Just Cause

 

From The Editor-In-Chief of the Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, who seems to have an inordinate amount of understanding of the realities facing the present conflict in the Middle East, and the necessity for Israel to do the job of significantly weakening if not eliminating the terrorists, which in effect benefits the entire region. (h/t Dave)

People of Arab countries, especially the Lebanese and Palestinians, have been held hostage for a long time in the name of “resisting Israel.” Arab governments have been caught between political obligations and public opinion leading to more corruption in politics and economics. Forgetting the interests of their own countries the Hamas Movement and Hezbollah have gone to the extent of representing the interests of Iran and Syrian in their countries. These organizations have become the representatives of Syria and Iran without worrying about the consequences of their action.

Recently Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier and bombed Israeli settlements with locally manufactured missiles. Soon Hezbollah followed suit, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers. Both these organizations claimed they had kidnapped Israeli soldiers to exchange them for Arab prisoners who are being held in Israeli jails. The fact that Hamas and Hezbollah gave the same reason for kidnapping Israeli soldiers gives us a glimpse [of] their agenda, which is similar to the one followed by Syria and Iran in their conflict with the United States.

While the people of Palestine and Lebanon are paying the price of this bloody conflict, the main players, who caused this conflict, are living in peace and asking for more oil from Arab countries to support the facade of resisting Israel. With the Palestinian Authority close to collapse and the Lebanese government beginning to give up responsibility for what is happening in its territory, Saudi Arabia has been forced to come out of its diplomatic routine and indirectly hold Hezbollah responsible for what is happening Lebanon.

Without mentioning Hezbollah by name Saudi Arabia blamed certain “elements” inside Lebanon for the violence with Israel and said “it is necessary to make a distinction between legitimate resistance and uncalculated [sic] adventures adopted by certain elements within Lebanon without the knowledge of legal Lebanese authorities.” While reiterating its support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance against Israeli occupation, Saudi Arabia has clearly said it is against irresponsible adventures undertaken by certain elements in the region without consulting the legal authorities putting all Arab nations at risk. The Kingdom has also said “these elements must take responsibility for their irresponsible actions and they alone should end the crisis created by them.”
This angry response from Saudi Arabia has politically isolated Hezbollah and Hamas besides holding them responsible for their actions.

This attitude of Saudi Arabia, which has been doing all it can to protect the Arab world from Israeli aggression, is enough to unmask the adventurers, who have violated the rights of their own countries and tried put their people under the guardianship of foreign countries like Iran and Syria. A battle between supporters and opponents of these adventurers has begun, starting from Palestine to Tehran passing through Syria and Lebanon. This war was inevitable as the Lebanese government couldn’t bring Hezbollah within its authority and make it work for the interests of Lebanon. Similarly leader of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has been unable to rein in the Hamas Movement.

Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of “these irregular phenomena” is what Israel is doing. The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community.

I must say to watch CNN's correspondent Nic Robertson run around with the out of breath, hyperventilating Hezbollah Press monkey who is showing him around the bombed buildings, and looking above every other second repeating that they are at that very moment standing in the most dangerous place about to be shelled again, whilst pointing to the buildings and giving the "killing innocent women and children" propaganda, was beyond the pale. In view of the fact that the spot they were standing in had been practically raised to the ground, IDF would have had to be blind to come back and waste any more rockets on completed missions. In between every sentence he would gasp and then start screaming how they will never surrender. Tell it to someone who cares, I say, or even better, someone who is listening. This is what happens when cowards hide under the skirts of their women and children in civilian housing complexes...

Well it was the most aggravating piece of propaganda footage I have seen, since I was jumping into the TV a couple of days ago when Hala Gorani could not stop using the words "excessive violence", "carnage", "targeting civilians", as she was reporting on Israel's strikes in Lebanon, and the "captured" instead of 'kidnapped' soldiers. "Hamas resists Israel recognition"; resist says it all, doesn't it. It's subtle. Let's see, resist implies: Hamas 'withstands' the pressure to abandon its genocidal goals; it implies, 'struggle against' Israel's draconian demands; Hamas 'stands up against' the schoolyard bully... "such an accord [...] a significant change" going to some lengths to diffuse the denial... but makes sure you are left with the impression that Israel rejects this hailed accord unjustly and, consistent with doctrine, arrogantly. Yeah right.

The best part came when another reporter, speaking directly from the region talked about the disgruntled Lebanese Government who feel the Israeli reaction was disproportionate considering they had "nothing to do with the actual co-ordination of the said Hezbollah attacks, although admittedly they do have two of their Ministers in the Government". Hahaha... This is even more amusing, coming via Ed Morrissey, who reports on the 23 tons of explosives dropped by the IDF on a bunker (claimed later to be a mosque under construction):

Hizbullah has a headquarters compound in Bourj al-Barajneh that is off limits to the Lebanese police and army, so security officials could not confirm the strike.

So the sovereign State of Lebanon is not permitted to enter a part of its own capital? But then let us just say "admittedly this part of the capital is run by their two Hezbollah Ministers in the Government", presumably the same two that we said earlier had "nothing to do with the co-ordination of the Hezbollah attacks". Thankfully the Saudis are coming out in full force to condemn the Hezbollah, which Lebanon has to date failed to do.

The ever biased media continue with no mention of Hezbollah's ongoing rocket attacks; no mention of Israel's need to fend off those who seek her destruction; no mention of mounting numbers of Jewish civilians who are being killed and injured by Hezbollah's unprovoked attacks; no mention of the fact that the entire Hezbollah leadership together with their entourage had evacuated all official buildings before Israel's counter-attack, that they obviously had taken refuge in civilian homes and apartment blocks; no mention of the all too well documented fact that all of these terrorist thugs shelter behind innocent civilians (although many times you'd wonder how 'innocent' they really are, but hey, let's be generous...). The one-sided reporting was simply sickening to watch.

The sad truth is that a Hala Gorani and most of her co-anchors and CNN correspondents would rather bite off their tongue before ever admitting, let alone airing this simple fact recognized by the Editor-In-Chief of the Arab Times: "Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of “these irregular phenomena” [Hezbollah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood] is what Israel is doing. The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community.

Comments

[Vitaly]

And pair of Hummers will make more, than Kofi.

[Vitaly]

Kofi solves nothing.

[Michael van der Galien]

LOL that surely sounds like Kofi. Are you sure you never met him? ;)

[jess1dering]

Patrick,
That wee glimpse into "Kofi's World" was tooo much fun.
Ah, sweet laughter. I needed that!
.

[Kenny Pierce]

Patrick,

You're killin' me. That little dialogue was hilarious.

Michael, glad you like it and found some of it useful.

[Patrick]

I think Kofi would just prefer the status quo... Please don't make me get out of this chair and leave my nice air-conditioned office. It is hot out there and you guys are just so confrontational out there. If you want me to do something. Everyone needs to come into my office and discuss it quietly.

Come to think of it, he probably does see himself as a therapist (with the appropriate rates-not really extortion). Let us deal with root causes and behavior modification. I will be an observer, but I won't take sides. We should simply provide a non-judgemental "safe" zone where we can all talk about our feelings. If we talk about it enough, the problem will just go away.

Kofi: "How do you feel about the rockets raining down on your civilians?"
Israel: "They need to stop!!!"
Kofi: "I asked about your feelings. Don't be afraid to emote..."
Israel: "I just want them to stop, and I want to live in peace."
Kofi: "Hez, how does firing the rockets make you feel?"
Hez: "I feel powerful! I want Israel to die. He should not live in my neighborhood!"
Kofi: "Can't we find a middle ground? Hez likes firing his rockets and Israel just wants peace. Simple solution, Israel, go find peace elsewhere."

[Michael van der Galien]

Kenny,

you made a couple of very good points in that post at the peril. I will print it today so I can study it a little bit better and simply because I enjoyed it very much.

[Michael van der Galien]

Patrick, that is true.

I wonder whether the Kofi would agree with that though ;)

[Patrick]

And in Israel's case, the neighborhood watch complains about the noise. They do not help out. The neighborbood watch only steps in when the damage starts to spread to their yard, or Israel appears to be getting rid of the dangerous "members of the community". The neighborhood watch has absolutely no intent to protect Israel.

[Michael van der Galien]

Kenny,

Of course I am interested to read it! I checked it out, it's a little bit umh... long so I'll read it later today when I have more time.

Thanks for posting that.

Patrick, let me add that, indeed, I believe you should show your gun and issue a final warning.
In fact one could argue that is what Israel did. Hizbullah had already kidnapped the soldiers, Israel said give them back right now if not, these tanks, bulldozers and soldiers will wipe you out.

[Patrick]

Kenny,

The father in the scenario thanks you for your condolences. My son is alive and well. Sorry about the lack of clarity. Must have been at a 3x1.

Unfortunately, while in high school, I had a friend whose mother was brutally murdered in their apartment. I am just glad my friend was staying at another friend's house that night. She was never the same and the crime was never solved.

Anyone crosses my threshold uninvited is in for a world of hurt.

Patrick

[Kenny]

Patrick,

Very sorry, of course, about your son.

[Kenny]

Michael, the aforementioned philosophy is now available here. I doubt it's worth the effort of reading it but there you go if you want it.

