Bombs Make No Moral Distinction Where They Fall

Robert Fisk was in Mannheim for its annual film festival, when he observed "Armadillo", a documentary on a Danish NATO unit in Afghanistan. On the screen, there were real bullets whizzing past one of the bravest directors of photography in the world, real soldiers falling wounded, and one with a Wilfred Owen pallor of death on his face. That soldier survived, but others did not. After storming a Taliban position, the Danes find at least Afghans, apparently still alive. Then, there is a crack of gunfire, and they are all dead: "We eliminated them in the most humane way possible," said one of the Danish says afterward, right there on the soundtrack. The word "war crimes", one of the Danes says afterwards, right there on the soundtrack. Robert Fisk is stunned, and the word "war crimes" comes to mind. Then, Fisk stumbles out into the cold afternoon to walk back into his hotel, past the 19th-century "Kunsthalle", and its gashes on the red stone walls, showing damage from the British fire raid of 1940, or the first attempts to raze the city on 16 April 1943, or the American raids of 1944. Well protected with underground bunkers, only 1,700 Germans were killed there, a mere ).6 per cent of its residents. War crimes? The winner in a war is impervious to those things - after all, he was on the "winning side."