Basra
The BBC has announced that the British now regard Basra as a military objective for humanitarian reasons. Basra crystallises almost every ethical challenge about the shock and awe strategy.

1. leaving continuing centres of resistance behind your line of advance causes a humanitarian crisis in any large urban area;

2. after Bush the Father called for and then failed to support a Shi'ite uprising in 1991 they (like the Kurds) doubt what Bush the Son is now promising;

3. the fighting around Basra has destroyed essential infrastructure and if it is not repaired immediately there will be, according to the UN and the Red Cross a humanitarian disaster.

The Saddam dictatorship is not acting shocked or awed. There is no sign of a cakewalk and no sign of an explosion of joy.