[Patrick]

Meant to preview, but hit post instead. Forgive the typos and missing words. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa...

[Patrick]

Michael,

In situations like this, many would like to armchair quarterback and say the only responsible thing to do would be to take the car away, and then return "her" to her house. You and a few neighbors should remove any knives in the house, only "remove" the members of the family that you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt actually killed your dead neighbors. Then we should re-educate those "bad" people. Since there are no male adults left in the house, we neighbors should provide those still in that house with food, periodically come by and maintain their house up, and hope they one day stop hating us the way they already do (wanted to kill us).

Sounds like the action of a state, not a neighbor. We do not have a world unifying, empowered government that treats everyone the same way. We have no professional world police force and re-education program. We have a neighborhood watch. What is expected of a world governement should be different than what we expect of our neighbors.

I think the problem most have is that they would like to apply the rules of a civilized, and well regulated society to a frontier society. We do not have a United Earth government with world police forces that can do these things. Since America is the only remaining superpower, many think America should act that way, (excluding their own country, of course). I want benefits of the society, but not the costs of belonging to it. America should never mess with me.

Do we treat other nations as autonomous entities, and therefore have few tools to remedy situations with? Do we treat them like subordinate citizens? Are they criminals and we have the authority to take away everything they have and lock them up, or hang them when they do not behave according to our rules.

I think we have a few centuries left before a United Earth could exist that could enforce a "criminal" code that the majority of the population agrees with. I just hope that that is not Islam's vision...

[Michael van der Galien]

Patrick, yes it is, thanks.

In this case she is indeed an enabler and as such to take her out would be a legitimate form of self defense I guess (to Dutch law, not at all by the way; you would be convicted for either murder, or man slaughter (man slaughter is more likely)).

[Patrick]

Michael,

I was trying to draw a somewhat similar situation to see your reasoning. Let me answer a few of your questions and then develop this scenario to how I see the a-bomb quandry...

"What about pulling the gun out and telling me and my girlfriend to get the heck out of your house within the next 5 seconds?" "Do you wait to act before he actually attacks you, or do you stab him or even shoot him before he actually tries to harm you?"

They have already given clear intent... Are you saying that breaking into my home and clearly stating the intent to kill my family is not suitable justification? Must I wait to see if they do bodily harm, or grevious bodily harm before deciding upon the level of my response? (For the fleshed out scenario, many neighbors have been killed in their homes, in fact, my son was killed in his sleep).

"Must I assume that you are trained in man-to-man combat? In other words that the combination of you and a knife is a deadly combination? Different things can be expected of different people you know."

You can assume that I am competent with my weapons, but have no definate belief that all I need is a knife. I cannot be assured of my victory and the safety of my family using only a knife. Even if I do succeed, I may be too injured to work and support my family.

"No, she is per definition not innocent. She has already entered your home. In a war situation however, civilians don't, you know, usually enter the soil of the enemy's country. In this scenario it's fair to assume that she's guilty herself. In the case of the civilians in Japan, however, they were not entering anyone's country, it were the combatants who did that."

OK, what if she is sitting in the driveway in the car? Say she is driving the car: definately an enabler. That is what the population does in a fanatical society. She has the ability to drive off and pick up other members of the extended crime family and return. To make a more faithful representation, they have attacked my house before. The first time they did, they killed my son in his sleep. After loosing another son, I have wounded the gang badly. She is not on my property, but she drove them to my house three times already. She probably does not have a gun. There is also no such thing as a police force in my neighborhood. There is only street justice.

Do I wait until she brings more to my house? Do I end her enabling actions? I have the ability to destroy her and the car. She might have a child in the car. If so, I have no idea how that child will grow and what actions it will take. I know she is in the driver seat because the passenger window is open (dancing in the streets firing guns, "Death to America" and the like). I cannot see inside the rest of the car, but I have seen it's delivery several times. Should I not stop the means of delivery of violence?

I am competent with the gun so that it will not hit my neighbors, but it will destroy that car.

This is a closer representation of the population of those cities at the time. The car was there (HQs, industry, etc), but I needed to stop more "family members" being dropped off at my doorstep. The destruction of the car was definately secondary. I wanted to ensure "she" did not bring anyone else to my home as she had done to mine and many other homes in the neighborhood.

Is this a little more clear?

[Kenny]

Whoops, Michael, you were writing at the same time I was; so I posted the comment and then realized it was out of date.

Let me hasten to say something I've mentioned in passing but not emphasized: I do not at all intend to argue that Truman did care about Japanese civilians and was in fact acting morally. I have no clue about his state of mind. At this stage I doubt very many people who are still alive, would know. I'm just trying to argue that a moral President could have, and in my judgment probably would have, dropped the bomb on Japan.

But my interest isn't really historical -- that is, I'm working from un-fact-checked memory on the likely consequences of invasion. It's entirely possible that if we went back and did the research I would wind up saying, "Well, it looks like the balance of consequences probably was not, in fact, in favor of using the bomb; so we probably shouldn't have dropped it." All I'm really trying to establish is that the question is a balance-of-consequences question -- in other words, that the decision makes it past the first two stages of analysis and into the third. To put it another way, I'm interested in the ethical principles at stake, not in whether Truman is in actual fact in Hell or not today.

Now, when you bring up responsibility, you raise a whole new host of philosophical questions having to do with causality, and I'm just going to have to drop some philosophy on you, namely on the different types of causation and in particular volitional causality (that is, who chose to make something happen and how that impacts culpability and responsiblity and blame and praise). But it's far enough away from Alexandra's topic that I'm not going to do it on this thread; I'll put it on the Peril blog and you can look at it there if you'd like.

Only, it'll have to be later because I have three kids whining, "Daddy, how much longer?...Daddy, are we leaving yet?..." So I think the other folks here in the coffee shop would be very grateful if I were to get them home, like, now. So I'll catch up later on sometime.

And it's a very great pleasure indeed to discuss things with you. You ask very intelligent questions and raise non-obvious objections...[beep beep beep beep] oh, sorry, the sapometer just pegged into the red zone and I have to stop commenting before my laptop self-destructs. See ya.

[Kenny]

Michael,

Okay, back from church and now to finish up my point.

The last argument you have is an appeal to scale. I have the impression that you've read lots of C. S. Lewis, so I'll remind you of his remarks about how moderns have the odd idea that scale is of moral significance. I won't defend the proposition that scale has no intrinsic moral significance, only illustrate it:

If I sleep with one woman besides my wife, and you sleep with fifty women besides your wife, you have committed more acts of adultery than I have. But would you think I were sane if I argued that since I had only slept with one lover, I had not yet committed adultery? How many women do I have to sleep with before I became an adulterer? Six? Fifteen? More than one at once? The very question is absurd; whether you are committing adultery is not determined by whether you've slept with enough people who aren't your wife -- it's determined by whether you've slept with any. If what you're asking is whether the use of atomic weapons is out of court because it's intrinsically immoral, then you are essentially arguing that the use of atomic weapons is murder -- but since murder is an evil means, even one murder disqualifies the means as surely as a thousand murders would.

In other words, to appeal to scale is to appeal to the balance of consequences: a few hundred civilians is acceptable collateral damage, but a few hundred thousand is not. And that is generally true -- but only because there frequently arise situations in low-scale, regional conflicts where the cost of not defending one's own citizens will potentially be several thousand dead, and therefore there frequently arise situations in which a few hundred dead on one side is outweighed by the consequences of inaction. But only very rarely indeed do there arise such gigantic clashes of civilization that literally millions of lives on each side are at stake, and therefore even several hundred thousand civilians' worth of collateral damage could be outweighed.

Yet if ever there was such a situation, it was Japan in '49.

Let me get rid of the philosophical language and put it in terms that might have been used by a reasonably informed American in 1949. To such a person Japan would have been an alien culture, but he would over the course of the war to that point have learned that its soldiers were inhumanly brutal to anyone whom they overran, that they fought to the death with nearly superhuman ferocity on every island where they were attacked even when hopelessly outnumbered, that they had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of men prepared to carry out kamikaze attacks, that their culture thought seppuku was one of the noblest and most honorable of actions, and that (if military intelligence was to be believed) they were actively training their civilians, including women and youths, to resist land invasion to the death. If you are Truman considering whether to drop the bomb, you know among other things that Japanese soldiers are dying in far greater numbers than are Americans in the island-hopping process, and therefore you may reasonably believe that the invasion process, as terrible as it will certainly be for Americans, is likely to be even more devastating to the Japanese people. You know that the only hope of saving the Japanese people is to convince the Emperor that total and utter defeat is inevitable. You have a weapon that can demonstrate to him that even when he has armed all of Japan to resist your invasion, you can up the kill ratio from four or five to one, up to half a million to one, at which point all the civilian soldiers in the world could never be enough.

Let us say now that you, the American President, don't give a damn about your own people, and that the only thing you care about is finding a way to save as many Japanese noncombatant lives as possible from the near suicidal madness of their Emperor and his military leaders, who like Lord Farquad are happy to say, "Millions of you may die, but it is a price I'm willing to pay." What do you do?

I'll tell you what you do. You drop the bomb.

