I was challenged to address a moral dilemma brought up by Kevin Drum.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that we had pretty good intelligence telling us that a bunch of al-Qaeda leaders were in the house we bombed. And let’s also assume that we did indeed kill al-Masri and several other major al-Qaeda leaders. Finally, let’s assume that the 18 civilians killed in the attack were genuinely innocent bystanders with no connection to terrorists.
Question: Under those assumptions, was the attack justified? I think the answer is pretty plainly yes, but I’d sure like to see the liberal blogosphere discuss it. And for those who answer no, I’m curious: under what circumstances would such an attack be justified.
The attack was not justified, under any circumstances. I don’t understand how anyone can answer “pretty plainly yes.”
OK, actually, maybe I can. If the objective of the war is to mete out harsh justice to a select, well defined group of individuals, then yes, go for it. It’ll bring the war closer to an end. It seems a rather primitive view of war as an agent of almost Biblical retribution, though, and I don’t think civilized states should engage in it. I’m surprised that that is how Kevin Drum sees the conduct of the war.
Alternatively, if the objective of the war is to pacify a region in strife and bring its population into the ranks of the community of nations, treating its innocent population as targets is counterproductive. On purely utilitarian grounds, it seems idiotic to me. People will not forget that America rode roughshod over their relatives, friends, and neighbors to simply exterminate their enemies.
Tristero berates me for taking hokum seriously.
If you assume, for a second, that killing is wrong, then you actually have to go through a fairly long chain of uncertain causation to get from the bombing to a good outcome. The bombing might kill al Qaeda leaders, which might diminish the ability of Islamic fundementalists to organize agains the US, which might prevent terrorist attacks.
On the other hand, it was almost certain that someone was home, and would die in the bombing.
I know, this kind of reasoning implies most of the actions of nations at war are unjustified. I am prepared to accept those consequences.
“I know, this kind of reasoning implies most of the actions of nations at war are unjustified. I am prepared to accept those consequences.”
It’s a lot easier if one accepts that war itself is wrong and engaging in it morally indefensible. But I’m in a rather small minority in thinking that.
I definitely agree with you. This war is being fought with a savagery that totally undermines the policy objectives of the administration. Looks more like mindless revenge to me.
“Idiotic” is, indeed, the best word for Drum’s thinking.
The people who shelter and aid criminals are not innocent bystanders. Even in peace time in a democracy, they can sometimes get the same punishment as those they aid. E.g.: someone protecting a killer is guity of conspiracy in the murder and may go to prison for life under the right circumstance.
Innocent bystanders would be foreign aid workers, not the support system (family or otherwise) of known terrorists. They could be considered part of the terrorist’s conspiracy and in war be legitimate targets.
That said, these kind of attacks aren’t right because they do kill innocents and the current administration (maybe every administration) will lie about who really died and why.
And the war is illegal to begin with so it’s all moot (and wrong; just playing devil’s advocate above b/c your outrage is righteous but its premise is misplaced). The Constitution doesn’t give Congress the power to cede the decision to go to war to the President. If they don’t declare war, there is no war. Hence no war powers or possible legitimacy in strikes like this.
Now don’t get me wrong, PZ, but thank God for you.
I’m with Brian: and just because we’re rational doesn’t mean we should be immoral. Killing people who haven’t harmed us (and some would include people who have harmed us) is always wrong, period. Reasonable, civilized, rational human beings find solutions to social problems that don’t include murder.
In a way, this is too hypothetical. How could a house full of people “innocently” harbor a dozen of the top terrorists in the world? What is a “truly innocent bystander”?
I think the only reason why Americans can think in this way is because in many generations they have not had to worry about their houses being blown up, about their children dying in blood at their feet, about running in the night from threats unknown and dragging their young, their ill, and their disabled with them. Killing people is never a good thing. And it deserves FAR more consideration and respect than many of you are willing to give it. I would wager decent money that you would not be so flippant about saying that killing 18 people to ‘potentially’ avert a ‘potential’ attack would be ok, particularly if those 18 people were your family members. Ask yourselves how much human lives are really worth, in the here and now.
People will not forget that America rode roughshod over their relatives, friends, and neighbors to simply exterminate their enemies.
Exactly right, PZ. Most peoples have much longer historical memories than Americans do; just to name one example, many of the Iranians I’ve talked to still resent the US deposing Mossadegh and forcibly installing the Shah, even though it happened before any of them were born. I expect that many people in the region–not just Pakistanis–will remember this for a very long time as well.
Begin with a spherical cow, DJ. I’m one of those people with a very loose notion of right and wrong, largely because I hold that they are social tools.
That said, the death of the innocent and guilty alike is a casualty of war. Killing people in general is counterproductive, and we shouldn’t be debating whether it’s right or wrong, we should be debating how we can bring it to a stop. If you can see far enough ahead to rationalize the use of murder, you can see far enough ahead to think of alternate solutions. Although murders happen and are unfortunate and natural parts of our existence, their necessity is typically so small that they become virtually useless. Only in the most extreme circumstances could killing ever be justified, and that’s usually in a situation that’s been elevated to a state of mortal combat.
An example that’s always plagued me. Say I’m in a room where some guy with a gun is demanding obscene things that aren’t in the house (like, give me all your cocaine when it’s a drug free-household). This person is unstable, and I have determined that he is a sincere threat – that he could and would kill someone. If it comes between me and him, no question I would rather kill him than die. But say he points the gun at one of my friends. I have a chance to stop him. Now I’m not a tough guy.. even if I disarm him and try to talk him down, that doesn’t mean that in a struggle he couldn’t take the weapon back, and, thus provoked, kill everyone.
Fill in the rest ladies and gents, if you were me, what WOULD you do?
In a way, this is too hypothetical. How could a house full of people “innocently” harbor a dozen of the top terrorists in the world? What is a “truly innocent bystander”?
I struggle with this question in some cases. But how many people in that house chose to harbour a dozen terrorists? If there were children in the house – which I’ve heard, althoug I don’t know if it’s true – did they make that decision? Did they deserve to be killed because of their parents’ choices? What about the women, living in a patriarchal culture? Did they get a say in the matter? The mere act of being in the presence of a terrorist does not make a person guilty by default.
I think I’d be willing to accept the burden of killing Osama bin Laden; I know I wouldn’t be willing to accept the burden of also killing the kid who happened to be standing next to him at the time (regardless of the kid’s relation to him).
My first reaction to the question posed was to wonder when this hypothetical bombing took place. Was it befor 9/11? Was it during the time when al Queda was operating as a CIA asset? Oh, I forgot, they’re still an al Queda asset.
I think it’s absurd to argue abstract “moral” questions when the country we live in is being run by the most immoral beasts ever to hold power anywhere.
Today, the Vice President, Dick Cheney, said that the President has indicated his intent to reauthorize NSA signal operations as currently being conducted for “. . . so as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from Al Qaeda and related organizations.” That sounds like an awfully long time. I don’t object to targeted attacks on identified enemies who use terror as a strategy against innocent people for ends that are truly out of touch with reality. Nevertheless, to paraphrase Franklin, people who give up liberty to preserve strength, will end up neither free nor strong. In the near-term, defending the US and the West, and better implementing force as a component of that defense, depends in large measure on opening NSA and other war-related activities to reasonably broader oversight — some democratization should result in better choices and reduce the erosion of our liberties.
My first reaction to the question posed was to wonder when this hypothetical bombing took place. Was it befor 9/11? Was it during the time when al Queda was operating as a CIA asset? Oh, I forgot, they’re still a CIA asset.
I think it’s absurd to argue abstract “moral” questions when the country we live in is being run by the most immoral beasts ever to hold power anywhere.
[Aside: this is my first posting here. Apologies if it comes out as a double post.]
Alternatively, if the objective of the war is to pacify a region in strife and bring its population into the ranks of the community of nations, treating its innocent population as targets is counterproductive.
Keep in mind that these are religious zealots that make America’s fundamentalists look like boy scouts. Idealistic things “pacify a region in strife” and “bring its population into the ranks of the community of nations” aren’t likely to happen in the presence of religious zealotry. I also happen to think that sentiments like “bring its population into the ranks of the community of nations” is actually kind of naive. People aren’t looking to be brought into any kind of “community of nations”. Sometimes they’re just looking for the exact opposite – to divorce themselves from the world or to being religious justice to the world. And religious zealotry isn’t something you can reason with or something that you can hug and kiss so that it likes you.
Reading some of the comments about war in general (“It’s a lot easier if one accepts that war itself is wrong and engaging in it morally indefensible.”), it looks to me like some commenters (along with PZ) are pacifists who’s arguments would work similarly well towards keeping the US out of (for example) the second world war. Am I off base, or do most commenters here think that the US should not have gone to war then, either? (And don’t tell me that this war isn’t like World War 2. I know it isn’t, but some of the comments use logic that works equally well against US involvement in World War 2, so how do those people justify a different attitude or do they think WW2 was equally unjustified? I’m just wondering if you think all war is necessarily wrong, or if war’s legitimacy is a balancing act between different goals.)
The people who shelter and aid criminals are not innocent bystanders. Even in peace time in a democracy, they can sometimes get the same punishment as those they aid. E.g.: someone protecting a killer is guity of conspiracy in the murder and may go to prison for life under the right circumstance.
And yet we don’t also jail the person’s spouse, children, and elderly parents. We only jail the person who has been proven in a court of law to have committed a crime.
You are advocating extrajudicial justice. That people be executed without even the semblance of a trial because of who they knowingly or unknowingly associate with.
Fill in the rest ladies and gents, if you were me, what WOULD you do?
If there really were no way out but killing him, I’d do it, then turn myself in and accept the consequences of my actions.
From the people who defend this bombing, though, I am not seeing a lot of recognition that these actions have consequences.
Exactly right, PZ. Most peoples have much longer historical memories than Americans do; just to name one example, many of the Iranians I’ve talked to still resent the US deposing Mossadegh and forcibly installing the Shah…
Probably a bad example considering that many of the Islamists harbor resentments about things that happened almost a thousand years ago. Zawahri actually made reference to the Muslim’s loss of “Al-Andalus” (in Spain) 500 years ago! (Lookup “the tragedy of Al-Andalus” on google – it’s the title of a videotape that Zawahri made.)
Why is that a bad example?
http://marsrelaystation.blogspot.com/
Hi!
Gerald
The US has killed more Iraqi civilians than it has actual combatants. The US has killed far, far more Iraqi civilians than American civilians have been killed by terrorists. Lets not even bother to compare that to how many US civilians that have been killed by IRAQI terrorists (is that number even in double digits?)
If the measure of terrorism is the number of innocent people killed, the number of children maimed, the number orphaned, the number of traumatized citizens left without a functioning society, then how does the US measure up against Al Queda?
By that measure, how many US households are “harboring terrorists?”
I’d grab the gun and shoot myself in the head, thus effectively preventing myself from concocting any more spurious hypotheticals.
Is it just me, or isn’t Drum’s senario just another variant of the ticking-bomb senario?
Craig,
If the measure of terrorism is the number of innocent people killed, the number of children maimed, the number orphaned, the number of traumatized citizens left without a functioning society, then how does the US measure up against Germany in WWII? The US had few innocent people killed, children maimed, and no tramumitized citizens left without a function society. That kind of damage was inflicted on Germany. Nevertheless, no one could reasonably have asserted that by virtue of this, US households harbored “terrorists.”
“I’m just wondering if you think all war is necessarily wrong, or if war’s legitimacy is a balancing act between different goals.)”
You won’t get an answer from the commenters here on this question. The sole exception being the individual who already answered as follows:
“I know, this kind of reasoning implies most of the actions of nations at war are unjustified.”
Yep, you got it.
Such thinking as that, and the hypothetical itself presupposes innocent civilians. That is a faulty supposition in the current situation. Fighting a war where the armies break for lunch, allow each other to gather their dead, and other such things that “civilized states” might do isn’t what is taking place.
Nearly daily in Iraq the enemy places bombs in markets and along the road killing those who may or may not have a beef in the fight. Those are the tactics that the enemy engages in to fight this war. Kill anybody.
