Expendable lives

That such a calculus is inhuman, despicable and worthy of condemnation is passionately proclaimed when the protagonists and their actions are somewhere far away. But people are squeamish and strangely reluctant to engage with the phenomenon with the same objectivity when it occurs closer to home. The question to be asked is the following: are we so morally superior that we would never contemplate something so inhuman? A lot of evidence would have to be denied to sustain that belief.

- BY ANJUM ALTAF

We have always known that some human lives are expendable for causes that are deemed 'important' by others.

These are lives of people who have not signed up to participate in conflicts; most of the time, they have not even been consulted about the causes in which their lives have been deemed expendable. Those with long enough memories will recall Madeleine Albright's matter-of-fact assertion that US policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children. Others will remember Zbigniew Brzezinski's casual disregard for sacrificing some “stirred up Muslims” in order to defeat the Soviet Union. Both these individuals were highly ranked representatives of the American state.