarians unremorseful of the destruction on their foes.

But enough about Sept. 11, let’s talk about Afghanistan and the air war we are waging. In response to Andrew Banyai’s column (“End bombing of innocent Afghan people,” SN 10/16), I feel it is necessary to clear up an apparent misconception of exactly what we are targeting in Afghanistan.

His column made it sound as if we were intentionally killing civilians for no apparent purpose, which is quite possibly the most asinine thing I have read in a long time. It is unfortunate civilians are killed, but we are taking steps to make sure that noncombatant casualties are minimized.

If the claimed success rate of 85 percent is accurate, it would be an accomplishment. Our technology is impressive, but some of our weapons will miss their targets, and if those targets are in urban areas civilians will most likely die.

As for the use of special forces, perhaps Banyai would like to be the first to land in Kabul? Perhaps he thinks fewer people would die if we merely sent in a few helicopters to land a few dozen Rangers in the middle of a very large, very angry population? There is a large difference between air supremacy when you’re moving at 500 knots in a fighter at 15,000 feet and 180 mph in a helicopter at 2,000 (remember the helicopters we lost in Somalia were destroyed by handheld weapons).

As soon as possible, the air war should stop, that is obvious. Killing civilians in bombing raids generally serves to strengthen our enemy’s resolve (as demonstrated in Germany and Japan during World War II). The decision on when that time has come, however, is best left to our armed forces, not to political theory students.

Jonathan Duczkowski
zoology senior