Those are not the tactics. Now, rather than critique the unintended missteps that will occur during any war, I would like to hear about SOLUTIONS that any believe might be more effective in fighting this war. Any takers other than those who suggest disengaging?
IMO, it is way too late to suddenly pretend the USA is more moral than a power hungry, bash-the-heads-in empire like the Romans were. i would prefer it were not, but when the Cold War “ended”, and the USA, supported by a bipartisan government, decided to pursue the triumphalist route, shunning Russia, and expecting everyone to still bow to it, it incurred certain costs. among those costs were the unqualified realization of the world that nuclear supremacy was simply that, a question of haves-versus-have-nots, and the proper resentment by those who felt they remained under the USA heel against that power. this made the situation susceptible to manipulation by many, including neocons in the States and Islamists elsewhere. being extremists they oversimplify and pit major characteristics of one group against another. for fundamentalist Muslims, it is the same problem as it is for fundamentalist Jews or Christians: they despise and resent the implications of modernity, including evolution.
alas, given that democratic government is a compromise, and these leaders maneuvered the USA into this position, IMO we no longer have the luxury of choice we might have otherwise had if more enlightened policies had been pursued earlier. we are handicapped by these choices, crippled by having a defense establishment and mindset which is stuck in the rut of fighting a Cold War against the Soviets, with its big machines of intelligence and war prosecution, lacking finesse, sensitivity, and calibration of response. everything looks like a nail to hit with a hammer.
i disagree firmly with policies of trying to assassinate “key individuals” in a populist movement like al-Quaeda. it won’t work. i don’t argue that on moral grounds.
i believe it is necessary for us to recognize and admit our limitations. in that respect, and i fully believe this will be an unpopular position in this forum, like France, i see we, with great reluctance, no longer have any choice but to trot out our nuclear deterrent as a means of trying to contain this challenge. we’ve boxed ourselves into a position of not being able to do much else.
we can pit people against a country like Iraq or Afghanistan, and with the cost of untold thousands of innocents there and thousands of Americans, what the heck have we achieved? we have a price tag of another trillion. we have a possible civil war and chaos.
i continue to believe that it would have been far better to make a limited, tactical nuclear strike against Taliban occupied, al-Queada occupied, and relatively unpopulated highlands of Afghanistan soon after 11th September 2001. the point is not only decapitation of a limited enemy. the point is to signal, as all empires have, the consequences of crossing us. i do not like those terms, but that, folks, like it or not, is who we are. there is a price to be paid for failing to admit who you are and acting accordingly.
can such empire policy continue to succeed? of course not. but the first step is recognizing it’s wrong. meanwhile the range of response is limited. and there’s something to preserving our lives and a way of life.
is delivering pollutants and greenhouse gases and natural resource depletions to the rest of the world any more moral than limited, specific uses of small nuclear weapons? i may show i’m morally depraved by posing it that way, but i don’t see much of a difference.
i am no nuclear apologist. i hate the things. i think Americans and most people only tolerate them because they have no appreciation nor want an appreciation of the horrors they can do. the world would be a far better place if they didn’t exist. the United States should, whatever its current needs and even given my ideas, should unilaterally reduce its warhead count to 2000 or less. (it has something like 13000 in deployment and can still activate thousands more if needed.) but we no longer live in a world where we have any claim to moral superiority. and we need to deal with a world that knows we’re at some level crooks and snail oil salesmen.
Let’s have Kevin Drum take the “moral dilemma” challenge: If it’s worth killing 18 innocent by-standers to get second-tier operatives, why wasn’t it worth sending in a few SEALS to get Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, instead of literally letting him get away?
If the Bush agenda is to get Al Quaeda, why the hell are we in Iraq, which was closed to Al Quaeda before we invaded?
Why do the Bushies always choose the route of maximum death to innocents?
What if the people in the house were hostages? What if the people in the house were American hostages? What if, among them, were members of Mr. Drum’s family? Would he so easily forfeit their lives?
There are better ways than killing to bring suspected criminals to justice.
And, FWIW, assuming we have “pretty good intelligence” on anything concerning al-qaeda these days seems mighty dangerous.
Just to clarify: the attack on suspected al Qaeda leaders was in Pakistan, not Iraq, so comments on the justifiability of that adventure are not entirely on point.
I like Mnemosyne’s take. We don’t condone the intentional killing of innocents in our own country, shrugging it off as “collateral damage.” In fact, we don’t even execute suspects without a trial.
However, members of the U.S. administration have proclaimed that “justice was done” when various individuals were killed, so it does indeed appear that we condone extrajudicial execution these days.
“then how does the US measure up against Germany in WWII? The US had few innocent people killed, children maimed, and no tramumitized citizens left without a function society. That kind of damage was inflicted on Germany. Nevertheless, no one could reasonably have asserted that by virtue of this, US households harbored “terrorists.””
Firebombing of Dresden? There was no military advantage to this, the targets were civilians. It was an act designed to terrify and demoralize the populace. It was by definition terrorism. Not only is it possible to say this reasonably, it’s impossible NOT to. Targetting civilians for the sole purpose of terrorizing them is terrorism – what else can you call it? If not this, then the only possible definition of terrorism is “something other people do to US.”
That having been said, Germany was attacking our merchant marine, attacking and invading our allies, and their ally attacked us. You can reasonably say that we were provoked and defending ourselves. In this war, WE are the aggressor, WE are the would-be empire.
Such thinking as that, and the hypothetical itself presupposes innocent civilians. That is a faulty supposition in the current situation. Fighting a war where the armies break for lunch, allow each other to gather their dead, and other such things that “civilized states” might do isn’t what is taking place.
Nearly daily in Iraq the enemy places bombs in markets and along the road killing those who may or may not have a beef in the fight. Those are the tactics that the enemy engages in to fight this war. Kill anybody.
Those are not the tactics. Now, rather than critique the unintended missteps that will occur during any war, I would like to hear about SOLUTIONS that any believe might be more effective in fighting this war. Any takers other than those who suggest disengaging?
We started a war against a country that was no threat to us. We weren’t defending ourselves. We weren’t fighting back against someone who had attacked us. And don’t give me any BS about “liberating the Iraqi people.”
We invaded a country and are killing its citizens because our representatives viewed that as a reasonable tool to advance our foreign policy goals. The was is a crime that we are committing, and the deaths are murders.
Such thinking as that, and the hypothetical itself presupposes innocent civilians. That is a faulty supposition in the current situation. Fighting a war where the armies break for lunch, allow each other to gather their dead, and other such things that “civilized states” might do isn’t what is taking place.
“Nearly daily in Iraq the enemy places bombs in markets and along the road killing those who may or may not have a beef in the fight. Those are the tactics that the enemy engages in to fight this war. Kill anybody.
Those are not the tactics. Now, rather than critique the unintended missteps that will occur during any war, I would like to hear about SOLUTIONS that any believe might be more effective in fighting this war. Any takers other than those who suggest disengaging?”
Yes, the “enemy” is resorting to horrible things. That is not surprising. The most powerful nation on earth has rained destruction down on them, killing civilians by the tens of thousands, destroying families, turning the whole nation to rubble, leaving noone untouched. We have CREATED the killing fields, and now some, in their desperation and hatred of us are resorting to horrific things using the only meager tools they have. I certainly don’t condone that, but anyone who didn’t see that as inevitable is utterly clueless.
Are they terrorists? Perhaps so, but then in ANY country that had experienced something similar, many people would resort to the same tactic. Think it wouldn’t happen here? Think again.
But then, we’ve killed tens of thousands of civilians – does the fact that we did it with cruise missles, air raids, etc. make those deaths any less horrible? Any less unjustified?
Taking lunch breaks makes it more civilized? That’s a strange argument that I’ve never understood. Killing is uncivilized. War cannot be civilized – it is the BREAKDOWN of civilization. A psychopath might think otherwise, I guess…
You ask for solutions to fighting the war, but then you rule out the only POSSIBLE solution, disengaging. The ONLY possible solution to war is its END.
We are the invader, we are the aggressor. We have chosen this war – the only way it can end is when we STOP.
It is a crime, and the blood is on our hands. The only solution to crime is to prevent it, end it when it hasn’t been prevented, and punish the criminals.
I can no more offer a solution to this criminal action that doesn’t include STOPPING IT than I could suggest that a solution to rape is to “be more gentle.”
I think combining War with morality will cause in contradictions. You cant define any kind of morality in killing. You can just speak of your benefit. When one wants to give some Right, some Goodness, etc. to his War and killings itll just cause a funny contradiction. I think George Bush and American government are right as much as Bin Laden is, and both are right as much as AhmadiNejad and my countrys leaders are (Iran). All of them are killers, and they want their audience to believe theyre doing holly jobs for salvation of humans/ democracy/ .
Wiping out 18 afghani`s to get some terrorist bad guys is sure to work and be worth it.
Setting aside the fact that our government has such an excellent competence and success record in intelligence gathering, using, terorist hunting, capture and suppression and ignoring any and all possible moral implications and costs (WE´re the U.S. of A and we don`t need no stinking morals, right?)there is the slight (and probably irrelevant) question of how the residents of this region will react to the perpetrators of the death of 18 innocent muslim tribespeople.
History clearly shows that people of this region are mostly of a pacific nature and history. Nowhere is there any indication that Afghani/pakistani type tribespeople have a tendency to bear a grudge, maintain long going feuds or resent Foreign invasions by people of other faiths. Just ask the British and Russians.
So I say bomb away even when in doubt and let Allah sort ´em all out. The locals will surely understand and forgive and gladly join the folds of the Humanistic, democratic and justice loving american way of life.In the end they can`t help but to be won over by our sterling good example.
It should by now be of no surprise to read US citizens talking openly against the actions of their gov in Iraq. US citizens aknowledging their actual President rulling is… to say the least… immoral and barbaric. Yet he is no dictator; he is a product of Democracy, the system whose (forced) implementation elsewhere is the accepted reason for so much killing. What is wrong here? If an employee is not working for the company’s benefit, he is fired. Why does this not apply to someone with the power to order the killing of milliards?… Because he does so in your name.
There is talk in these comments about the morals of war, I’m not going to address that. What I’m writing about is the real world and the fact that war is a condition of life.
There appears to be an assumption that it was somehow ‘wrong’ to bomb that particular building. This assumption takes no account of the various rules within which members of the armed forces must conduct themselves or be guilty of war crimes and subject to prosecution.
In this case the Law of Armed Conflict applicable to the action taken is contained within Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Convention, Article 51 (2). Specifically Article 57 2a:
(ii) take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects;
(iii) refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;
This is taught as Proportionality. In conducting an operation, military commanders and planners must ensure that loss of life or damage to property is in proportion to the military advantage to be gained.
Craig: Your interpretation of the Bombing of Dresden is simplistic. At first the shock of aerial bombardment can induce panic and destroy the morale of those targeted. Over time the target populations become inured to it (A Lambert, Air Power and Coercion, in S W Peach (Ed), Perspectives in Air Power, TSO, London 1998). One of the effects of bombing cities (like Dresden) was that it forced massive divertion of the German war effort into rebuilding factories in bomb safe areas and to defend against the bomber threat (R Overy, Bomber Command 1939-45, HarperCollins, 1997).
As an ex member of the Royal Air Force who served for 25 years I’d love to debate this with you, but you’ll need to be more prepared with some historic facts, figures and data than just your prejudices.
Mike
Is war itself immoral?
If you answer ‘yes’ then you are so condemning the countries who fought against the aggression of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II. If you answer ‘no’ then you open the way to total warfare in which the only restrictions on how it is conducted are considerations of tactical and strategic advantage. If you answer ‘it depends’ you have to go through casuistic contortions to explain why some acts of war are immoral where others are not.
The question of how ‘innocent’ civilians are in a total war is not clear. The manpower of a country is released for draft into the armed forces by its work being done by other members of society. Those armed forces cannot fight unless they are supplied with arms, ammunition, equipment, transport and food. The civilian workforce that provides those resources is as much a part of the national war effort as the armed forces themselves and hence, arguably, as much a legitimate military target.