You drop the bomb, that is, unless dropping the bomb is an intrinsically evil act, and thus disqualified under the heading of, "Shall we do evil so that good may result? No way!" The compassion that wants to save the lives of Japanese civilians by replacing the bomb with a conventional invasion, is an entirely false and misguided compassion. And that's true even if you think that a single Japanese life ought to count for more than a million American lives: if you only care about the Japanese, then you still drop the bombs -- unless it's murder to do so and therefore out of court no matter how much the consequential balance argues in its favor.

But it isn't murder, because the Japanese government has already taken the step of transforming its civilian population into military reserves, making those reservists legitimate targets; and you do not will the death of the relatively few remaining true civilians who will inevitably be collateral casualties.

I think the biggest problem that my and later generations have in looking at Truman's decision, is precisely a problem of scale: we do not comprehend the scale of the devastation that would have been involved in a land invasion. Except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese homeland escaped WWII practically unharmed. Do you have any idea what a miracle that is? Have you ever compared pictures of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima after the last Japanese soldier died, to pictures of Hokkaido on V-J Day? Given that Truman had made the judgment that Japan's government would have to be utterly defeated before it would ever be willing to make the fundamental societal changes necessary to keep it from being a threat to start WWIII as soon as we might turn our back -- and I think that was a reasonable judgment -- the dropping of the atom bombs was, from a pure balance-of-consequences-to-Japanese-civilians standpoint, one of the great acts of mercy of the twentieth century. For every Japanese "civilian" who died in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, there were ten who escaped death in the conventional invasion that was its alternative.

In the end, what Anscombe and similar thinkers really wanted, was very much the same thing that the knee-jerk cease-fire folks want from Israel today. Anscombe's objections really all go back to her outrage that we demanded an unconditional surrender. After that, we could do no right in her eyes. Anscombe and those who agreed with her wanted the forces of freedom to settle for less than what was truly necessary to establish true peace; they wanted us to do less than totally break the evil societal structures that made Japan, and now make Hezbollah and Hamas and Syria and Iran, incapable of true peace. The two things that I find most striking about Anscombe's writings on the atom bomb -- and wait, I should say that I very much like Anscombe and it's unfortunate that I happen to be focusing on one of the few points where I disagree with her -- at any rate, the two things I find most striking are the clarity of her prose...and the shallowness of her vision, her inability to grasp the true scale of the evil we faced from outside of the West, because of her eagerness to label and condemn evil within the West.

There are times when evil must be completely broken. WWII was one. WWIII is now upon us, and it is another. I am not saying that we should drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza; there are, I think, better ways to break the back of Hamas and Hezbollah, given the enormous technological advances in our ability to use precision weapons to minimize collateral civilian casualties. But Anscombe and her compatriates seem to me to have rushed to judgment on the leaders of their own side, and to have grossly underestimated the depravity and cultural otherness of the other side; and had we done it Anscombe's way Japan itself would have been the biggest loser. Today the people who want an immediate cease-fire and are already complaining about "disproportion" in Israel's response, seem to me to be modern-day Anscombes, and if they have their way and Hezbollah is allowed to retreat and rearm, then eventually a terrible price will be paid by the people of Lebanon and of Gaza and of the West Bank -- that is, by the very people the self-righteous voices of restraint imagine themselves to be protecting.

[Michael van der Galien]

(I will respond point per point, you will find out why, later on)

"Is it a conclusion in which a reasonable person can have enough confidence, given the available facts, to take action?" You can't get the right answer by asking the wrong question, and, "Is that an assumption, or a fact?" is the wrong question.

True of course. It doesn't have to be a 'fact', it needs to come as close to a certainty as one is able to reasonably come.

That is simply not the same thing as "deciding to take the lives of thousands and thousands of civilians." Because it is not the same thing -- because the deaths of the civilians is an undesired side effect and not the means that I will, i.e., not the thing that I choose to do -- the action ceases to be intrinsically evil and becomes a matter for consequential analysis.

No, I understand that, again I had to express myself more carefully. At the moment you think about a possible solution thoroughly and you understand the full consequences of that possible solution, and overseeing it all you chose for that possible solution, you are directly responsible for those other results you already foresaw.
See, at the moment you chose to use WMD's because you consider it the best option to defeat your enemy, you accept the other consequences of that action. At the moment you accept the other consequences, because knowing the full results of your action you chose to carry it out nonetheless, you are directly responsible.

Thus, the question for me, is actually a moral and very subjective one, namely "do I want to take responsibility for it"? Well, as I explained, I am willing to take responsibility for the deaths of thousands of civilians in an attempt to beat my enemy, only as a last resort.
You say that you are not 'chosing' those deaths, it's not your 'will' to kill them. Instead it's your 'will' to kill the enemy combatants, or better said to beat them (with a foreseeable but regrettable co-result being the deaths of those civilians). That is true, but, that doesn't mean that you're not directly responsible for other results of the action you are carrying out.

Darn, I'm trying to make myself clear, but I notice myself perfectly being able to do so in Dutch, but I have great difficulty doing it in English, because it's about the details.

Anyway,

It is absolutely arguable that the Japanese would not have surrendered nearly so readily in a conventional land invasion -- that they would have held out hope, and therefore fought longer, in a conventional invasion. It is absolutely arguable that far fewer Japanese civilians died than would have in a conventional land invasion.

Do you have any information / viable estimations to back that up? See, another important thing I want to point out in this debate is - to me - that one has to be darn sure, or as close to sureness as can possibly be expected of one in such a situation before using WMD's, instead of using them on the basis of "it's arguable".
"it's arguable that ... " doesn't do it for me. As you pointed out, it doesn't have to be a 'fact', but it must be an extremely well informed / founded opinion (of course I understand that you don't have the CIA working for you, so I can't expect you to have the same information Presidents have, but still) whose conclusion must be as sure as humanly possible and reasonable in such a situation.
"it's arguable" doesn't pass that test.

To say, "Yes, but at least we wouldn't have killed them directly," seems to me to be the equivalent of saying, "Yes, but my conscience would be clearer and I am more interested in my own peace of mind than in the suffering of Japanese civilians."

True. It's not exactly what I was trying to say (it's more that in such a situation I would be directly responsible whereas in the other situation I would be indirectly co-responsible, but I guess that, in essence, you are right. Let me think about it a little bit more...
okay, I went back from the computer for a while and thought about it... well, sad to say I think I have to revise my earlier opinion (hence the special notice of "i'll react per point" at the top of this comment).
I should add that I could regard it to be right to use WMD's in this situation as long as this claim can be backed up (I don't mean by you at this point in time, but more that, lets say I'm a politician and I have to decide about this, I need information from certain Services / Agencies): in other words: not that it "is arguable", but that according to very good reasearch / investigation into the matter, professionals believe that if WMD's will not be used to put an end to the war now, more civilians will be killed in the long run. And the difference should be significant as well.

By any balance-of-consequences computation I've ever seen -- including the balance of consequences for Japanese civilians -- the atom bomb was far better than any of the alternatives. Japan is far better off for having gone through two atom bombs than it would have been had it gone through a conventional invasion.

Admittetly I have not done an individual research into this matter, but what I am taught about this, is that the decision didn't really focus at Japanese civilians (but on science and American soldiers).
If - however - this is true and which I out of trust to you and knowing you to always be able to back claims up, I - as I said above - have to revise my position.

Darn. I really don't enjoy debating with you.

;) just kiddin' of course.

[jess1dering]

JCC,
............. My stuff.................
Absolutely no apologies necessary. Honest and thanks.

[Kenny]

Michael,

Patrick's line of reasoning about nuclear bombs never being usable, and therefore its being immoral to have them at all, is Elizabeth Anscombe's reasoning, and most of what you were saying falls in line with Anscombe so far as it goes; so I think Patrick just kept right on refuting Anscombe. Just guessing, though.

The problem with a couple of the distinctions you're trying to make is that...hm, a bit difficult to explain briefly but I'll try.

On "assumption" vs. "fact" -- everything you believe at all about the real world is to some degree an assumption rather than a fact, including the assumption that the whole thing isn't an illusion (see Buddhism; see also The Matrix). In war in particular, if you are going to say that people aren't allowed to decide to kill others based on assumptions rather than facts, then you are saying that it is immoral to wage war, full stop. The issue is not, "Is this an assumption, or is it a fact," for it is neither. It is a conclusion, based on a combination of working assumptions and evidentiary facts; and the proper question is, "Is it a conclusion in which a reasonable person can have enough confidence, given the available facts, to take action?" You can't get the right answer by asking the wrong question, and, "Is that an assumption, or a fact?" is the wrong question.

Kenny I understand where you're coming from, but you are forgetting about an important distinction: in the case in which you decide to drop the bomb that kills those civilians you are the one who actually does the killing. Having thought about it very thoroughly, you decide to take the lives of thousands and thousands of civilians.

See, Michael, it's hard for me to read that and think you have really grasped the point about willing and foreseeing. Having thought about it very thoroughly, I decide to take an action (wiping out a daunting reserve military force by dropping an exceptionally powerful bomb) that I know will have the unpleasant consequence of killing a significant number of actual civilians. That is simply not the same thing as "deciding to take the lives of thousands and thousands of civilians." Because it is not the same thing -- because the deaths of the civilians is an undesired side effect and not the means that I will, i.e., not the thing that I choose to do -- the action ceases to be intrinsically evil and becomes a matter for consequential analysis.

