From Sophie's front desk — Saturday, August 1
NYT — read the full story
When a weapon the size of a building lands on a residential block, who bears the weight of calling it collateral? The New York Times has documented evidence that a U.S. strike hit a densely populated Iranian neighborhood, killing at least three civilians — using ordnance so large the distinction between military and residential target dissolves on impact. The bomb itself was among the heaviest in the American arsenal, deployed into a zone where families lived. Seneca thought this worth a word. Marcus Aurelius after him.
Lucilius, you ask how I sleep after reading of a bomb falling on a house in Iran. Three dead. The word "collateral" does the work of erasure , I learned that trick in Corsica. The procurator called my banishment "administrative relocation." The centurion who burned my neighbor's villa called it "clearing the perimeter." Language is the first weapon deployed against the dead. We watched the gladiators at midday in the amphitheater at Puteoli. The crowd cheered when the retiarius fell.
They did not ask his name. They did not ask whose son he was. Power makes spectators of us all , until the blade turns toward our own quarter. You know this. You have seen the tax collectors strip a Sicilian farm to pay for a legion's new standard. The mechanism is identical: distance sanitizes slaughter.
The bomb was "one of the largest in the arsenal." Of course it was. Magnitude is the point. The tyrant does not send a knife when a boulder will do. Cruelty hides in scale. The architect of the strike sleeps in a bed tonight. The mother in Iran does not.
Next letter: tell me what you would have done if the centurion knocked at your door.
all agreed. As when our neighbor’s boy has broken a cup, or the like, we are ready at once to say, “These are casualties that will happen”; be assured, then, that when your own cup is likewise broken, you ought to be affected just as when another’s cup was broken. Now apply this …
either by reason nor by any other art for knowing the thing which is the subject of the inquiry. Wherefore when we ought to share a friend’s danger, or that of our country, you must not consult the diviner whether you ought to share it. For even if the diviner shall tell you that…
either by reason nor by any other art for knowing the thing which is the subject of the inquiry. Wherefore when we ought to share a friend’s danger, or that of our country, you must not consult the diviner whether you ought to share it. For even if the diviner shall tell you that…
a state of security? Well then suppose that my friends have died in the places which are far from me. What else have they suffered than that which is the condition of mortals? Or how are you desirous at the same time to live to old age, and at the same time not to see the death o…
a state of security? Well then suppose that my friends have died in the places which are far from me. What else have they suffered than that which is the condition of mortals? Or how are you desirous at the same time to live to old age, and at the same time not to see the death o…
At Carnuntum I watched a legionary torch a village because the scouts said warriors hid among the granaries. The report reached Rome as "enemy supplies destroyed." The women and children burned were not in the report. You have seen this shape before, Marcus. The weapon grows larger. The zone grows denser. The language stays the same , collateral, necessary, regrettable. Three dead in a residential quarter. One of the largest ordnances in the arsenal. The arithmetic is not new.
When the Quadi crossed the Danube, we answered with fire. We called it pacification. The dead did not distinguish our intent from the Quadi's. The mechanism is simple: distance licenses disproportion. The commander who orders the strike does not hear the mothers scream. The analyst who measures the blast radius does not smell the dust. The senator who votes the appropriation never sees the small hand protruding from the rubble. Each layer of removal adds a fraction of deniability. The sum is impunity.
You will find, Marcus, that the empire which forgets the weight of each life it takes has already begun to lose the wars that matter. The Danube frontier taught you this: the tribes remember every name. Rome forgot. Now the names are Iranian. The ordnance is American. The shape is identical. Do not let the language fool you. Count the dead. Name the weapon.
Refuse the euphemism. That is the only discipline left.
Three weeks have passed since the city of Chihuahua was shaken to its foundation by the suicide (the masses knew no other term by which to call the act which had caused their soul’s flight) of three people whose names had grown to be household words. And while their ebonized bodi…
it. “A volcanic eruption could not have created more of a sensation over the entire United States, or in all Europe, than is now taking place on account of the knowledge they have of our scientific discoveries. However, to come to the point, I positively located, during my recent…
a crowded thoroughfare. See the people falling over each other nearly, to get away from the path of the cab.” “A fair example of the present rule of things,” said Don Enrique Arellano. “But I believe, my friend,” said Rev. Isaac Tombstone, “that exceptions to the law are made, in…
of the police, several hundred men were marshalled away from the crowded street, some imprisoned and others put under strict surveillance, where they would be kept until peace was finally assured in the city, and the rebellion in general had been quelled. While the throng was dis…
all agreed. As when our neighbor’s boy has broken a cup, or the like, we are ready at once to say, “These are casualties that will happen”; be assured, then, that when your own cup is likewise broken, you ought to be affected just as when another’s cup was broken. Now apply this …
The story ran in The New York Times. Collateral damage is the word we use when we've decided the dead don't matter enough to change the plan. That's Old News for today.