In World War II, Dresden was bombed primarily because it was a communications hub through which Germany could shuffle its forces between the western and eastern fronts. This was judged to be an effective way in which Allied strategic air power could be used to support the Russian offensives from the east. The forces employed were not disproportionate compared with raids carried out on other German cities and neither were the numbers of casualties. This does not in any way diminish the terrible effect of the raid but anyone who thinks that this attack was in some way more terrible than others before it is deluding himself.
The lessons of history show that it is almost impossible to fight a war without causing civilian casualties. Civilized nations will try to minimise those caused by military operations but that consideration has to be balanced against tactical and strategic objectives and there is no simple answer. Each case has to be decided on its merits.
In the case of the recent attack on the buildings in Pakistan, if US intelligence was satisfied that there was good reason to believe that senior members of al-Qaeda were present then it was a legitimate target. It has been suggested that a raid by special forces would have been preferable but there is no guarantee that this would have caused fewer casualties. In fact, remembering Mogadishu, if the local people were sympathetic to al-Qaeda they might have joined in to defend them and many more could have died in a pitched battle. Besides, there was probably not enough time to mount such a raid.
In the end, I suspect that, if it is found that members of al-Qaeda were killed in the attack, people will accept that it was justified. If not, it will be condemned. Either way, the women and children killed in the raid will be just as dead. And either way those civilian casualties were or were not active supporters of al-Qaeda and its terrorist activities.
The question to ask is this:
Would the US have done the same thing if al Qaeda bosses were enjoying an audience with the Pope? Lecturing at a kindergarten in Reykjavik? Looking at paintings in a Mexico City museum? Selling prayer rugs at a flea market in Madrid? Of course not. But if the war in Iraq has shown anything, it’s that the great American public does not get unduly disturbed when a few extra Muslims get blown up in the course of making the world safe for democracy.
The people surest “collateral damage” is acceptable are those most outraged by the suggestion American policy might have provoked 9/11. Is it really a surprise a lot of Muslims think the Crusades are starting over?
If you look again at my argument, you’ll notice that I am not making a pacifist’s argument — it’s purely utilitarian. It isn’t even anti-war.
In WWII, for instance, we had the specific goals of destroying Hitler’s army, removing the Germans from control of occupied countries, etc. Prosecution of that war led to civilian deaths, but also led to achieving necessary goals.
What are our goals in this war? Taking out another “#X man in Al Quaeda” is a propaganda objective to keep the bloodthirsty at home convinced that progress is being made. I say it is actually counterproductive to our actual goals in the “War on Terror”, especially when it leads to the death of innocents, but boy is it ever useful for getting Republicans elected.
If we’re going to compare Iraq to WWII, remember: we’re in the post war phase. It’s 1945, the country has been occupied. Why are we still flying airplanes over and dropping bombs on it?
Would they be justified to do it, if the al-Qaeda leaders were in, say, Florida? And if the innocent bystanders were American? According to Kevin Drum, that should also be a yes. Any other answer would clearly signify that American lives are more valuable than Pakistani lives. I understand that many Americans take this is a given. I consider it outrageous, and I can be pretty sure most people in the World would agree with my view.
Or, even better. Let’s assume…that the bombing goes just the way it happened in Pakistan, but Kevin Drum is among those 18 civilians. Would he then justify it? Would it be more or less justifiable that if there are 18 pakistanis minus Kevin Drum?
I’d say, fuck him.
Well, all I have to say is I’m glad you people aren’t in charge of fighting terrorists. Not that Bush is doing a good job either (he’s an incompetent boob), but at least he recognizes that you have to kill the bastards. And unfortunately that means that innocent bystanders are sometimes going to get killed as well. Do you seriously believe that it’s always possible to neutralize terrorists or other enemies without doing so? Get real.
War is always immoral, but al-Qaeda and the Taliban started this particular war, not the US. As for Iraq, Bush has alot to answer for on that one.
Since our tactics in Afghanistan are restrained by our resources being used in Iraq have our options become limited in containig al Qaeda hence leading to ‘collateral damage’ scenarios?
Drum has posed one ‘relativity’ scenario which diverts us from the larger choices at play.
Let me pose another …
If all the resources throw at Iraq had been focused on Afghanistan and al Qaeda would the demise of al Qaedas’ leadershep already have been achieved?
or
If those leaders cannot be separated from surrouding innocents does not that imply that we have little hope of those innocents ever seeing the US as their friend, and that we further diminish that hope if we are willing to kill and maim them to achieve other goals?
or
Will Iraq ever become stable as long as there is a US military presence there?
or
How much money does KBR have to make before the US is willing to withdraw from Iraq?
or
Since Iraq was attacked without provocation, should Bush be tried in Iraqi courts for war crimes?
If one is down to Drum’s Dilema of ‘collateral damage’ then it implies that many higher level poor and immoral choices have already been made that are now being ignored.
Well, Matt B. What if those innocent bystanders were your own people? Would you justify it, then? If you do, then fine and dandy, although I don’t agree that war, and all that it implies, is the best way to fight al-Qaeda.
It shouldn’t matter where these “surgical strikes” happen, should it? Moreover, for those who value the life of others according to their allegiance to the American Empire, Pakistan is a friendly state. Ergo, its citizens should, according to that morally twisted view, be treated with more consideration towards their life than if they were, say, Iranians.
That last post was mine.
When did Drum jump the shark? Jeebus.
And don’t give me that “fighting terrorists” crap. I’m sick to death of these fevered fantasies from armchair warriors who act all macho but actually are afraid of their own shadows. As if al Qaeda- which is not even an organization in any normal sense, but sort of the name of a very loose franchise- would have any trouble replacing a couple of dead honchos. The civilian deaths- and the opprobrium thereby incurred by the US- are the only real, lasting consequences of the attacks. And that’s as stupid as it is immoral, since keeping terrorism in check is actually a matter of close international cooperation in POLICING (not “war”), which can only be damaged by unilateral acts of stupidity like this.
Suppose Saddam Hussein had not yet been driven from power, and he had the ability to counterattack the US mainland, and he decided to attack only military targets or strategic individuals. Now suppose my family happened to live right near the Bush vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine (though I actually live in the next town over – it’s much more affordable).
Would I be surprised if Iraq decided to bomb it while Dubya was in residence, potentially killing my family and other neighbors as well? No. Would I like it? No. Would I think it is a reasonable action for Iraq to take in time of war to defend itself? YES.
Again the stupid analogies and mindless talk about “war”. The only war going on is the one we started by invading Iraq. Even the Bush Adminstration has backed away recently from using so much “war on terror” rhetoric, but I guess Matt never got the memo about the change in the Party line.
Kerry was absolutely correct in saying that fighting terrorism is essentially a matter of policing, not war. One of the many things for which I despise our mindless press is the way it prevents messages contrary to Bush Administration bullshit from being effectively disseminated to the public.
Matt B:
Counterattack. That makes a difference. Now, was the U.S attacked by Pakistan? Or by any country, for that matter? It was attacked by a terrorist organization that was loosely based between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Now let me tell you a little story: In 1976 a Cuban airplane carrying civilians was blown to pieces by a terrorist organization made up of hard-line Cuban exiles based in Miami and with ties to the CIA. One of them is currently being protected by the U.S. government and his extradition to Venezuela (where he has a trial pending for this case) was denied under the assumption that he might be tortured (note that, venezuela, unlike the U.S. has outlawed torture, at least on paper, and does not have a death penalty). Other people implicated in that attack to the Cuban airliner are still in Miami, having a great time and living some wonderful “golden years”.
Where am I going with all this? By your account, then Cuba, if it had the capability, would be justified in bombing Miami, to get at these terrorists. Do I think it is? Of course not. This is a parallel, in my view, more accurate that the example you just presented.
I am trying to figure out when policing went out of style. It certainly has.
UN monitors in Iraq were derided. No effort was made to stop the warlords from re-controlling Afghanistan. And locally my downtown has an ‘uncontrollable’ problem with petty crime and vandalism … although I have yet to see officers actually walking those streets …………. Strangely this problem only occurs on the side of downtown where the police stations arent located.
What happened to all those law and order Republicans anyway. Too busy dismantling the Constitution, I guess.
Policing has its place, but it also has its limits, and in some places it just isn’t feasible – for instance, the remote mountainous areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which for all intents and purposes is a nation unto itself. What do you want to do, send a bunch of Pakistani police up there to cuff Osama? They’d be running around in circles, getting picked off by al-Qaeda members or bribed to look the other way when Osama waltzes by.
You don’t want to call the battle against al-Qaeda a war – would you prefer to call it a spat? A misunderstanding? Remember that al-Qaeda attacked the US with the blessing and support of the Afghanistan government – that, in my book, is an act of war, and it is therefore appropriate to label the US response to it as “war”.
I’ve already pointed out the fallacy of reifying “al Qaeda” as though it were a well-organized quasi-state. Back up and learn something about the subject of your ranting before engaging in further pontification.
Yes, dealing with a number of relatively small, loosely organized groups of bad guys who want to blow stuff up is a police problem, not a war. (The “War on Terror” was always an extremely unfortunate- and blatantly politically motivated- metaphor.) And again, precisely because of the kinds of difficuties you yourself just alluded to (among others), it cannot be dealt with successfully by way of high-handed unilateral actions. Many successes in preventing attacks have actually been attained by way of close cooperation with the police and intelligence agencies of other countries, especially those despised “old Europeans” like France and Germany.
Give it up. You are not going to inspire anything but eye-rolling from those of us who have not drunk the Bush – Cheney Kool-Aid.
Drum makes three assumptions for his hypothetical situation:
1. We know that at least some people in the building are enemy leaders.
2. We know that at least some people in the building are innocent.
3. We bomb and kill everyone in the building.
The question from his hypothetical is simply asking if, given the first 2 assumptions, is the last one justified?
Changing the assumptions, as some commenters here have done, does not address the hypothetical. This does not mean that I don’t agree with those posts, like most hypothetical situations, this one is rather silly so pointing out the stupidity of it is perfectly acceptable.
However, even given the first two assumptions, Drum creates a false dilemna. He implies that the only two options available given the first two assumptions is to kill everyone, or let them all go free.
What about the other options? A predator drone watched them enter a building in Pakistan. Why couldn’t a predator drone watch them leave? Why couldn’t Pakistani officials have been informed before the order was given to bomb? Or permission asked to send US troops to surround the building? Even if none of this was possible, why couldn’t the hole the men were digging be labeled as dangerous, investigated and if a bomb was there, disarmed?
You want to eliminate roadside bombing? Show that it doesn’t work by diarming the bombs before they harm anyone.
As usual, a hypothetical situtation is proposed using fear as a means to psychologically narrow our options to a false dilemna. Fear is the mind-killer.
-Flex
I’d like to thank Matt B for taking the time out from his no doubt demanding schedule as active duty military personnel to post here. I mean, I assume he is. Because it’s unlikely that somene who thought the situation was dire enough to merit killing innocent people would be sitting on his fat ass stateside posting to blogs about how we’re none of us taking this war seriously enough.
What if the terrorists were the INLA/IRA/CAC? Would blowing up 18 ‘civilian’ Irish people be justified? What if the terrorists were Shining Path/Tamil Tigers/UNITA fighters/ETA/Red Brigade/Timothy McVeigh? Can we justify blowing the crap out of Peruvians/Tamils/Angolans/Basques/Italians/Oklahomans? Or maybe in this case, it’s okay because these people are funny, dark-skinned people with a baffling religion who don’t appear to like us?
Jeebus. What the hell happened to Drum? Is he going to end up suggesting we ‘exterminate the brutes’?
In America we often cite the “law of unintended consequences”. There is no such law. Unintended consequences result from dull-witted linear thinking that views each action as discrete, having no antecedents or consequences other than the one intended.
Terrorist there!
Kill Terrorist!
QED
Usually atttempts at pointing out possible unintended consequences are viewed as obstructionist, or even as giving aid and comfort to the enemy (i.e. treasonous) by such “men of action”.
*sigh*
A very intresting topic and I’m pleased to see so many people taking part in the discussion. In this modern age watching the news astounds me with the sheer brutality of our war machine; G.W. took vengeance for all the innocent deaths on 9/11 yet the carelessness in Iraq, Pakistan and anywhere else he decides to drop bombs is only taking more innocent lives.
