Here is Jordanian fighter pilot First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, burned to death by the Islamic State:
Attractive First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh and his sleek flying machine were in the business of burning someone in Syria when he was captured.
War immolates the just and the unjust. Immolation is deplorable. So are
twisting of limbs 'til sinews give way,
gouging out eyes,
driving human folks mad,
scouring living flesh from living bones,
boiling brains in liing skulls,
and all the uses of warfare we have so brilliantly invented and use with all the vigor at our command, and have done since we became capable of killing at a distance.
I do not chronicle the injuries to the many other creatures animal and vegetable we stunt and burn with our wars, nor to the environment, unforgiving even if we are.
We must include the "collateral" harms resulting from drone strikes, plentiful in the Islamic State. See, e.g., The Murder of Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi, 16, by Drone
We may argue that our mutilation and death of The Other are necessary to preserve -- something, I know not what. We and They have made that same argument since Time Began. Do you think we kill to preserve The Way of Life practiced in the United Arab Republic, the Kingdom of the Saudi?
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne (1572 – 1631) makes more sense now I am 81 than he did even when I was 21.
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