How to Sanctify Mass Murder

Tweet Upon reading the U.S. had bombed in Iraqi primary school, Lenin's Tomb explains (portion below--click on link to read whole article):

"The racism of this ideology couldn't be clearer: only Americans are entitled to self-defense (and even, tacitly, a great deal of vengeful excess) if their citizens, territory or even claimed interests are attacked. Everyone else has to suck it up. And of course, the military supremacy comes with an added dimension of ideological supremacism. The very fact that military aggression is presented as, variously, emergency management, democratisation and security - all tapping into universalist claims with axiomatic appeal among the target audience (the population of the warmaking states), means that any opponent is automatically disqualified from the normal range of human consideration because by simple virtue of resisting, They're Opposed To Democracy. And if they're opposed to that, ironically enough, they are not entitled to self-determination (catch 22: if they're not opposed to it, then they aren't entitled to self-determination either, because the United States claims to be delivering democracy).

"I raise all this as the White House predicts without the slightest hint of shame, that it's coming wave of attacks in Iraq will produce massive casualties. Tony Snow, the spokesperson, explains that in a bid to crush the resistance, they are going to press into the "tougher neighbourhoods". He says, as if to disarm critics, that: "We've known that, been saying it all along. We're getting into some of the grittiest security operations". It doesn't need saying, because it goes without saying, that massive organised carnage and the hacking and tearing and burning of individuals to death through long-range weaponry, is legitimate if directed principally against armed opponents of the occupation. At worst it is too risky, or bad for American troops, or making a crisis worse, perpetuating an unwinnable war, but the basic legitimacy of such choices is never challenged. Similarly, the US apologises for civilian murders in Afghanistan, after considerable reluctance to accept responsibility it has to be said, but does so in a way that clearly places the larger part of the blame on 'Taliban' while reducing their repeated (usually disavowed or concealed) massacres to a series of unfortunate accidents.