I agree – the attack was not justified. It doesn’t really matter if the troops hit someone important – another will take his place and carry on the fight. They should have sent in the special forces during night time to avoid civilian casualties.
The whole strike was counterproductive since now you have a dozen more of potential terrorists – ready to be recruited by Al Qaeda.
The question is, I think, easily answered if one adds: “And by the way, those 18 innocent civilians are members of your family and/or close friends.”
Would you kill your Mom and Dad if it meant getting bin Laden (before he can kill your Mom and Dad…)
Matt B.:
Just for the sake of argument:
Remember when Mullah Omar offered to give up Bin Laden if “proof” of his participation in the 9-11 attacks was shown to him? Now, he might just have been trying to buy himself some time, but it is also likely, that, he might actually have coughed up Bin Laden, given the alternative of losing power to the US-backed Northern alliance. Apart from the fact that, strictly speaking, governments are supposed to show some sort of evidence of their claims before invading one another (Remember, this was BEFORE Bin Laden admitted that his group planned 9-11). Who knows?
In any case, I think it is more useful to use an international police force in concert with people who are actually familiar with the terrain between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the possible hideouts (remember, not everybody in Pakistan or Afghanistan supports Bin Laden), than leaving the whole enterprise in the hand of a bunch of torture-happy, arrogant yahoos that know nothing about the places they are invading and think that everything can be solved by bombing.
Justified? I dunno. What are we optimizing here? If the objective is number of terrorists killed, then I suppose the most effective solution would be nuclear attacks over a wide area. Or are we trying to maximize the percentage of terrorists killed? So what percentage does Drum consider justifiable?
I’m inclined to attribute the second set of stories to pure spin control. Backers of the attack obviously couldn’t allow the narrative to be a story of innocent people being killed. Since I’ve never heard of any of these people, I have no way of determining if the allegations against them are strong or trumped up after the fact. Whatever the truth, they’ve done an effective job of regaining control of the narrative, and that’s what matters in the post-modern world of national politics.
I can see such an attack as understandable if the intent is to prevent a planned terrorist operation. In that case, you still don’t measure success in number or percent of “bad guys” killed; you measure it based on whether it achieved the objective. And there is no innocent bystander whose death is “justified” by this. Anyone looking for justice in such a situation is engaging of self-deceipt.
Well, CNN hadn’t run any footage of people chanting “Death to America” in a few months, so what was the administration going to do?
Any actual al-Quaida fatalities were gravy.
Expect more of this as elections approach–remember, only Republicans can keep you safe from scary brown people!
Quick response to some of the questions here.
Why did the predator drone not continue to watch? Short on fuel? Possible malfunction requiring return to base? Who knows but there is also the problem of tracking multiple targets and tracking people in built up areas. Very difficult to do. It would seem to me that the decision was reached that given the ‘status’ of the targets then assembled it was an opportune time to remove them as best possible, given that there was possibly less collateral damage to be inflicted in that particular scenario.
As for someone else carrying on the fight. Hhhmmm, what would the effect have been had some of the more effective leaders during WW2 been removed? Imagine the war without Churchill, or Hitler? Yes they’d have been replaced but would their replacements have been as effective leaders?
“In this modern age watching the news astounds me with the sheer brutality of our war machine” londonchef
Hhhhmmm, methinks you obviously know little about warfare. It is always brutal, it is dirty, it is horrifying. It is nothing like a home computer game simulation.
Mike
Not to mention that Bush and bin Laden have a thoroughly mutualistic political relationship. There’s a reason why bin Laden expressed the hope that Bush would be re-elected.
How special that another courageous armchair warrior has showed up. “Welcome”, mikenut.
I wonder if the administration would be willing to kill that many of its own civilians in order to get to a terrorist figure. I’m thinking “no”.
Forgot to add this to my previous post.
There appears to be a mistaken assumption that the Military authorities who authorise attacks such as the one in this thread (and through Iraq in general) are operating in some kind of vacuum, outside of the Laws governing Conflict. As I made plain in an earlier post, they are constrained by all the articles of the Geneva Conventions AND by the International Rules governing Armed Conflict.
Therefore if the persons who were subject to attack were not prominent ‘terrorists’ and those ordering the attack were aware of this then they would be subject to due legal process for war crimes.
Out of interest (and I’m probably going to regret posing this question) does anyone reading this forum sincerely and honestly believe that members of their Armed Forces select targets at random, for no good reason?
Mike
You’re missing the point completely, Mike. The problem is precisely that something which is not necessarily a predominantly military problem is being addressed by purely military thinking and means. I’m sure those decision makers are operating in good faith but I’m far from sure that they’re the right people to be making such decisions in the first place. As I said in an unrelated thread / context recently, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. As some of the other commenters have pointed out, killing as many terrorists as possible (you’ll never come close to killing them all and they’re replaceable parts) is not necessarily a sensible goal, and certainly not at the expense of civilian casualties that are a recruiting goldmine for the terrorists. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid and get your thinking out of the “WOT” hole you’ve dug yourself.
I’ll add that inducing the kind of bunker mentality and lust for retaliation exemplified by the right-wing WOT shills is exactly the effect bin Laden wants to have on us. Every time Bush pulls one of these stunts, the terrorists have won! Why does George W. Bush hate America?
“You’re missing the point completely, Mike. The problem is precisely that something which is not necessarily a predominantly military problem is being addressed by purely military thinking and means. I’m sure those decision makers are operating in good faith but I’m far from sure that they’re the right people to be making such decisions in the first place.” Steve LaBonne
Perhaps I am missing the point, I would not claim to be God (or an unnamed entity who created the workd ;-)) and know all. So can you tell me how else to solve this problem? Who else is trained and equipped (with logistical backup) to deal with terrorists?
Don’t misunderstand me, although I was a serving member of the Forces I do not think that might is right and that death and destruction is the ONLY way. But you need to argue your case for another way.
BTW, sorry but I’m British and I don’t understand your comment about Kool-Aid (some kind of powdered soft drink?) or the “WOT” hole :-)
Mike
Mike:
“Out of interest (and I’m probably going to regret posing this question) does anyone reading this forum sincerely and honestly believe that members of their Armed Forces select targets at random, for no good reason?”
Their? Where are you from?
No I don’t believe they select targets at random. Why would they do that?
Why this confusion between combating terrorist enemies of the West on the one hand, and the Iraq war on the other? One can support the former, without necessarily supporting the later. In fact, arguably, the war in Iraq is at best a diversion from combating terrorism.
Assume another history, not so different from ours, where in light of the world situation taken as a whole, certain tactical choices had been made differently.
Afghanistan, the launching pad for 9/11, a nerve center of state-sponsored terrorism, and a historically strategic asset, bordering Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Iran, is attacked and liberated. Large numbers of troops, money and human resources are poured into the near far-East. The first Islamic democratic country in the region is assured and secure military bases are established that directly threaten Iran, the chief, long-term threat to Israel and peace in the Middle East. Russia and China (long interested in the region) take note and there is increased pressure on them to help achieve the West’s strategic objectives in connection with Iran and North Korea. Our historical allies are pressured (perhaps with some success, perhaps not) to assist us, short of war, to increase military, political and economic pressure on Iraq, but we proceed in any event, and our relations with our allies are no better or worse than in our world. Yassar Arafat dies . . .
In this world, albeit presented in a very simple and truncated manner, policy makers have decided that Saddam wasn’t the most convenient target who couldn’t be disposed of by other means. They chose different, and in my view better, tactics to achieve strategic goals. Arguably, these tactics involved a broader, longer-term play, with perhaps a greater chance of, among other things (i) forestalling future 9/11’s, (ii) increasing pressure on Iran and North Korea, (iii) confronting Iraq without creating the chaos and risks that we see currently, (iv) transforming the Middle East, and (v) maintaining our strategic alliances. Or, perhaps not!
I think the war in Iraq was ill-conceived at best, but combating terrorism, with force if necessary, is certainly justified.
As David Deutsch said shortly after 9/11:
“People wring their hands and say that there must be “better ways of finding solutions” than warfare. Of course there are. We have already found them. The nations and people of the West use them all the time. They are openness, tolerance, reason, respect for human rights; the fundamental institutions of our civilisation. But no way of finding solutions is so effective that it can work when it isn’t being used. And when a violent group defines itself by its comprehensive rejection of all the values on which problem-solving and the peaceful resolution of disputes depend, and embarks instead on a campaign of unlimited murder and destruction, it is morally wrong as well as factually inaccurate to represent this as a case of our needing “better ways of finding solutions”.
It is simply wrong to posit some type of moral equivalence between the modern culture and institutions of the West (with all of its shortcomings and flaws) and those that would turn back human development by centuries.
Let M be the “political value” of the militants killed.
Let C be the “political debt” incurred by killing civilians.
Logically speaking, C subtracts from M meaning that if you kill militants without killing civilians, your political stock goes up. If you kill militants with a few civilian casualties, your stock goes up but not by as much. If you kill civilians while missing your military target, your name is mud.
If M is VERY HIGH, such as the leaders of an enemy group, then C must be VERY HIGH to cancel out the political value of killing the leaders while killing civilians.
I suspect that the value of M was high enough to risk incurring some C. Unfortunately, more C was incurred than M in this case.
Steve LaBonne:
“I’m sure those decision makers are operating in good faith but I’m far from sure that they’re the right people to be making such decisions in the first place.”
If I were a Colonel waging a war I wouldn’t want any clueless civilian telling me what to do and how to do it. If someone has failed in the war on terror it’s the politicians and their voters – not the military.
But of course there are rules to be followed. You can’t sacrifice a dozen civilians to get one terrorist – not because it’s morally wrong (it is but that’s not important at all) but because it’s counterproductive.
Mike,
I’m fully aware that our military does not select targets at random. I’m also aware that mistakes can, and will, be made which will result in unintended casualties.
In the case of what actually happened, I don’t blame the people who bombed the house. I haven’t seen anyone here who has said that our military is operating outside of the international rules governing armed conflict.
This thread has little to do with what actually happened, but everything to do with the question as to whether what happened was morally justified. I pointed out earlier that the hypothetical situation proposed by Kevin Drum places the morality of the hypothetical into a false dilemna. It is not simply a case of bomb and kill innocents or let emenies combatants go free. There are other options.
I have a great respect for our armed forces, and am myself a veteran who served in the Middle-East. (Although I hesitate to use either my veteran status or my Middle-Eastern experiance as evidence, or justification, for my positions.) I rely on those commanders on the ground, who in my experiance are professionals who understand the risks and consequences of what they are doing.
However, I have little respect for chickenhawks who attempt to morally justify military decisions from a position of safety by posing false dilemnas in hypothetical situations.
I don’t see a problem with examining the results of military decisions to determine if a better solution was possible, and using that information to improve military decisions in the future. That’s not what Kevin Drum’s hypothetical was about.
-Flex
Mikko, I agree. The military is just doing what it’s told to do by its civilian masters, as it must. The problem is that it’s the wrong tool for the job.
I wonder if the administration would be willing to kill that many of its own civilians in order to get to a terrorist figure. I’m thinking “no”.
That depends. Are the American “citizens” members of an inherent traitor class (feminists, liberals, atheists, Democrats, journalists)? Are they in an coastal urban center of depravity and objective pro-islamofascism like San Francisco or New York?
Mikewot:
I don’t think that anybody in their right mind would think that the US Army selects targets at random. The same can be said of most armies in the world. Most of them have a definite and informed strategy to find their targets. But this has nothing to do with it. It’s what they do after they have found their target what matters. It’s the fact that they still won’t give two shits about killing innocent civilians or that they just shrug it off. The bombing of Fallujah was carried out by carefully selecting the target: the whole city. The fact that they didn’t let any man over 15 leave the place before they started bombing (effectively condemning them to death) and that they bombed anyways knowing that 25% of the city’s inhabitants were still there is plainly a crime of huge proportions. But they didn’t do it randomly, so according to you, that’s all right.
Not to excuse this reckless disregard for life, but among the god-botherers these are hardly fresh and new sentiments.
“Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens.”
(“Kill them all; for the Lord knoweth them that are His.”)
-Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux, 1209, when asked by the Crusaders what to do with the citizens of Beziers who were a mixture of Catholics and Cathars.
