{"id":29934,"date":"2022-10-17T11:19:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T15:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=29934"},"modified":"2022-10-17T11:21:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T15:21:58","slug":"the-atrocious-ethics-of-faucis-lockdown-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2022\/10\/17\/the-atrocious-ethics-of-faucis-lockdown-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"The Atrocious Ethics of Fauci’s Lockdown Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On February 7, 1968, after American military forces rained rockets, napalm, and bombs on the village of Ben Tre in South Vietnam, killing hundreds of civilians, Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett quoted a military officer\u2019s justification of the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became necessary to destroy the town to save it,\u201d a US major was quoted<\/a> as saying.<\/p>\n

Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who\u2019d go on to become one of the last western journalists in Saigon until its capture in 1975, never revealed the source of the quote, which some US officials doubted was authentic. Nevertheless, the quote\u2014which eventually morphed into the pithier “We had to destroy the village in order to save it\u201d\u2014became a symbol of an absurd military strategy in a failed war.<\/p>\n

While the reasoning is absurd\u2014destroying a town is no way to save it\u2014the ethics that underpin the quote are surprisingly common and convey a simple and popular idea: a wrong, evil, or unjust action can be morally justifiable because it ultimately brings about a greater good.<\/p>\n