If you are concerned about the lives of thousands and thousands of Japanese civilians, then the important question is not, "How many Japanese civilians can I avoid killing directly?" but, "What course of action will lead to the least harm to Japanese civilians?" It is absolutely arguable that the Japanese would not have surrendered nearly so readily in a conventional land invasion -- that they would have held out hope, and therefore fought longer, in a conventional invasion. It is absolutely arguable that far fewer Japanese civilians died than would have in a conventional land invasion. To say, "Yes, but at least we wouldn't have killed them directly," seems to me to be the equivalent of saying, "Yes, but my conscience would be clearer and I am more interested in my own peace of mind than in the suffering of Japanese civilians."

By any balance-of-consequences computation I've ever seen -- including the balance of consequences for Japanese civilians -- the atom bomb was far better than any of the alternatives. Japan is far better off for having gone through two atom bombs than it would have been had it gone through a conventional invasion. The only way to attack the use of the atom bomb is to say, "But even though the world, including the Japanese people, were better off this way, the use of an atom bomb is so intrinsically evil that no possible balance of consequences can justify its use, because intrinsic evil is not vitiated by a good balance of consequences." But the dropping of the atom bomb would only be intrinsically evil if its use involved the willing -- not just the foreseeing of the deaths of innocents. Which it did not.

And now I have to get to church 'cause I'm running late...sorry (Sunday morning here).

[Michael van der Galien]

Patrick,

What about pulling the gun out and telling me and my girlfriend to get the heck out of your house within the next 5 seconds?

Must I assume that you are trained in man-to-man combat? In other words that the combination of you and a knife is a deadly combination? Different things can be expected of different people you know.

Do you wait to act before he actually attacks you, or do you stab him or even shoot him before he actually tries to harm you?

No, she is per definition not innocent. She has already entered your home. In a war situation however, civilians don't, you know, usually enter the soil of the enemy's country. In this scenario it's fair to assume that she's guilty herself. In the case of the civilians in Japan, however, they were not entering anyone's country, it were the combatants who did that.

(BTW: because you force me to accept this as a valuable comparison, I am forced to follow this line of thinking. However, I don't find it to be a fair comparison at all. The difference is that the one is on minor scale, the other is on a major scale. It's the scale that makes the difference. I have already clearly told you that collateral damage is terrible, but it's a part of war. WMD's however, don't cause acceptable collateral damage in the far majority of situations.
Thus personally, I would expect you to warn 'me and my girlfriend' once. If I than attack you, you are allowed to use your 'WMD' - aka gun.
Lets now say, however, that if you fire that thing, not only will me and my girlfriend be killed, but due to the blast the neighboors as well.
That creates a different situation)

[Barry Meislin]

The conflict is larger than Israel-Hezbullah.

Hezbullah has said that Israel will be destroyed.
The Iranian regime backing Hezbullah with money, men, training and materiel, has said that Israel will be destroyed.

They mean to do it.

Syria serves as a conduit for terrorists and materiel from Iran to Lebanon/Hezbullah and as a reserve for a large number of long-range missiles, to be used when deemed necessary (either sooner or later). Syria will use its air force and army if/when necessary to attack/harass Israel on its eastern/northeastern flank (akin to how Hamas, et al., will continue to harass Israel from Gaza). There is every reason to believe that Iranian forces, which are in Hezbullah's ranks, are also within the ranks of the Syrian armed forces. Hezbullah operations are being coordinated, at least in part, from the safety of the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

Israel either eliminates the threat from Hezbullah, and from Syria, and from Iran.

Or Israel is destroyed.

Anything else is commentary.

[RunningRoach]

Hey jess,

Your last one word post was “ouch”. It followed my post to Kenny re: "sappiness to signal ratio". If I inadvertently offended you I certainly apologize. My comment had nothing to do with your posts. It’s an engineering thing…..like signal to noise ratio. I thought the analogy was “cute” unto itself. No offense meant.

Please accept my apologies if I offended you.
Regards,
JCC

[Patrick]

Michael,
Sorry, I was projecting. I got the impression that you believed that nukes would never be a morally acceptable weapon.

I would agree about the plinking of nukes in the Middle East right now. Of course from a disenfranchised rock-throwing-idiot’s point of view, the Israeli and US militaries are WMDs because a man armed with only rocks and rifles can do only so much against them. Something about wanting a “fair fight” so they attack only “soft targets” in order to have a “fair fight”, i.e. a fight they are virtually guaranteed to win. Why won't we just stand still, unarmed, and let them behead us. We obviously haven't had the proper upbringing.

Your basic “last resort” theory is really more of an act of final defiance (you have almost totally destroyed me, so I will destroy you). This reciprocity thing (even if he uses them on me, doesn’t give me the right to use them in return) is troubling.

Let us remove current conditions and reduce this argument to more of a mano a mano scenario.

I am in my home at night. I have a knife and a BFG (big f*ing gun) I keep by the bed because it is a really rough neighborhood. You know the type; where the police only come by in broad daylight and in groups of 10 or more. I have signs at my door and window that say this house protected by Smith & Wesson. This is Texas and my home is sovereign territory (if you are armed in my house…).

You break into my house with your girlfriend who is carrying bags to take my valuables. You have a knife. I confront you on the stairs. You say you are going to kill me and then my family who are asleep upstairs. Your girlfriend is standing directly behind you. My options are to use the knife and fight you hoping your girlfriend stays an "innocent" bystander and hopefully I win the knife fight; or I can use my BFG which will certainly kill you both. What should I do?

Oh by the way, realizing we are in the good old USA where lawsuits rule, I also know that if I only hurt you, you will win a phenomenal lawsuit for pain and suffering and I will have to support you with the sale of my house and the liquidation of the kids college funds, IRAs, etc… Still, I feel empathy and would prefer not to kill you if I do not need to.

Your girlfriend is not visibly carrying a weapon. She could be supporting your attack into my house. She might just have been intimidated into taking part. She could be the one instigating this and pulling your strings. She could be the one carrying a BFG. She is at least an accomplice.

Do I really need to worry about her innocence?
How do you feel about social contract theory?
What if she were in front of you?

Should I use my WMD?

[Michael van der Galien]

Wow, okay take it easy everyone, I will try to address the points all of you made.

Patrick:

Back to the bomb: If you will never use the weapon, is it actually a weapon and would it have a deterrent effect? I would have to say no to both of these questions. Therefore, for it to be considered a weapon and have any deterrent effect, you must be willing to use it. Before I go too far down this road, under what conditions would “you” employ a nuclear weapon? Tell you what, let’s make it easy. When would you use a neutron weapon or some new type of a bomb that would only kill large numbers of people? This removes some of the moral ambiguity of using the EMP or thermal/blast effects to destroy equipment/facilities and not have to worry about damage to future generations because of some residual effects. It makes it perfectly clear that this weapon can only target life… Is this weapon evil??? I would like your take before we delve deeper. There are many interesting theories and frameworks we can use.

Long story short, I think you are asking the wrong question. The question shouldn't be 'is the weapon evil', but is using it in certain, specific circumstances evil? My former comment was not one in general, but about the current situation in the Middle-East and how I would not advocate using WMD's against our Islamist enemies at this point of time.

Let me try to explain. In my opinion using WMD's is an evil act in 99% percent (random number, you get the point) of the possible scenarios. Let's say we will be engaged in a large scale war against certain countries. A war in which a lot is at stake, but a war in which it is possible to win by just using conventional weapons.
In such a scenario (the most likely at this point in time as far as I'm concerned), it would be evil to use WMD's, because WMD's can only, ethically as far as I am concerned, be used only as a last resort.
For instance, say we will be engaged in a war, it's an incredibly large scale war and the enemy is using WMD's against us. Now, just because they use WMD's, doesn't make it, as far as I'm concerned, okay for use to use them as well (again: only as a last resort).
However; after thoroughly investigating the situation we find that, if we will not use WMD's, we will definitely lose and, as a result, our freedom will be lost / we will be killed / something like that.
That's a 'last resort' scenario.

Hope that answers your first question, where do we go from here?

Kenny:
(first off, thanks for the long explanation to get into it a little bit but, I don't really need that - the first sentence I understood what your foundation would be;))

The difference between Israel and Hizbullah is - as you point out of course - that Hizbullah intends to kill civilians. One could (almost?) say it's one of their (sub)goals. It's Israel's goal to destroy Hizbullah, because of the circumstances Israel can only do so by, sadly, causing the deaths of some Lebanese civilians (thus it's a means).
Another important way of finding out whether something is (more of being) a goal or (more of being) a means is this: if Israel could defeat Hizbullah by other means, by not killing any Lebanese civilians, would she gladly do so? The answer is yes.
If Hizbullah could destroy Israel without having to kill civilians, only soldiers, would it do so? No, among other things she considers all Israeli civilians to be fair targets / getting what they deserve for being, simply, Israeli / infidels / etc.