Cheers,
Naked Ape
Jose del Solar in the quotes: and that they bombed anyways knowing that 25% of the city’s inhabitants were still there is plainly a crime of huge proportions.”
“I don’t think that anybody in their right mind would think that the US Army selects targets at random. The same can be said of most armies in the world.”
Glad to hear it!
“Most of them have a definite and informed strategy to find their targets. But this has nothing to do with it. It’s what they do after they have found their target what matters. It’s the fact that they still won’t give two shits about killing innocent civilians or that they just shrug it off.”
Can you provide some evidence for that assertion, or is it simply your viewpoint?
“The bombing of Fallujah
How have you determined that this is a crime? Or is it a crime merely according to your own interpretation?
“But they didn’t do it randomly, so according to you, that’s all right.”
Thats not quite what I, nor the references I have given to the relevant Geneva Conventions which govern Armed Conflict, have said. Would you care to read my comments again or perhaps read the Geneva conventions? :-)
Mike
Jose del Solar’s question is what Americans have to answer. I notice it seems to be avoided by those who agree with the bombing in Pakistan.
I have just one remark further: it wouldn’t surprise me, given the state of Pakistan, that the Pakistani intelligence services knew about the operation before hand …
Very true Keith,
The Pakistani intelligence services may very well have been told, and may have even given their permission. We will likely never know.
After all, they are still arguing over the note Raglan sent to Cardigan which caused the Light Brigade to charge straight into the Russian guns in the Crimea.
Which is another reason it is important to focus on lessons to be learned, and possibly finding improvements to military decision making, rather than trying to morally justify the actions which have occured through rhetoric.
It’s quite possible that there were, and are, no better solutions that what was done. In that case, we need to recognize the costs and accept them, not justify them after the fact.
-Flex
Attaboy, consigliere.
As Santayana ought to have said, those who do not know history are condemned to gibber like ignorant baboons. So far, the most popular trope on this thread has been ‘would they have done it if [fill in blank with some sentimental group] had been in the building’?
The assumed response is no, but history tells us that the actual answer is yes. The most appalling example is the raid in Copenhagen to free members of the Underground from a Gestapo prison. You could look it up.
Second, why do we need hypotheticals when we have an abundance of actuals?
How is it that if we kill 18 of them, they are entitled to hate us forever, but if they kill 3,000 of us, we are entitled to . . . apparently, we are not entitled even to think meanly of them.
The enemy of the non-Muslim world (that would be us but not only us) is the Muslim world. Possibly Muslims are killing innocent busboys in New York City because they object to the policies of successive American governments in western Asia, but why are they killing Stone Age Papuans? A justifiable resentment of Papuan foreign policy? I don’t think so.
A possibly useful guide to moral thinking is: don’t resent in others what you do yourself.
However, this thread appears to exist in a moral vacuum.
If there is any correlation between attacking the World Trade Center, which had no opponents inside; and attacking this building in Pakistan, which purportedly did have actual opponents (even Steve in his fatuous ‘police action’ mode has to admit that much) inside, I cannot see it.
If you want to create a correlation, then you have to admit that the WTC was a legitimate target. Although no one here has said that bluntly, it is the only logical consequence of the statements that several posters have made.
Finally, Professor Myers says he is not even antiwar. Hard to fight a war without an army, though, and he is on record as saying he will do whatever he can to keep his children out of the army. I give him the credit of assuming he means that he also opposes having any other father’s children go into the army.
So in the end, he is antiwar. He might as well go out and have his daughter fitted for a burqa. Nothing in his political position (or in that of 95% of the other posters here) will, in the long run, prevent the imposition of Sharia in Morris.
These are merely a few among many examples:
“There are better ways than killing to bring suspected criminals to justice.”
Nice in theory, but when the suspected criminals are armed to the teeth and quite prepared to kill and die to avoid being taken, have supporters who are the same and the support of the local authorities, the little detail that wcamps leaves out, namely exactly how to bring that suspected criminal to justice, becomes more than merely an exercise to be left to the reader.
Lots of folk here suggesting belling the cat. Great idea. Little consideration given to how to actually do it. This was a good one:
“You want to eliminate roadside bombing? Show that it doesn’t work by diarming the bombs before they harm anyone.”
Any idea how to manage that, given that the folk who plant these bombs don’t generally festoon them with big “ROADSIDE BOMB HERE ==>” signs?
“They should have sent in the special forces during night time to avoid civilian casualties.”
Somebody has seen too many Rambo and ninja movies. It is difficult to quickly insert any kind of force into a town in mountains without the locals noticing (and the locals there are al Qaeda’s brothers in arms) and going in off the cuff with little recce, at night in hostile territory is a recipe for both failure of the mission and civilian casualties. I mean, you think they wouldn’t use bombs to support the extraction when things go to hell?
The problem with policing is you need the police to take an interest. In the tribal areas of Pakistan, though, Mussharaf’s writ don’t run. The de facto local authorities, the tribal leaders, are on al Qaeda’s side and happy to give shelter to them and the Taliban who share their brutal version of Islam (these are the guys who mete out rape of women as punishment for their menfolk’s transgressions).
I’d like to see folk come right out and say that if someone pulls off something like 9/11, he’d give them a free pass as long as they make it into northern Pakistan or some other place where the authorities will shelter them. At least that would be facing up to a difficult question.
Harry Eagar:
ROFL!! Way to go! LOL!!!
OK, being serious now. Do you consider that everyone serving in the Forces is for war (or as its termed nowadays Armed Conflict) and that they consider their role purely to fight?
I can tell you that I personally have never advocated war and that I believe that when we go to war it is a failure. I am more proud of the fact that in the 25 years I spent in the RAF from 1974-2000 the cold war held and we never went to war with the Soviets than of our ‘victory’ over the Argentinians in the Falklands and all the other conflicts (like the former Yugoslavia) etc.
Given that members of the Forces are the ones who conduct wars and are the ones most likely killed or injured (than civilians back home) I think you’ll find they’re mainly antiwar (except for the very rare and unusual psychopath).
Mike
PZ, Let me state that this is a stupid war and a waste of life on all sides. That said, running rough shod over a nation and its people is not always the best gauge. We fire bombed German cities, reduced them to ashes and divided their nation for a generation. We controlled their government and tried their leaders for crimes against the world. We ran pretty rough shod over the Japanese too. We nuked two cities, fire bombed a number of others and, in the end, even made their god renounce his position in the heavens. It was necessary; we saved millions of lives (American, European and Asian) and I think the Germans and Japanese have pretty much forgiven us.
[PZ] “If we’re going to compare Iraq to WWII, remember: we’re in the post war phase. It’s 1945, the country has been occupied. Why are we still flying airplanes over and dropping bombs on it?”
Because the Nazis spent the time after WW2 running away rather than carrying out a guerilla war against the occupation? I have no doubt that if a Nazi resistance had managed to take control of a city, as the insurgents in Iraq have done at various times in, for instance, Fallujah, the Western Allies would have bombed the snot out of that city regardless of civilian casualties rather than get more of their own troops killed in an assault on an urban area (notoriously costly in casualties).
Not that I’m a fan of Bush and his invasion. The invasion was wrong on many grounds and one of my concerns in our current election is that my fellow Canadians may be about to chose a government led by a man who thinks we should have been in on Iraq. The invasion of Iraq should never have happened at all and should never have been done the way it was. The occupation has been hopelessly incompetant and the Americans and Brits should get out soon, while making large amounts of money available (through NGOs) for rebuilding of infrastructure in Iraq by Iraqis. I recognize the most likely result will be an Iraqi civil war (which may be going on already – the Shia death squads are already in action both against their former Baathist oppressors and Sunni leaders in general) and partition, with at least Kurdistan separating. That will also cause problems with Turkey, Iran and Syria, all of whom have Kurdish minorities who could be expected to want to become citizens of Kurdistan and take their territory with them. In short, it will be a complete schmozzle after the US leaves, but I think these risks are inevitable now, whether the US leaves sooner or later. Even ignoring the costs to Iraq and Iraqis (and I take the Lancet study as the real measure of Iraqi casualites) from a purely military strategic point of view, in Fouche’s words, “It was worse than wrong. It was a mistake.” (that “e” in “Fouche” should have an accent aigue, but the system here doesn’t recognize Alt+130)
Incidentally, the Western Allies in WW2 used terrorist methods, in the deliberate bombing of cities to get at the civilian population of Germany. There is no point in denying it. Despite that, the Allies (including even Stalin’s Soviet Union) were ‘the good guys’ in that war. The Germans, in both WW1 and WW2, regularly referred to guerillas or any opposition in a conquered land (and in the east in WW2 to Jews in general) as “terrorists”. The word isn’t very useful.
That said, I do believe the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan was a necessary measure, which may end up failing because of the diversion of Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
Oddly, I made the same analogy as Eager, yet managed not to reach such an incoherent conclusion. I believe the bombing in Pakistan was unjustified because we should hold ourselves to at least the same standards as we hold our enemies. If targeting civilians makes them terrorists, then it makes us terrorists, too. True, when we kill civilians it an unintended side effect of killing the people we actually wanted to kill, but they could say something very similar. When they kill civilians it is an unintended side effect, because their real goal is to get US troops out of the Middle East, particularly away from Mecca.
War requires hypocrisy to function. The populace must believe that every act of violence from the enemy is evidence of their depravity, cause for us to whip up our righteous indignation. The same acts, when we perform them, must be seen as necessary sacrifices. Just a part of war. Soon we are talking about breaking eggs and omelets and stuff. Without a double standard for our violence and their violence, we would have to put our killing machine to rest.
And we all know the presence of US soldiers in the Middle East is not what keeps Sharia from being imposed in Morris. But Ill make a stronger claim: non-violent refusal to comply with the law would be a much more effective defense than military resistance in the bizarrely unlikely chance that someone would try to impose Sharia in Morris. Thats the interesting thing about nonviolence. It is a very effective weapon in resisting occupations. It is useless for occupying other countries, which is why it seems useless to us now. Since our goal is empire, the tools of the oppressed are useless.
I agree with the The Dreadful Porpentine. You peace-niks are not really “reality-based” are you? As a species we haven’t yet evolved to your dream world. Think about it, even the rhetoric found in these pages against the fundies isn’t peaceful.
It’s a little tiresome to be so thoroughly misread. I am a peacenik, but I’m not making a peacenik argument here. Yes, when you go to war, you know you’re going to kill citizens (that is my peacenik argument, too, that what we should be is very, very reluctant to go to war at all).
However, those civilians deaths should be clearly understood to be an unfortunate consequence of efforts to achieve the goals of the war, and those goals should be clearly stated. I think they were clear in WWII. They are not clear here, and they certainly aren’t being carried out effectively. We should be trying to win the population over to the advantages of a secular society, commerce and communication with other civilized nations, stability and security…instead, we’re killing random groups of people in a vendetta against a subset of terrorists.
This is not the war we should be fighting.
Any idea how to manage that, given that the folk who plant these bombs don’t generally festoon them with big “ROADSIDE BOMB HERE ==>” signs?
Whlie it would be very nice if they would put signs up like that, I don’t expect them to. As I understand it, in this particular case one reason the building was bombed was because a predator drone saw two men apparently digging a hole at the side of a road and followed them home. In which case, we had a pretty good idea of where the bomb was. However, I’m willing to admit I may be confounding this with a difference incident.
So you’re right, I made a stupid comment. The point, which I’m trying to stress is that the hypothetical proposal implicitly ignores alternatives. Any of the proposed alternatives may not be possible in any given real world situtation. BUT, the hypothetical scenario made two stipulations, enemies and innocents in a single building, do you kill them all or let them all go free?
It’s a silly hypothetical situation which cannot be answered without additional assumptions. Many of these assumptions are being made by other commentors. Including, the assumption that any killing, even of enemies is immoral. The assumption that depending on the ratio of enemies to innocents, it may be morally justified. The assumption that depending on the ratio of enemies to innocents, it may be politically justified. Etc. These are additional assumptions added to the original hypothetical. This doesn’t make these assumptions wrong or uninteresting, it simply continues to illustrate the silliness of the hypothetical.
And in a less civilized comment thread, I could see the simplicity of the hypothetical leading to a fairly heated flame war.