Kenny I understand where you're coming from, but you are forgetting about an important distinction: in the case in which you decide to drop the bomb that kills those civilians you are the one who actually does the killing. Having thought about it very thoroughly, you decide to take the lives of thousands and thousands of civilians.
In the case you refuse to do so, believing you can win the war without using WMD's, your own soldiers might be killed. Yes. And - that is indirectly caused by your decision.
However; mark the word indirectly. In the second scenario the one actually doing the killing is the enemy. Not you.
As you surely know, there is a phylosofical difference between being indirectly co-responsible, and directly responsible.

Furthermore: considering the Japanese you assume that, based on Japanese tradition, civilians were willing to carry arms. That's an assumption, not a fact.
Is it likely that quite some Japanese civilians were ready to fight? Could be, I don't know, I haven't read thorough studies into this question.
Again, it's 'could be'.
Could.
Now, (one of) the ethical question(s) is: do you believe it to be morally justifiable to kill thousands and thousands of civilians purely based on assumptions that really don't go any further than 'could be'?
I don't as I made clear in my response to Patrick. I believe in order to make it morally justifiable mere assumptions are not enough. Of course one could ask "when would you consider it to be sure enough"? I would answer that question by "most likely" (in percentages say 80 - 90%).
That, however, isn't suffice. According to my reasoning we should still answer the question is it necessary to win the war? / would the war be lost if we didn't, or would it most likely take more time?.

(A by the way: as I see it if one is put into the position to decide about this matter, one has to do what one thinks one is able to justify towards God (with that I mean, go before God and say that one truly believed this to be the best option). In such a situation I often find it to be difficult to 'objectivise' it.)

Patrick: teaching doesn't make on rich perhaps, but it provides for a good income, no? (well, at least here that is)
Kenny: you know, I often wonder why it is that Western society demands all kinds of papers for just about everything, while in so many cases, people who actually seem able of carrying out a specific task, are, quite often, not in the possession of these papers. There is this weird obsession with papers going on in the West and I believe we are - although it's a great sign of ones abilities - making a potential grave mistake)

[Kenny]

Well, I found the old stuff, but it’s too technical and not really specific enough to the question at hand.

Okay, Michael, let me see if I can make this clear (unfortunately I’m not as gifted at exposition as St. Thomas was).

There are some critical distinctions here. First, there is the distinction between means and ends. Second, there is the distinction between that which you will and that which you foresee. And third, there is the whole question of negligence.

First, are you clear on the distinction between means and ends? The end is something you want to accomplish; the means are what you do in pursuit of the end. That’s a pretty critical distinction.

I think the two most critical moral principles involving means and ends are the following. First, Paul says someplace (can’t remember chapter and verse off the top of my head), “Shall we do evil so that good may result? No way!” Translated into philosophical terms, this means that no matter how good your end is, it cannot justify the employment of evil means: “the end does not justify the means,” assuming the means are intrinsically evil (that is, evil per se, not simply evil on grounds of the balance of consequences). Second, “he who wills the end, wills the means.” That is...hmm, that’s a bit tricky.

Okay, say that your neighbor’s wife has fallen in love with you and says she’s going to commit suicide if you don’t sleep with her. If you commit adultery with her in order to save her life, you can’t say, “It wasn’t really adultery because I didn’t do it in order to get my jollies; I was trying to save a life.” You chose to attempt to save her life, but in order to do that you chose to commit adultery.

Now, the distinction between what you will and what you foresee is somewhat trickier. I’ve struggled with how to explain this to people who don’t read much philosophy, and I think the best simple test is this: let’s say you’re going to do something that you know will make something else happen – let’s say, you’re going to jump out of the World Trade Center, and you know that when you hit the ground you’re going to die. Now, the question of whether or not you are committing suicide comes down to this: if, by a miracle, you were to hit the ground, bounce up like a rubber ball, and find yourself healthy and in one piece, would you be thrilled? Or would you say, “Oh, crap, I’m still alive”?

Ordinarily, you see, if a person were to jump out of a tall building, he would do so because he wanted to die. He would be willing his own death, and therefore committing the sin of suicide. But in the case of the WTC bombings, you had people who did not want to die, and who leaped from the windows anyway. They foresaw their deaths, and they chose to jump knowing that the impact would kill them. But they did not will their deaths. What they wanted to do was to escape the literally intolerable heat of the inferno. They willed escape from heat; they foresaw, and accepted, but did not will, their death.

And therefore they did not commit the sin of suicide.

This is, again, the reason that abortion is ethically permissible in order to save the life of the mother, even if you believe the fetus has the right to life. Assume, for the sake of illustration, that you believe that generally speaking abortion is murder. Now, the test of whether abortoin, in the case of extreme danger to the mother, is murder or not, comes down to intention. If the doctors were to remove the fetus from the womb, and somehow the fetus were to survive, would the mother be delighted and thrilled? Or would she complain, “Hey, wait a minute, you’re telling me I still have to deal with a kid?” In the first place, it can be argued that the doctor and mother will the removal of the child from the womb, and they foresee that the result will probably be the death of the child, but they do not will the death of the child. The child’s death is accepted, reluctantly, as a foreseen but undesired and unintended consequence of the action of removing the child from the womb, which action must (ex hypothesi) be taken if we are to avoid the death of the mother herself, and therefore of the child as well. In the second case, what the doctor and mother will is precisely the death of the child, and therefore they are guilty (on the presumption that abortion is normally murder) of murder. To put it a different way, the proposition that abortion is under ordinary circumstances murder, involves the implicit assumption that under ordinary circumstance the whole point of the procedure is to see to it that the child does not survive.

Now in military parlance, the term collateral damage refers precisely to consequence that one foresees (with varying levels of detail and certainty), and would prefer to avoid, but cannot avoid without abandoning some action that on other grounds is considered necessary. Thus this distinction between what is willed and what is foreseen but undesired and unintended, turns out to be the fundamental distinction that determines what is and what is not terrorism. The Israelis, in this current action, have undertaken military actions meant to degrade their murderous military opponents’ ability to rain destruction upon Israeli civilians. Because their opponents have deliberately ensconced themselves among civilians, it is impossible for the Israelis to eradicate their enemy without in the process doing things that will result in the deaths of Lebanese civilians. We therefore see the Israelis doing things that they know will result in the deaths of Lebaneses civilians, and Lebanese civilians are indeed dying; but Israel would be absolutely thrilled if nobody in Lebanon got hurt except the terrorists. Israel clearly does not will the deaths of Lebanese civilians. But can anyone pretend that Hezbollah and Hamas do not will the deaths of Israeli civilians? If Hezbollah and Hamas were to fire all their rockets and not kill a single Israeli civilian, do you think they would be delighted?

Indeed, Hezbollah and Hamas do not merely will the death of Israeli civilians – it has become more and more inescapably clear throughout the last few decades that Islamist terrorists actually will the deaths of their own civilians – they murder those who resist the Islamist agenda, and they do everything they can do to ensure that Israeli attacks will kill as many Arab women and children as possible, because of the high propaganda value of Arab civilian deaths in the gullible (or willfully anti-Semitic) Western press.

And that is what makes somebody a terrorist – you will the deaths of noncombatants (either on the other guys’ side or on what is nominally your own side), as a military strategy. It puts you in a radically different moral universe from the people who employ strategies that they know will result in civilian deaths as collateral damage, but who deeply regret those civilian deaths and do what they can to minimize them.

To try to wrap this up quickly:

When you are trying to evaluate the morality of a military strategy, you can work your way through a checklist that looks something like this:

1. Is the end morally justified? That is, is the war as a whole a just war? (As Patrick points out, Anscombe argued that the American war on Japan in WWII was an immoral war from the beginning because the Americans demanded unconditional surrender, which she and many other Catholics felt was intrinsically an immoral demand.)

2. Is the tactic you wish to employ intrinsically evil – that is, does it require you to will an evil action? The deliberate killing of noncombatants qua noncombatants would be an intrinsically evil action, for example – say that we were to break into an elementary school, execute all the children, and then say, “If you do not surrender then we will kill all the rest of your children as well.”

3. If the end and the means are both morally permissible, then you move to the probable balance of consequences. With the first two you are doing very straightforward moral analysis (exercising moral judgment per se); here you have to bring prudence to bear. And because the future is uncertain, you can only make your best guess. What you have to do now is take into account the various scenarios that you can foresee as possible results of the tactic you’re considering. You determine the net good and evil, as best you can, of each scenario, and weight it by how likely each scenario is – not that you can really do a quantified mathematical expectation calculation, but you know what I mean. And this is where the collateral damage comes into play: if the tactic is likely to cause many civilian deaths, then there must be very great good indeed expected from the tactic, or (more likely) one must expect that such terrible evil will arise from not using the tactic, that the collateral damage you foresee and regret is the best of the bad choices you have. And war, more than any other human situation, consistently puts you in situations where all your choices are bad ones and you have to accept a great many collateral consequences you would desperately wish to avoid if it were at all possible.

Now, I think if you take this kind of analysis and go back and look at Hiroshima, you’ll see what Patrick and I are getting at.

1. I, like most Americans, believe that the war against Japan was morally justified. I do not think the unconditional surrender demand is that big a deal because I don’t think we could have rationally demanded anything less than the complete dismantling of the dysfunctional cult of the emperor, and the Japanese would not have accepted that demand until utterly defeated.

2. As you perceive, I believe that because of the extreme militarism and extreme shame/honor dynamic of Imperial Japanese culture, the majority of Japanese “civilians” were in fact reserve military forces who could be expected to fight fiercely and (in most cases) to the death. At the very least, it was reasonable for American decision-makers at the time to hold that opinion.

Let’s take your example numbers for the sake of argument. 70% of the people who will be killed if we drop the bomb are in fact reserve military forces; 30% are innocents. Now, the critical question: do we will the death of the 30%? I think clearly we do not. I think we would happily fall on our knees as the B-2 taxied onto the runway, praying that God would pull as many of that 30% as possible out of the kill zone. Do we foresee their deaths? Absolutely. Do we intend the death of the 70%? Absolutely; but then that’s okay because they are military targets. Do we intend the death of the 30% who are truly civilians? We do not, even though (given the utter impossibility of sorting them out from the 70%) we know they’re going to die. Therefore the second test is passed, albeit with deep regret.

I’m not saying, by the way, that Truman in historical fact really cared about the 30% (or whatever); that is a question of the judgment of Truman’s conscience and is a matter for him and God to settle. I’m just looking at the question of whether the atom bomb could have been morally used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

3. The balance of consequences...okay, the balance of consequences is so overwhelmingly in favor of dropping the bombs it isn’t even funny, and that’s true even if the only thing you care about is Japanese civilians. I think it reasonable to believe that Japanese civilians suffered far less in the dropping of the two bombs than they would have suffered from a conventional air and ground forces invasion.

Well, that’s a lot to chew on, even without tying this back to Patrick's earlier rumblings about utilitarianism. I’ll be very interested in your reaction.

[Patrick]

Let me respond to some of these comments:

JCC,

I agree. Israel must escalate or it will lose. I will hit on that in a bit.

GD and others: I thought we had moved beyond the ad hominem attacks; yours was the first… However, in your defense, you are correct in that the military officer is taught ethics, philosophy and Just War principles. I attended USMA (1991 Grad-went Infantry) and Philosophy (we called it Drugs) was a required course. Every soldier (marine, sailor, and airman) is trained on the Law of Land Warfare. Each Theater will have a specified set of Rules of Engagements (yes, you are correct that they are vetted by the lawyers-every brigade combat team has a lawyer) and some operations will have even more restricted ROE because of the specific mission goals/tasks. If the Theater ROE says you cannot search a civilian non-combatant at a checkpoint without displaying a pink armband, you have to have that pink armband. Your brigade can add to the ROE (more restrictive) by saying you also have to display a purple carnation; however, you still need that pink armband. Silly example, but some of the ROE (in some peacekeeping missions) have some interesting requirements that I like to poke fun at. Seriously though, no ROE prevents the soldier from taking actions in self-defense and JCC is correct that they are focused on combat operations. All units go through exhaustive scenario training sessions before deploying. Many of these concern the ethical dilemmas and understanding of the Theater ROE.

I believe GD is mistaken on the application of “proportionality of response”. First off, the quotes you cite are accurate. The problem is the grey area of causing more “evil” than you prevent. What is the timeframe military leaders must consider? The problem is always in the application of theories. If dictator “A” kills 100,000 of the people inside his own country every year, how many “innocent civilians” can be killed by those who overthrow him? Let us say he could live another 40 years and his carbon copy son another 40? How much “evil” can I do before I have violated the “proportionality of response”? Couldn’t I just nuke the capital with a population of 2 million while he is giving a live speech with his son right next to him? Let us say all of his security apparatus was there also, guaranteeing freedom for the entire country. This seems better than letting him stay my “Dear Leader.” I know that is a ridiculous example, but that is why it is guidance, not law. What is the temporal and geographical scope for my considerations when making a “proportionality” decision? Just the street I am on and the next 2 hours or the entire country and 50 years? When I consider the lethality of a piece of equipment I am targeting, should I consider it with just a basic load of ammunition, or a life-cycle capability with a virtual limitless supply of ammo (when the bore is worn out from shooting). Sure sounds like a game of you win, and I lose no matter what action I take if you get to determine the scope of consideration.

Let us look at equipment. Proportionality of response does not mean that I can only fire an M-4 against an AK-47 wielding terrorist. All of the weapons used by the US military are fine for any conflict we are in. Some people mistake the application of this guidance. Can I shoot an enemy rifleman with a main gun round from a tank? You bet I can. Can I take him out with a 2000 lb bomb? Yes I can. If he is next to a hospital, should I try killing him with a coax first, instead of calling in an airstrike? Yes. If I am in a tank and the only munition I have left is a 120mm HEAT round can I use it? You bet. If he hops inside the hospital and fires at another unit can I still shoot him? You bet. If he is launching missiles from the roof of a hospital, can I drop a bomb on him? YES! Is it more economical to use a bullet? You bet. The best thing to hunt and kill infantry is other infantry. The best think to kill tanks with is other tanks. You can try to set conditions otherwise, but the enemy has a vote in where and when we fight. Can I use WP (white phosphorous) rounds for concealing smoke screens and marking targets? Yes. Can I use 400 WP rounds from 155s as the only means of attack on a single infantry troop surrounded by hundreds of civilians? No. (see, there is a no)

Let us move away from the weapons themselves. Never mistake overwhelming force with an improper response in proportionality. Let me recount what a martial artist instructor explained in an advanced class concerning the only time you would actually use the really flashy moves (other than at a competition). The current Israeli situation is like being mugged in an alley by a gang. If the victim only parries each attack and uses the minimum force necessary to take out the lead attacker, he will have to fight the entire gang one by one. The next guy might think you are not that tough and he can take you. Then the next… Then the next…. If the lead attacker comes in and you do some flashy, ridiculous flying-spinning kick that kills the leader instantly; the rest of the gang runs away because they know you are definitely better than they are. You only had to kill one of the attackers. Safer for you and only one guy dies. The minimum force required approach will definitely ensure you do not go to jail to suit someone else’s sensibilities, but it presents many opportunities for the gang as a whole to get lucky (and you die). In this case, the flashy response of overwhelming force is the best action. If confronted by only one, give him your wallet(Gaza strip maybe?). If that doesn’t work, keep your feet on the ground and use the simple utilitarian, but not sexy, disabling blows (try to find your soldier and stop the rockets). Israel is in an alley with a gang of thugs. Israel gave up the wallet and asked to be left alone. There is more than one thug and they are demanding death. Since Israel is surrounded, it is time for that flashy spin kick…or maybe they should just yell for help and hope some large group of good Samaritans will show up and chase of the thugs before they can kill you. Think of this city as New Orleans in the bad old days...where are the police? You sure you want to call them? Not that I am saying the UN is like the New Orleans Police force at its nadir... Of course I wouldn't disagree with that too vociferously.

Rich:
I went to the variety of catholic sites to find what the current “orthodox” version is. I threw out the initial comments about Ex Cathedra tongue in cheek, since I assumed that is not what Kenny wanted. I thought he might be talking Aquinas which is the basis of the CCC, but stuck with the CCC as the framework since that seemed to be the “published” orthodoxy. Many of the Catholic sites mention the various Papal words, comments, etc. Since I am not Catholic, I did not know where to find a listing of “Ex Cathedra” statements. I confirmed the ability of the pope to speak Ex Cathedra, but none of my Google searches at 0’dark thirty had a compilation of Papal Ex Cathedra statements referencing the atomic bombs (many of the Catholic sites refer to various Papal statements and the bombings). You are right, I was intellectually lazy, but I thought I made it clear what I would be using for the “orthodox” framework. Please explain to me where I got it wrong and let me know where I may find that information. I always appreciate expanding my knowledge base. I should have referred to the other definition of an Episcopal: Catholics who don’t go to church (except for Midnight Mass on Christmas, and Sunrise service for Easter: yes, I was an altar boy growing up).

Back to “my” position on Nagasaki and Hiroshima: I fully support the use of the bomb. I see no other way to have had a successful ending of the Pacific campaign. That is with 20/20 hindsight; with everything we know today. What should we have done?

Michael,
Thank you for your kind words, but I am not a professor, nor do I think I would ever teach (I have a family to support). I haven’t posted recently because I am trying to get ahead on my research for my dissertation in an Engineering discipline. Kenny and I were simply walking though an exercise in logic. I firmly believe in self-examination and a delineation of what I will or will not do before I am in a position to make most decisions. Not just what I would do, but why would I do it and is my reasoning self-consistent?

Back to the bomb: If you will never use the weapon, is it actually a weapon and would it have a deterrent effect? I would have to say no to both of these questions. Therefore, for it to be considered a weapon and have any deterrent effect, you must be willing to use it. Before I go too far down this road, under what conditions would “you” employ a nuclear weapon? Tell you what, let’s make it easy. When would you use a neutron weapon or some new type of a bomb that would only kill large numbers of people? This removes some of the moral ambiguity of using the EMP or thermal/blast effects to destroy equipment/facilities and not have to worry about damage to future generations because of some residual effects. It makes it perfectly clear that this weapon can only target life… Is this weapon evil??? I would like your take before we delve deeper. There are many interesting theories and frameworks we can use.

I like GD absent the ad hominem attacks. (We have all stooped to them at one point in time in the passion of the moment) He thinks differently than I do and gives me another worldview to consider actions from. Mental flexibility… As the next to youngest of six kids and many years in the military, I have a very thick skin and search for the valid criticisms of within any interaction. I typically ignore anything that drips venom from any point of view (even if it supports my world view).