-Flex
Shorter Eagar: Muslim toddlers are terrorists, and justice demands someone other than me kill them.
A Christian response would be to forgive Mr bin Laden and his friends. The question of killing innocents does not then arise.
Mikewot:
They plainly didn’t care, or cared little about the civilians. Little enough so that their lives were not a priority. It’s simple: if they had cared ENOUGH, they wouldn’t have bombed that village.
It’s easy to take that careless stance when you are not doing the dying. Most Americans would consider such an action as unacceptable if it had been taken in American soil. That right there should be enough reason to pause and ask what the hell is wrong with a view of the world that accomodates such a blatant disregard for the live of others.
And if you don’t consider practically sentencing to death all the males over 15 years of age a crime, then I wonder what the hell is wrong with you too.
I was commenting on the others more so. Personally I think this war is a continuation of the first one in 1991. Now from a purely strategy point of view, I haven’t heard any realistic arguments against getting rid of SH. He was a baddie. If we couldn’t tell he had no WMDs, how could we know he wasn’t helping the terrorists? Now that he’s gone, we have one less thing to worry about. If SH was still in place, there would always be that suspicion. Sure there’s terrorist there now, but we can at least go get them. What could we have done with SH still in place? Create another UN resolution to give up suspected terrorists? War is terrible I agree. I think in this case we didn’t have a choice.
I think we’re doing that. They can vote, they can trade. Again, with SH in place what would be happening? Sanctions. How would that have won over the populace?
It’s also kind of funny that you happen to mention the Geneva conventions. Last I heard of it, the Bushies and many Americans were cheerily using this document as toilet paper.
NatureSelectedMe: ‘You peace-niks are not really “reality-based” are you? As a species we haven’t yet evolved to your dream world.’
Well, let’s see. In the past 60 years, Western Europe has made remarkable progress towards resolving issues without going to war. That’s a first ever since nation states emerged there to wage war. On a global level, war is now mostly tolerated rather than celebrated, which was the norm in the past. Obviously, it continues to occur, but it’s far less prevalent than blind cynicism would have predicted. In fact, our capacity to kill is greater than ever, but over large regions of the world there is less conflict than ever. Empirical observation backs the idea that it is possible over time to minimize large scale violence as a way of resolving conflicts.
The idea that we will “evolve” biologically towards peace is ludricous, but we can change the social framework to make war far less rewarding. As long as it is rewarded, resources and human lives are going to be squandered. I don’t expect to achieve total peace, but the idea that war needs to remain a raging pandemic is not “reality-based” but merely a fashionable brand of cynicism.
NAture selected me- the rhetoric against fundies may sound a little agressive, I suppose it is really;
but how many radical atheists have you seen bombing churches rather than abortion clinics, or appearing on national TV advocating the setting up of a non religious USA?
People naturally get a little agressive when talking about things that matter to them, but whether that then comes out into actual physical violence is another matter.
Harry Eager- I cant quite work out what you are saying. Might is right? WE’ve all done nasty things in the past but hey, thats ok?
Or to put it another way, what you seem to be saying is analogous to saying that because your next door neighbour is a murderer, and we cant get him using the usual police procedures, we can just bomb his house, killing his wife and children, even though they did not help him do the murders, did not want him to do the murders, and generally had nothing to do with the murders. You seem to be setting the entire world Islamic population up as being pro murdering USA’ians, which any sensibe person would see is totally wrong.
You seem to be setting the entire world Islamic population up as being pro murdering USA’ians,
Yes, that’s what he’s saying. It’s what he has said about Muslims two of every three times he crawls out far enough from underneath his rock to post comments here.
which any sensible person would see is totally wrong.
Insert obvious rejoinder here.
“And the war is illegal to begin with so it’s all moot (and wrong; just playing devil’s advocate above b/c your outrage is righteous but its premise is misplaced). The Constitution doesn’t give Congress the power to cede the decision to go to war to the President.”
Interesting point made by Ashley. IIRC, the war was illegal also from an international view. UN and/or Security council procedure were abrogated.
Ian,
“Is war itself immoral?
If you answer ‘yes’ then you are so condemning the countries who fought”
You don’t seem to make a difference between aggressively go to war and defending by war. If you are asking about morality, there is a difference.
PaulC,
“Empirical observation backs the idea that it is possible over time to minimize large scale violence as a way of resolving conflicts.”
You make an excellent observation and argument. It will be interesting to see if ultimately US aggressive wars will stand out as a sore point and what will be done about that.
PZ, I dunno if I berated you. But I did want to point out how problematic it is to respond to questions of the sort Kevin (actually Bush) proposes.
You are correct: the hypothetical was hokum. Hokum should not be taken seriously, be it “intelligent design” creationism or hypotheticals that are calculated to deflect attention from possible war crimes by the Bush administration.
It shouldn’t be taken seriously all the time, but every once in a while, it’s very useful to sit down and shred them.
You seem to be setting the entire world Islamic population up as being pro murdering USA’ians
No surprise there–Eagar’s repeatedly written posts to that effect, and he’s also said in so many words that Asians don’t value life. I guess it follows for him that we’ll teach them to value life by killing them.
I only say it because it’s true.
Let’s go back to Steve, who considers the Islamic terrorists a minor police problem.
OK, over 90% of Muslim countries have police forces (the notable exceptions are Somalia, Ivory Coast, Iraq, Afghanistan), and they are even less restricted in how they operate than Bush’s Stormtroopers.
Therefore, they can round up the terrorists in short order if they want to.
Oh? They haven’t? Well, it must be because they and their employers are on the terrorists’ side, mustn’t it?
If you have another explanation, let’s hear it.
I made a list once of all the religious borders between Islam and other faiths (or none). This is a somewhat subjective exercise, but I came up with about 28.
In every single one, including some in places where probably nobody ever heard of George Bush or America, the Muslims are making terrorist attacks against the non-Muslims (and often enough against other Muslims as well, they are extremely and indiscriminately violent).
The closest thing to an exception I could find was Trinidad-Tobago. Even there, the Saudis are underwriting a campaign in the mosques to subvert the government and destroy freedom of conscience. The Hindus are unhappy about this, but relatively non-violent, so the blood is not flowing in any quantity.
Again, contradict me. List all the places where Muslims live in amity with non-Muslims. I know of none.
The people who shelter and aid criminals are not innocent bystanders. Even in peace time in a democracy, they can sometimes get the same punishment as those they aid.
What happened when Ward Churchill said exactly the same thing?
These are the types of hypothetical situations serious people think about. People who are serious about doing something about terrorists.
You liberals still haven’t come up with any justification for collateral damage. You can’t even bring yourselves to act in the hypothetical. No wonder you can’t act in reality. You guys have to grow a pair. Nobody will take you seriously otherwise. I really loved arc_legion’s example. He brought it to the personal and you guys that answered STILL can’t act.
I betcha if Gore were president he would still be seriously considering whether to threaten the Taliban. Again. For the 47th time.
wow, like 100 comments in 24 hours. My reasoning for creating the hypothetical in comment (like, 10), Chris, was to point out something – there are a lot of people who believe that terrorists are a sincere danger, and are reactive in a similar fashion. Peace is only something you typically consider when it’s not your ass on the line, and that’s usually because fear is ruling you. As I might have indicated, I’m not about to say that war is wrong, ’cause I think the whole branding of things as right and wrong is short-sighted. But I am going to say that things have been fairly predictable (and yet, astonishing) in American politics the last 5 years. Regardless of morality, wartime should be brought to a close as quickly as possible. Most of the people I know don’t want to be fighting it – but they have a family to feed and they can’t afford to cop out.
to be fair, Nature, I can’t act either; if it came to a situation like that, I honestly fear I’d just go ballistic. I think that’s where they’re heading though – those kinds of decisions are momentary and the hypothetical is irrelevant. I’d be watchin where the nearest weapons were, the distances… I mean, there IS no hypothetical that can really predict what I’d do. Especially my first time in such a conflict.
As an example, I used to live in Niagara Falls and I had my house robbed at gunpoint. I didn’t realize the weapon was fake, but that wasn’t going to stop me from attacking. thing was, I was face down, and my buddy Rob was stuck standing up (post-D&D, too many people/furniture to hit the floor). If I’d only known where that guy was, I’d have waited for him to position closer to the stairwell. Then I’d’ve thrown him down. but I didn’t know. I couldn’t hear him moving and I couldn’t look. I knew that Rob would be fine if I could hoist an injury on the robber (he was very nervous; I don’t think he accounted for there being 8 witnesses in the room. He’d be down after the first 10 foot drop on his head). I was in the best position to attack, but I couldn’t risk killing Rob. I wouldn’t live down the guilt (playing the hero instead of doing what the police always tell you to do, and look what I’d done – I’d killed Rob).
In the end, I kept my head down, Rob bluffed out the robber, and the thief made away with a pot scale. In the end, too, it turned out to be the best option available. We could have caught the thief, it’s true, but this way we caught the guy that planned it (a roommate), and scared the living hell ourra the thief. Bravery entails risk the likes of which many are unable to comprehend.
Please enlighten me. There is no way he said the exact same thing. He called our innocent people “little Eichmanns”. Someday when you grow up, you’ll look back on your idealism and laugh.
arc_legion, sorry about to hear about that. It must have been terrible. In that situation you did the exact right thing. It could have gone bad, though. The gun could have been real. People have been shot in similar scenarios even though they cooperated. How’s a person to know?
Is it better to die as an innocent or to risk killing one? I know someone who was held up and the robber wanted him to go down a dark alley. He said “No way!”. He was safer in the well-lit area he was in. Luckily he only suffered a small head wound when the guy hit him with the butt of the gun. He’s sure if he went in there he would have been killed. He did the right thing too.
You’re worried about going ballistic. Why would you if that’s not your nature? Get training. You want your training to take over. Training is methodical.
If Osama is standing next to me and you can nail him (but can’t avoid killing me in the process), SHOOT! I can’t speak for anyone else.
That said, it’s high time we accepted that war is always evil, killing is always evil. If we feel it is necessary to commit such evil to head off a greater evil, so be it; but let’s not try to say there are any good wars because the attempt twists our basic moral sense into a pretzel. And as our president found out, you have to chew very thoroughly when swallowing a pretzel.
Well, for the sake of good conversation (which I’ve been lacking lately), it’s not like it was a big thing. I was really really pissed at the roommate though, because that robbery hastened the breakup of an enjoyable relationship. I posted a rant on it on my LJ back when it happened. In fact, that was pretty much the icing on the stress cake thing. I’ve changed a lot since then.
If someone’s gonna die, it better not be me or anyone I care for. So as for killing innocents, well, I’m more inclined to believe in my own motives and those of my friends – not the guy putting a gun to someone’s head. Innocent or not wouldn’t matter (although since I don’t believe in free will innocence is a ubiquitous thing.. my life is more about how I manage me).
I disagree with methodology because then you can become captive to it. I’m a big Bruce Lee fan and I’m firm in the idea that while it’s always good to expand your capabilities, having a strategy is best formed from an alert and knowledgeable mind, not from a procedure. I do more of the former and less of the latter. so what is my nature? I don’t know. That’s why I fear it – because it’s still in the realm of things that are important to my welfare and yet impossible to grasp. I don’t want to snap because although it would work, it likely isn’t the best option as one or both of us would be hospitalized or dead, and whichever lived would be doing time. I’m pretty sure that remorseless momentary rage would not help me as much as a calm, oppertunistic insight.
Please enlighten me. There is no way he said the exact same thing. He called our innocent people “little Eichmanns”. Someday when you grow up, you’ll look back on your idealism and laugh.
Why don’t you go and read what Ward Churchill actually said, instead of the quote-mined version.
BTW, I don’t agree with Churchill, I just thought that the hypocrisy stank to high heaven.
Is it just me, or isn’t Drum’s senario just another variant of the ticking-bomb senario?
Posted by: Kristjan Wager
Yes.
And engaging with it is wrong for the exact same reason. It means accepting the assumptions implicit in the question (torture is a viable tool rather than morally beyond the pale, blowing people up is the best/only way to respond to terrorist activity) and reifying them into invisibility, thus making them seem beyond question.