JCC: GD usually transmits 5x3, sometimes 5x1. I hope I am transmitting at least 3x3 (strength x clarity)

[jess1dering]

ouch

[RunningRoach]

Kenny,

"sappiness to signal ratio" Right on! Absolutely loved that one.

Regards,

JCC

[Darrell]

The same life-long Dem secretary. Later, she was quoted in the NYT saying "I don't know why anyone would think that the information in them is correct." The family of the guy(Killian) who supposedly WROTE the memos said it was BS, having said that he had praised G.W. numerous times whenever the Bush family was mentioned in the news--as when G.H.W. Bush became the Vice-President. The memos MAY have been a plant? But be sure to exclude anyone at the Kerry Campaign (like Ben Barnes) from the suspect list. And if you ever throw a grenade in a rice pile, don't be surprised if you're picking rice out of your ass afterwards. Maybe Captain John was depending on his "ghost skivvies" to do the job. Big mistake! He should have used his magic CIA watch cap given to him during that trip to Cambodia he didn't take, when he was sent by Nixon who had been innagurated yet...Fake, but accurate, seems to be a recurring theme with Leftists. Eh, Ghost? Eh, Gunga Dan?

Now let's talk about Bill Clinton suiting up for the "big show' of his generation. I'm pretty sure it involved herringbone bell-bottoms, but I don't want to speculate.

[RunningRoach]

Alexandra,

There ya go again! LOL. Is this thread giving you any amount of gastrointestinal discomfort, or are you giggling your pretty little head off.

GD,
It matters not if I, along with several hundred thousand others, have no credibility in your book. Had I foreseen an era wherein people with your propensity to bull-s**t and run amuck narcissism would make up almost half of this “me” generation (following we baby boomers), rather than “suit-up” I would have said “Why bother?”, drove to Canada and smoked dope with Clinton. But then I would not have measured up to the standards in my book.

gringoman,

Mid 67’ to mid 69’. Mostly at Cam Ranh Air Base. Nuff said.

Regards all,

JCC

[Kenny]

Um, Ghost, are you deliberately trying to give people an opportunity to brush off their best sarcastic renderings of the ol' "fake but accurate" catchphrase?

[Kenny]

Ghost, I personally enjoy your "non-linear rants" (which is, by the way, an absolutely perfect description of them -- le mot absolument juste, if I may reveal how bad I am at French these days), though I don't all that often agree with them and (I confess) often don't take them too seriously. But I do enjoy most of them, despite my not considering the U.N. a credible source. ;-) Just thought I'd pipe up with a mildly dissenting vote.

Now, Michael:

1. Although I deeply appreciate the compliment, there's not a university in the country I could teach at because I never went to graduate school and because since graduation I have been a futures trader, software developer and business process consultant -- none of which are recognized as contributing to professional qualifications to teach philosophy, politics, theology or history. [mock-rueful sigh]

2. I would tell you how much I enjoy your posts except that the sappiness-to-signal ratio for this thread is already dangerously high. ;-)

3. Now, from the specifics of your objection to Truman's decision I think I can see exactly where it is that your analysis is going astray. I mentioned a while back that it when it comes to ethics I'm more of a Thomist than anything else; and the essential Thomistic distinction between acts that are willed and acts that are foreseen but unintended is the piece you're missing.

I have in my notes from fifteen years back, I think, an explanation of that distinction; let me see if I can find it and come back in a bit.

Thanks again for the compliment; the respect is mutual.

[Ghost Dansing]

Dan Rather served as CBS's White House correspondent during the Watergate crisis. Even before the Watergate scandal, in April of 1971, John Ehrlichman, the President's chief assistant for domestic affairs, complained about Rather to Richard S. Salant, President of CBS News. Ehrlichman and Rather had a number of personal confrontations. With Nixon, the most famous spat between he and Rather was an angry President asking, "Are you running for something?" Rather shot back with, "No, Mr. President, are you?" In 1974, Dan Rather co-wrote a book about Watergate, The Palace Guard, that became a best-seller.

"I strongly believe that in our system no citizen has to face any leader on bended knee. He is not standing before a monarch, or a descendant of the sun god."
--Dan Rather in his 1977 book, The Camera Never Blinks, speaking of Richard Nixon.

Dan's story about Dubya's Texas Air National Guard career was accurate, by the way. The same secretary that said the memorandums were the wrong format, and that she would have typed them, confirmed that they did indeed reflect what was going on...The memorandums might have been a plant, but the story was spot on.

Also, any Vietnam veteran that supports a patrician little-rich-boy draft dodger over guys that actually suited-up and showed up for the war of their generation doesn't have much crediblity in my book.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Darrell, I don't think he (GD) has the smarts of Ward Churchill. I prefer to liken him to Dan Rather, a well-meaning sycophant who got in over his head.

Great post about the Ghost Dance by the way. And the Dakota/Lakota warriors bought that schtick? Man, destiny is a cruel thing.

[Purple Avenger]

Ahmed Al-Jarallah has written of shifting Saudi/Kuwaiti positions before. The NYT ran this story back in October which I realized was of great importance

[Ghost Dansing]

What this guy doesn't know is that ROE is built by people who know all about the Laws of Land Warfare. As a pilot he may never have had to be engaged in that. ROE is derived from all the considerations, Political, Legal and Military existing within the context of the conflict and particular military mission.

If you are planning an airstrike, you are handed your ROE from higher...you do not construct your own ROE.

And what these guys don't like is that 9 times out of ten I'm simply posting facts, historical and otherwise, that simply don't support their Rush Limbaugh-like, idiosyncratic spin and view of the world.

There "debate" is typcically the simple regurgitation of the "Party Line"...modern Republicanism is similar to Soviet Communism in that way...loyalty to the Party is the overriding consideration, and maintenance of partisan spin is an objective unto itself.

As to the Israeli/Palestinian/Arab issue, my opinion has really been quite neutral...there is plenty of history and facts to demonstrate long-term injustices on all sides, and outside (European Colonialism to Babylon) that offers a complicated context for any "discussion". However, any fact that creates ambiguity is anethema to the zeaolot on any subject.

For example, if one wants to argue that the "root issue" between the Arabs and Israelis is the religion, Islam, it is an inconvenient fact that a secular Pan-Arabist movement predated the modern, organized opionion against Israel.

That's not my opinion, it is a fact.

Regarding the "quotes", I've never claimed to be an original author of anything...and the origins of most opinions by my "critics" are quite transparent.

If we are all writing academic papers here, or material for commercial publication, we better go the whole way with footnotes,references and bibliographies...until then, I'll reference if I feel like it, and quote if I want to.

This is a BLOG...thoughts are crafted on the fly, and I happen to think that the facts and ideas are more important than editorial form...especially in the comment section.

If any of my comments are inappropriate, the BLOG Owner always has the right to delete them...actually the BLOG Owner has the right to keep or delete anything for whatever reason

If one cannot recognize encyclopedic and other textbook-type information without quotes, it only goes to show the reader spends little time on research.

When I lift a passage from the internet, it is a simple google to find where it came from...and in most cases you'll find that it comes from legitimate sources.

But then I don't know what that means to posters who think the UN is not a legitimate source.

[gringoman]

Igout & Running Roach:

Thank you for your service and the intriguing idea on what to do about the so-called "intractable dilemna" of the Muddle East and its oil. (RR, what year were you in the 'Nam, and flying out of where? I'm sure you got "educated" in ways that even I, let alone a Glenn Greenwald, never did, although I did spend five years there pushing a pen from the Mekong Convoy to Saigon to Firebase O'Reilly, and many points in between.)

As for Igout's "solution," i.e. let the Great and Reasonable Powers seize the Middle East and its oil: This is not an uninteresting concept. Of course, it is far, far too logical for the politcally correct commandos who now control world discourse both in the U.S. and abroad. This is why, to date, you will not even see the matter seriously discussed in public. The Left will not permit it, and the timorous Right fears having the race or imperialist card played on it. (The Dems and yes, those Pubs cutting those juicy deals with "moderates" have self-interest at stake too, as when they arrange to let the UAE take over a formerly UK-owned company making precision military parts in Ohio, for example, just when you thought the end of the ports deal ended such sell-out to the sheikhs)

And, admittedly, your intriguing concept might have some inherent logical difficulties over and above the socialista blather. E.g. Would China, doing so well in its wily alliance with Tehran, be willing to join the U.S. and others in this Great Oil Grab (which is how the leftniki would describe it, since its true value to mankind and world peace would amount to shock and awe for the demogogue's socialist agenda.) And China's lust for free Taiwan, wouldn't this complicate it?

And there is also the new doctrines, even realities, of assymetrical etc warfare in which guerilla groups or outright criminal gangs, as we see in Iraq, are able to use telecom and new tech to de-stabilize any attempt at "security"? In other words, would this Great Power consortium really be able to give all the fanaticos their most devout wish---shipping them most speedily, cleanly and expeditiously to their Paradise?

Just a few impromptu thoughts.