It’s certainly tempting, even fun, to play with hypotheticals, so long as they remain in the realm of philosophical mind play. But if one is attempting to solve complicated real-world problems, it’s better to not fall into the fallacy of assuming that they have any direct bearing on reality; they are human reductions at best and vulnerable to the inherent biases and limits of human perception. When they compound the problem by distorting reality — as both those hypotheticals do — that’s even worse.
Here’s a statement from Ward Churchill:
That cleared it up quite a bit didn’t it? He’s got more. Eichmann was a Nazi though. So He only characterized some of them as Nazis. I know you said you don’t agree with him, but I still don’t agree that he said the same thing.
I agree with Mr. Drum about one thing; there is only one obvious answer to this question.
That answer is “It depends”.
Now, obviously, the answer to this question depends on how viable other solutions are.
For instance, can we mobilize a SWAT team to go in and arrest them? Are the terrorists heavily armed, and likely to be able to engage in a sustained firefight? Are the bystanders people who happen to live in the appartment building, or are they knowingly harboring terrorists? Are the terrorists in a country that supports their actions and is unlikely to let us send in ground troops to arrest and extradite them? How sure are we that they’re terrorists? And etc. etc.
Now, in hypothetical-ville, the answers to these questions are entirely arbitrary, and will be formulated to make one answer inevitable.
Meanwhile, here in the real world, We have good reason to believe that the intelligence wasn’t that good, and so the hyppothetical (Which assumes we actually have killed some terrorists) tells us nothing about the actual problems we have to deal with.
Thus, it is a useless question.
Torbjorn Larsson wrote
I was responding to previous comments which suggested that the authors believed that war is immoral under any circumstances.
I doubt if there are many who would disagree that fighting to defend your country against an aggressor is morally justifiable. The more difficult question is whether there are any circumstances in which it is morally justifiable to take pre-emptive action against a threat that has yet to materialise as a direct attack.
but I still don’t agree that he said the same thing.
How is:
The people who shelter and aid criminals are not innocent bystanders.
*not* the same thing.
How were the people that Churchill was talking about not “sheltering and aiding” criminals? Is there some magic degree of seperation where the blood is washed from their hands? Only the wives and children of “criminals” are guilty? First cousins? Neighbours? Storekeepers? CEOs? Shareholders?
Churchill’s reasoning and conclusion are completely sound, once you accept that premise, that “people who shelter and aid … are not innocent”.
Is it just me, or isn’t Drum’s senario just another variant of the ticking-bomb senario?
It’s not just you.
Firebombing of Dresden? There was no military advantage to this, the targets were civilians. It was an act designed to terrify and demoralize the populace. It was by definition terrorism. Not only is it possible to say this reasonably, it’s impossible NOT to. Targetting civilians for the sole purpose of terrorizing them is terrorism – what else can you call it? If not this, then the only possible definition of terrorism is “something other people do to US.”
Not many people know this, but 80% of bomb tonnage the Allies dropped on Germany in World War Two was specifically meant to hit civilians. The Allies are not only the side that defeated the Nazis, but also the side that bombed civilians in order to foment terror while steadfastedly refusing to bomb the railroads to Auschwitz.
i disagree firmly with policies of trying to assassinate “key individuals” in a populist movement like al-Quaeda. it won’t work. i don’t argue that on moral grounds.
Bin Laden’s organization is as far away from populist as possible. It’s an organization of upper-class thugs who take over countries and not only tyrannically control them but also reduce the general population to near-starvation. In the economic and educational makeup of its membership and in its tactics, Al Qaida is very similar to the CIA.
Let’s have Kevin Drum take the “moral dilemma” challenge: If it’s worth killing 18 innocent by-standers to get second-tier operatives, why wasn’t it worth sending in a few SEALS to get Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, instead of literally letting him get away?
(…)
Why do the Bushies always choose the route of maximum death to innocents?
It almost always works like this. When there’s a danger, the usual reaction organizations, companies, and governments have is not to solve it in the most cost-efficient way, but to increase the cost until it fits the perceived importance of the problem. In popular perception, doing something about an issue is defined in terms of trying, and trying is defined in terms of money; hence, spending a trillion dollars and getting partial results is considered better than spending fifty billion and getting full results, unless the two are being compared side-by-side. Hence, when the problem is terrorism, governments will always react by bombing the shit out of someone, harassing civilians, and torturing suspects, instead of going for surgical strikes.
The question of how ‘innocent’ civilians are in a total war is not clear.
When there starts a total war, this will become relevant. The last time the US fought one was in 1945.
In World War II, Dresden was bombed primarily because it was a communications hub through which Germany could shuffle its forces between the western and eastern fronts.
No, Dresden was bombed because the Allies believed killing civilians would weaken the German home front, a belief that after the war was shown to be false.
Would they be justified to do it, if the al-Qaeda leaders were in, say, Florida? And if the innocent bystanders were American? According to Kevin Drum, that should also be a yes. Any other answer would clearly signify that American lives are more valuable than Pakistani lives. I understand that many Americans take this is a given. I consider it outrageous, and I can be pretty sure most people in the World would agree with my view.
That’s not true. Most Americans don’t consider American lives more valuable than Pakistani lives. That phrasing implies they consider Pakistani lives to have some value, which they don’t.
Do you seriously believe that it’s always possible to neutralize terrorists or other enemies without doing so? Get real.
I don’t know about the general case, but I know that in this particular one, the answer is yes. There are two things called Al Qaida: Bin Laden’s organization, and the general militant Islamist movement. The former is weak; the latter is almost exclusively intra-national.
If all you care about is protecting the US, you can safely ignore the problem, becasue it has no internal Islamism. The only country about which the US can do anything is Iraq, where the main solution is to let local talent run reconstruction and then, once the people are not so materially deprived, fuck off the country and never come back. If there’s a way of killing Sistani and framing one of his associates – in particular, someone who’s not Sunni and who doesn’t have a clear group of followers who can be lynched – then whoever can do it, should.
I’d like to thank Matt B for taking the time out from his no doubt demanding schedule as active duty military personnel to post here. I mean, I assume he is. Because it’s unlikely that somene who thought the situation was dire enough to merit killing innocent people would be sitting on his fat ass stateside posting to blogs about how we’re none of us taking this war seriously enough.
By that argument, no one who isn’t a biologist has the right to post on blogs about how the general population doesn’t take evolution seriously enough.
As for someone else carrying on the fight. Hhhmmm, what would the effect have been had some of the more effective leaders during WW2 been removed? Imagine the war without Churchill, or Hitler? Yes they’d have been replaced but would their replacements have been as effective leaders?
These are second-tier operatives we’re talking about, not Bin Laden or even Zawahiri.
Afghanistan, the launching pad for 9/11, a nerve center of state-sponsored terrorism, and a historically strategic asset, bordering Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Iran, is attacked and liberated. Large numbers of troops, money and human resources are poured into the near far-East. The first Islamic democratic country in the region is assured and secure military bases are established that directly threaten Iran, the chief, long-term threat to Israel and peace in the Middle East.
Is Turkey not an Islamic country? As for Iran, everything was going fine in it – indeed, there was a strong democratic movement with the ability to foment a color revolution – until the US started threatening it, at which point everyone who opposed the government became a traitor and a pro-American shill (even those who looked up to Mossadeq; these were obviously plants secretly supporting Western imperialism).
Are the American “citizens” members of an inherent traitor class (feminists, liberals, atheists, Democrats, journalists)? Are they in an coastal urban center of depravity and objective pro-islamofascism like San Francisco or New York?
It doesn’t matter. Ann Coulter and 15 other Americans may think it’s okay for the US government to kill American civilians who happen to be liberals; the other 60 million people who voted Bush don’t.
How is it that if we kill 18 of them, they are entitled to hate us forever, but if they kill 3,000 of us, we are entitled to . . . apparently, we are not entitled even to think meanly of them.
1. Who says that Muslims have a right to murderously hate the US forever?
2. It’s not just 18; it’s 18, plus 50 in another incident, plus another 40… in Iraq the total number is 170,000; in Afghanistan, several thousand.
Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide.
Churchill is an idiot. Eichmann was in fact charged with direct killing.
“I was responding to previous comments which suggested that the authors believed that war is immoral under any circumstances.”
I missed that, my mistake. Fair enough.
Ahhh, I love a challenge…
Now, a country in which muslims live peacefully with others. How about the USA? Or the UK? Or, indeed, we have Turkey, where as far as I know, the problem is not religion, but a matter of internal secession, and I’m sure an american would have no trouble seeing what that is all about.
And yes, the Islamic terrorists are not a minor police problem. They are an international problem, which is not minor in my book. However, as ever, the best way to avoid and reduce the problems in a police action or in international affairs is to look at cultural problems. The answer is not to nuke the hell out of them. For every person you kill who is considered an innocent bystander, you create several more embittered peopel who have no interest in helping you.
Anyway, from UK experience, Britain had police and army in Northern Ireland for 30 years. Did this, in a very small, flat, piece of land, lead to a quick cessation of violence?
No, of course not.
Thus your comment is insufficient and, frankly, so childishly simplified that I am now no longer surprised at the stuff I see in the media. In Northern Ireland, you ahd a great many people who did want peace. Many of them lived next to people who wanted war. Many were of the same commmunity as violent people, and others were related by family ties (you know, genetic relations). What all this meant was that by threat of violence, many peaceful people could be prevented from taking a stand, even with all the police around, the army, etc etc.
How much worse can it be in areas in which people on this thread have admitted it would be very hard to insert special forces, where there are mountains for scores of miles, few roads, and a closely knit tribal structure?
Basically, you are taking the absolutist stand, taht if you are not with me, you are against me, ignoring the simple fact that such a view has been totally wrong and led to many more problems after the first one.
Guthrie, do you know about the genocidal campaign against the Bulgarian Orthodox minority in Turkey? I guess not.
And you asked way up whether I believe might makes right. No. But god (or somebody) is usually on the side of the big battalions. (Napoleon said that.)
And you are kidding about Muslims living peacefully with infidels in the US and Britain right? Nobody setting off any bombs on the Golden Gate Bridge or the underground. Nothing to see here, folks, move along, move along.
What ‘cultural problems’ are you proposing that we look at?
(Alon, not to go so far off topic, except it bugs me when people pass on old hoaxes: Dresden was the main marshaling point of the retreating German armies. It was not only a legitimate military target, it was the most important military target within hundreds of miles. As it happened, the bombing failed to destroy the railyards so it was a tactical failure. That it was a mindless war atrocity is a Nazi myth and you should stop falling for it.)
Alon Levy wrote
As with so many things, it is not quite that simple.
The strategic bombing campaign against Germany had its roots in the fact that, after the evacuation from Dunkirk, the only means available to the British of carrying the war to the Nazis was the night bomber. Unfortunately, in the early days of the war, aircraft sometimes could not hit the right country, let alone the right city.
As technology improved, it became possible to hit something the size of city with reasonable certainty but nothing smaller. From this grew the strategy of “area bombing”. The campaign had several objectives: the destruction of factories, the destruction of housing in order to create large numbers of refugees who would have to be cared for and which would cause the dislocation of industrial production and, yes, the demoralization of the German people.
This was not the ruthless murder of defenceless German civilians, however. RAF bombers faced radar-controlled night-fighter and anti-aircraft gun defences far more formidable than anything available to the British during the Blitz and the populations of the cities were provided with shelters and subject to air raid precaution measures. And, arguably, the people in these cities were contributing to the Nazi war effort in various ways which made them legitimate targets.
The failure to bomb Auschwitz or the railway line serving it is undoubtedly controversial and, with hindsight, it is possible to make a case that the Allies should have taken the chance. It was not, however, a “steadfast refusal” to attack in the face of overwhelming evidence of what was happening in the camp and that bombing could have put an immediate stop to it without killing a large number of the prisoners. The fact that conditions were so appalling that many of the prisoners would have preferred to be killed by bombs rather than in the gas chambers was probably – and not surprisisngly – simply not appreciated by Allied planners.
Weakening the morale of the German population was one objective of the bombing campaign, although not the only one.
In fact, there was already evidence from a British report called The Hull and Birmingham Survey that showed the resilience of ordinary people in the face of Luftwaffe raids. Unfortunately, Churchill took much of his scientific advice from Lord Cherwell who was a firm proponent of area bombing and drew different conclusions from the data.
Against that was the fact that the early big raids, such as the one on Hamburg, seriously alarmed the Nazi leadership who, at first, feared that several more on that scale in quick succession would cause German morale to crack. However, the inability of RAF Bomber Command to carry out several such raids in quick succession gave the Germans enough time to adapt.
Very good, Ian.
The ‘controversy’ over bombing Auschwitz is another of those made-up hypotheticals (embodying much of the fantasy quality of many of the posts on this thread) that ignores the fact that if the Allies had bombed Auschwitz, they could not have been expected (in hindsight, knowing what the Strategic Bombing Survey learned after the fighting stopped) to have damaged what they wanted to damage.
The strategic bombing of Germany was, on the whole, a waste of time and lives, but that is being wise after the fact.
A few people (the most notable were the English physicist Blackett and the American admiral Spruance) had insights that later proved to be correct. Just as, no doubt, a few people have insights about what to do about Islam.
The question for today is, who are the Blacketts and Spruances of 2006 and who are the Cherwells?
A few hours spent at MEMRI.org might cause the scales to fall from a few eyes, but I doubt the average Pharyngula poster has the stomach for it.
And you are kidding about Muslims living peacefully with infidels in the US and Britain right? Nobody setting off any bombs on the Golden Gate Bridge or the underground. Nothing to see here, folks, move along, move along.
There aren’t any Muslim riots in the US and Canada, and unless the two countries’ ethnic policies change dramatically, there won’t ever be.
What ‘cultural problems’ are you proposing that we look at?
The wanton discrimination that France chose to turn a blind eye to and that directly caused the riots.
Alon, not to go so far off topic, except it bugs me when people pass on old hoaxes: Dresden was the main marshaling point of the retreating German armies.
No, it wasn’t. The Allies intended to bomb a line of German cities running north-to-south in order to prevent Germany from possibly moving forces between the fronts. If they cared about civilians at all, they’d have bombed the military forces themselves.
As technology improved, it became possible to hit something the size of city with reasonable certainty but nothing smaller. From this grew the strategy of “area bombing”. The campaign had several objectives: the destruction of factories, the destruction of housing in order to create large numbers of refugees who would have to be cared for and which would cause the dislocation of industrial production and, yes, the demoralization of the German people.
There’s a difference between 80% of the bomb tonnage being intended to hit military targets but hitting civilian ones instead, and 80% of the tonnage being deliberately dropped on civilians. Bombs were so imprecise that the decision was between bombing civilians and bombing nobody, and being a military service presented with the opportunity to use force, the RAF chose to bomb civilians. After the war the Allies found the time to start an inquiry into the consequences of strategic bombing that showed it gave them no military advantage.
The ‘controversy’ over bombing Auschwitz is another of those made-up hypotheticals (embodying much of the fantasy quality of many of the posts on this thread) that ignores the fact that if the Allies had bombed Auschwitz, they could not have been expected (in hindsight, knowing what the Strategic Bombing Survey learned after the fighting stopped) to have damaged what they wanted to damage.
Toward the end of the war, the Allies had the capability to bomb Auschwitz itself, or to bomb the railway to it.
The question for today is, who are the Blacketts and Spruances of 2006 and who are the Cherwells?
There are a lot of Blacketts and Spruances, but none of them matters. Everyone important is sold on one of three non-solutions, which I will term “Enslave/kill the brown bastards” (e.g. the German government), “pretend they don’t exist and the problem will go away” (e.g. the French government), and “treat integration as racist imperialism” (e.g. the British government).
I suppose if you are totally morally bankrupt like Ward Churchill you could argue that the World Trade Center was a nest of criminals devoted to oppressing Muslims around the world, but it is just plain nuts to suppose that some guys flew into the towers in New York in order to improve living conditions in French suburbs.
The original premise in this thread had to do with, importantly, whether Muslims hate infidels and are justified in doing so — or, put another way, if we behaved differently, they wouldn’t hate us.
I’ve got news for you. They hated use before George Bush was born. What’s going on now has been going on for 1,300 years. As one of the Indonesian religious leaders said, the ONLY way to change their attitude would be for all of us to become Muslims.
Not a cultural adjustment I am prepared to make, although the majority of the posters here are already constructively Muslim. They have no reason not to finish the conversion, and for that fraction that considers America the most evil place that ever was, the only rational move would be to immediately become Muslim. Because who else is standing up to the evil of George Bush?
I suppose if you are totally morally bankrupt like Ward Churchill you could argue that the World Trade Center was a nest of criminals devoted to oppressing Muslims around the world,
Another who hasn’t read what Churchill actually said, in full.
Harry: If you accept the premise that those who “support criminals” are “not innocent”, then you have just called yourself morally bankrupt.
I suppose if you are totally morally bankrupt like Ward Churchill you could argue that the World Trade Center was a nest of criminals devoted to oppressing Muslims around the world, but it is just plain nuts to suppose that some guys flew into the towers in New York in order to improve living conditions in French suburbs.
You’re conflating Bin Laden with jihadism. Bin Laden kills civilians throughout the world when he can; but right now he can’t because his organization is already crippled. Other jihadists riot in their own countries – for example, the people who bombed the London underground were ideologically inspired by Bin Laden but had no real association with him.
I’ve got news for you. They hated use before George Bush was born. What’s going on now has been going on for 1,300 years. As one of the Indonesian religious leaders said, the ONLY way to change their attitude would be for all of us to become Muslims.
Interestingly enough, until the first Intifada in 1988, Palestinians loved the Israelis, despite the occupation. And when the peace process was going ahead in the 1990s, again the only Palestinians who had a problem with it were Hamasniks. Even now, the bulk of Palestinian terrorism comes not from fanatics who’re seriously invested in The Cause, but from poor, desperate people who blow themselves up in a spur of the moment and are to some degree the victims of the terrorist masterminds.
In addition, Turkey has a violent history, but it’s so bent on joining the EU that the Turks will do anything short of converting to Christianity to satisfy its conditions.
I do support that premise. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, we used to say in Tennessee.
I did read what Churchill said, in full, by the way.
As for Palestinians loving Israelis, it’s hard to have a discussion if we are that far apart. However, it hardly matters. Islam is attacking on every front. The genocide of the East Timorese, for example, is hard to relate to American hegemonism. Rather the opposite, since successive U.S. governments were so concerned to appease Djakarta that they never bothered to object.
You guys need to get less Amero-centric.
I do support that premise. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas
Then you agree with Churchill. Make up your mind.
Please point out where I was being Amero-centric? Are you setting up another strawman?
That is what your argument boils down to.
1) The people killed were guilty.
2) Children were killed
Therefor:
3) Those children were guilty.
Now, explain: Guilty of what? Does guilt transfer through genes? That’s tribalism, pure and simple.
As for Palestinians loving Israelis, it’s hard to have a discussion if we are that far apart.
Ask anyone in Israel who was an adult before the late 80s. The relationship between Israelis and Palestinians was excellent before the first Intifada, and then during the 90s it slowly recovered, until the second Intifada began and ruined everything again.
Islam is attacking on every front. The genocide of the East Timorese, for example, is hard to relate to American hegemonism.
So many governments engage in these practices that it’s impossible to rationally pin this on any specific ideology. For example, the situation in Indonesia is reminiscent of similar incidents in Rwanda, the Balkans, India/Pakistan, and Vietnam.
For pete’s sake, you’re a teenager. In the 1960s, I had classmates who were subject to the draft in both the U.S. and the Israeli armies, and girl classmates who took a year off to live on a kibbutz. We talked. They did not love the Palestinians and the Palestinians (who did not yet quite exist as a self-conscious ethnic group) did not love them.
What today are called Palentinians used to be thought of as Syrians, and Syria did not love Israel in 1948 or 1954 or . . .
It was before 1967. I meant the Palestinians under the occupation, whose relationship with the Israelis was great for the first 20 years or so.
Alon my friend, you are talking nonsense. I remember a bomb exploding less that a kilometer away from where I was sleeping when I was a kid. It was in 1981 or 82, and was Palestinians bombing a synogogue in Copenhagen.
Hhmm, I seem to recall reading about that somewhere. Taking up your viewpoint for a second, I would like to suggest that the massacres of Jews in Europe, the spread of Christianity across the world with the conquest of most of it by Western Europeans etc etc etc means that we are guilty of hideous massacres as well, and thus should be bombed into extinction. No?
As for God, as you also point out, Islam has been expanded somewhat in the past 1300 years. Does that mean that God is on their side? It sure looks that way to a rabid believer in Allah, doesnt it?
God is on the side of the big battalions is just another way of saying might makes right, although reading the old testament of the bible does suggest that the opposite is true, so, where does that leave poor old God?
As for London bombings, you really havent got a clue. Let me repeat myself- you cannot hold every member of a percieved community responsible for every other member. Otherwise you personally are responsible for the civilians killed in Iraq, or in US sponsored terrorism in central america during the Reagan years, etc etc etc.
Cultural problems- well, obviously Islam is in rather a outgoing mood right now. What you want to do is sideline it into either introspection, or internal bickering, or promote peaceful outlooks, all of which are harder when the prevailing rhetoric is of the “Kill them all” type.
Note also that i did not adress your comments about Saudi Arabia. Obviously their export of Wahabiist extremism is bad, and should be curtailed in whatever ways possible. But I dont see you suggesting we nuke them all? Or how about the USA stops buying its oil from them? What, you mean you dont want to do that? Thats a shame. Where do you think the Saudis get the money from then?
Alon my friend, you are talking nonsense. I remember a bomb exploding less that a kilometer away from where I was sleeping when I was a kid. It was in 1981 or 82, and was Palestinians bombing a synogogue in Copenhagen.
I’m talking about the views of the average Palestinian, not about these of the PLO. Right now, the average Palestinian’s view is that the Israelis are scum and that the occupation is horrible and must be ended immediately. Twenty years ago, it was that the Israelis were responsible to economic growth and development in Palestine and were in general friends.
Well, I don’t expect to run into a lot of Bible readers here, guthrie, but it was the Assyrians who had the big battalions.
Sheesh.
I am not a Christian, so I get to be exempt from guilt for Christian crimes against Jews. Anyway, we all get to be exempt from crimes committed before we were born.
The first 13 centuries of Moslems are beyond our reach now. The living generation has plenty to answer for, though.
You still have not said what you would do to change Islamic culture. There is a way to do it, actually, the bonifacian solution. Bush blew it. Instead of appeasing Islam he should have said, ‘We’re goin’ in hard and darin’ that Allah to stop us.’
Now that would have led to a sharp round of attitude adjustment among the Muslims.
I doubt you guys have the stomach for it, though.
As for the Saudis, I say bill ’em for all our damages and take it out in oil.
You still have not said what you would do to change Islamic culture.
First, the most virulent strand of Islam, Islamism, arose in Europe rather than in the Middle East. A lot of it still remains in Europe, where changes mostly require saner governmental policies toward immigrants (for one, Europeans need to get over their visceral hatred of affirmative action as an American stupidity). Alienated young males often resort to violence, regardless of culture or ethnicity; Islam’s sole contribution is a slight increase in the risk of alienation, caused by the lack of a civic tradition as in the West or of a tradition of sucking up to the state as in East Asia, but it’s at most an aggravating factor here.
Second, outside Europe, where change is easiest once Western governments start caring, the problem is in fact a collection of several disjoint problems: global terrorism, fundamentalist authoritarianism, and local ethnic violence; the order they appear here is descending with respect to media glamor and ascending with respect to urgency.
Global terrorism is in a hiatus, Bin Laden’s organization being too weak to do anything of the magnitude of 9/11 and 3/11. Fundamentalist authoritarianism is something the West can’t do anything about: change must come from within. Local ethnic violence is something that happens in a broad swath of the world of which the Islamic world is a midsize part that gets special attention only because it has no superpower such as China or India that can tell the US to fuck off; here the West really needs to do more, but unfortunately it doesn’t care, as East Timor and Sudan have no natural resources worth exploiting.
East Timor and Sudan have oil.
The rest is just nonsense, too.