That said, gringoVision welcomes adult comment on The Igout Plan. Whether or not Alexandra is ready to endorse it (or prefers mum at the moment) we kind of like it---at least enough to encourage all the pro and all the con that anyone can come up with. Yes, that would include any Papal ex-cathedra that might touch on matters of Christian or, in this case, even ecumenical conscience, relations with the Umma etc. (As for the Crusader nonsense that so hobbles our WGS (White Guilt Syndrome) leaders, even Georgie Bush, that's another post.) If no papal reaction to a hypothetical Igout Plan is available, might there possibly be something relevant from Episcopalian High Church quarters, other than No Epistemological Comment?

[Darrell]

Ghost Dansing is the Ward Churchill of ATB. Let's not pump the wanker up!
His posts ALWAYS contain lies, distortions, and half-truths. Like when he told us the Republicans were behind the Dred Scott Decision. Or Hitler's driving influence was his Christianity. Or NOT mentioning that the US did not sign those revisions to the Geneva Conventions that provided blanket protections for terrorists(enacted when the Lefty Baader-Meinhof Gang and Red Army Faction, et al, were the scum-de-jour.

So, when you see "Ghost Dansing" think "Gas Dansing"...That's another faux Native American ritual(The "founder" of the GDs was one Jack Wilson, an Paiute orphan raised as by a white, Christian rancher. He probably learned the magic trick(the shotgun trick)that he used to convince Lakota Sioux warriors that those "ghost shirts" were bulletproof(think blank round, a handful of buckshot, and some convincing acting). If "our" Ghost-D ever cares to demonstrate, insist on using your own shotgun. The "Gas Danse," brought to the Plains by French explorers(hence the 'danse" form of dance) uses a match after a hearty meal of beans. And sauerkraut. ATB policy prevents me from being any more specific...

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

jess1dering

GhostDansing is not a serious debater. He often refuses to answer questions, preferring instead to droll on about some obscure point of view he has. He has recently been forced to start addding quotation marks to his diatribes after being caught plagiarising wholesale from the web (see Devil's Arithmetic I & II) but still doesn't seem to know how to properly cite references. In my opinion he has at most a year or so of post-secondary training, and is probably some sort of dropout who thinks he was hard done by in the academic world. Note I am not implying academia is the only way to enlightenment (see Mark Steyn for instance) but it is clear that Mr Dansing is putting on airs commensurate with a brief and disastrous introduction to academic writing.

I no longer even read his posts, let alone try to discuss anything with him, as he has nothing useful to add to the longterm issues of our times. I gave up trying to get answers out of him, and in his last post to me he defended his lack of answers by claiming I wasn't asking the right questions.

Sorry Alexandra for taking up blog-space like this, but I abhor academic dishonesty, especially when attached to an ego the size of GD's. Ghost Dansing is the Dan Rather of ATB.

[RunningRoach]

Hey jess,

Thanks for the “thanks”. I really appreciate it. There is a great difference between reading a slice of history and living it.

I really don’t take GD seriously, but every now and then he gets under my skin. So, silly me responds to his nonlinear rants. If he were accurate in his understanding and dialogue regarding anything, I would engage in a meaningful debate with this guy. But there is no substance to his rants. I LMAO over his last post quoting the ARMY ROTC manual regarding UCMJ. What this guy doesn’t know is that ROE’s rule in a combat situation.

Yes. I’ve been to that site. Lots of comrades there.

Regards,
JCC

[The Ugly American]

Great find Alexandra!

If even many in the Arab world realize this, and the left doesn't that tells you volumes about the nature of the left.

[jess1dering]

Saul,
Great Daniel Pipes read, thanks :)
..............................
..............................
I just can't help but feel , as determined as radical islaam is, that they have been strategizing for a long time.
They understand the political system here and have been tremendously successful through organizations like CAIR.
I know for a FACT that they are working in poor black communities, taking fatherless youth under their wings.
I know that they are influencing the curriculum in colleges in this country. I have young people expressing deep shame over their Anglo roots. Why ? They are being told their ancesters were pathological conquerers and oppressors. Hmmmmm..... I didn't learn that in school.
Honest, I don't think we have a clue as to how hard they are working. They have a mission.
And what's OUR mission ?
Europe's ?
Israel's?
Me thinks we need to realize that the game has been on for some time now.
P.S.
Alexandra might remember the time I sent an e-mail criticism about CAIR to a radio station (CAIR had gotten someone fired from their job) Well, I got a deluge of strange , scary e-mails written in Arabic.
It's here kiddies. Israel is not alone.

Rem

[jess1dering]

Ghost Dansing;
I am finished with you. I am finished reading you. One of the most repulsive things on the planet to me is snide disrespect to our servicemen. Come to think of it, disrespect toward the President of the United States is exceedingly distasteful also and you spew that particular poison all the time.

[jess1dering]

Hey Running Roach,
THANK YOU for serving our country. It takes a courageous man............
BTW have you been to " Black Five" ? Lots of patriots who have risked their very lives for this great nation( as you did ) tend to congregate there. What is the matter with the lefties in congress? Politics first , I guess, before national security or fidelity to one country and I'm bettin' even before their own mothers.

[Michael van der Galien]

Every single person who thinks Israel is acting 'disproportionate' should simply read this:

The sad truth is that a Hala Gorani and most of her co-anchors and CNN correspondents would rather bite off their tongue before ever admitting, let alone airing this simple fact recognized by the Editor-In-Chief of the Arab Times: "Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of “these irregular phenomena” [Hezbollah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood] is what Israel is doing. The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community."

The sad truth is that they won't because it doesn't agree with their line of thinking: "I am reasonable and willing to negotiate, thus terrorists must be able to compromize as well".
Could someone please tell people who think like that, that there is a reason we call members of Hamas, Hizbullah and the Muslim Brotherhood extremists.

Patrick, very well said. The army isn't supposed to be a country within a country. Nor a government within a government. In a democracy we, the people, elect certain people into office. Those people decide what the military does. Army professionals may give their advice (behind closed doors), but they must do what they are told to do.
They cannot express their opinions publicly. They lost that right, at the moment they signed with the army.

Kenny and Patrick
I strongly suspect both of you to be professors at some high level university in the US. You both have a knowledge about all kinds of issues, I, admittely, have only seen on very rare occasions. You both always refresh the comment section of ATB (glad to see you back to posting Patrick, where were you man?).
That being said, I cannot agree with - what seems to be, correct me if I'm wrong - your reasoning. Following that kind of logic it would (almost) be defendable to drop an atomic bomb on Gaza and / or Tehran.
I do not agree with that for one second.
Furthermore, it seems that the both of you think that unleashing the beast of the atomic bomb on Hirishima can be considered to be part of a 'just war'. Thus, politically and based on our faith, defendable.
I don't agree with that either. The fact that it was difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between combatants and non-combatants is, as far as I'm concerned, of no concern. Yes, it makes it more difficult to fight, yes it makes it more difficult to do so in a 'just' manner, but still, we have to adhere to that. The fact that it's difficult to differentiate between both, is not a reason to, excuse the language, kill them all. As I see it, he who saves one, saves the world.
This, to me, means that if 70% of the people killed by the bomb were willing to fight, it was a wrong decision to drop the bomb. 30%, in that scenario, wasn't willing to fight against the US forces.
You see, when one starts a war, or better said fights back and certain actions result, regrettably, in the deaths of (a couple of) civilians, that's, as I wrote, regrettable. Very regrettable.
But there is a difference between fighting back, trying to not make any innocent casualties, trying to only target those who are fighting, but (partially, regrettably) failing on the one hand and, purposely, thinking about it full well, knowing the exact consequences, using a bomb that you know will kill thousands of (innocent) civilians on the other hand.
That is a big difference. If I feel I must, I am ready to defend the first, but not, never, the second.

Besides that, we are all allowed to agree over here, that's one of the beautiful things of All Things Beautiful, I enjoyed the lecture of the two of you.

Seriously: you should both quit your jobs and start teaching (if you're not already, sneaky ;), doing so).

(If I made a lot of spelling errors, etc. please excuse, I'm writing this at 1.33 AM)

[rich]

Just scanned the comments and wondered if the Episcopalian going from memory on the meaning of "ex cathedra" papal statement and then quoting the Catholic Catechism on just war ever thought to see if his handy Catholic Catechism had anything to say about when a papal statement is "ex cathedra." Might be a more reasonable argument to make.

Second comment is on the use of the Atomic Bomb in WW II.

There is a wonderful WW II war memoir by George McDonald Frasier (Author of the Flashman books) called "Quartered Safe Out Here."

At the end of the book Fraser recalls how grateful he and his comrades were for the Atomic Bomb, and how they were troubled by its use.

They had fought their way from India to Burma and were headed to Malaya (Phuket) and then Singapore. The Bomb meant they could go home.

The reason I bring this up is that when the Atomic Bomb was dropped there were many more lives on the line than just those of American invaders and Japanese defenders of the Home Islands.

The bomb saved lives in Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, China and Korea.

Any analysis that leaves these lives out should not be considered persuasive.

Anyone interested in CBI (The China Burma India theater)should also read General Slim's "Defeat into Victory." He and Stillwell may be the great forgotten Generals of WW II.

[Ghost Dansing]

Well, let's see...first time I've been thought of as a "young man".

Anyway...let's take a random ROTC program...they all pretty much look alike, and by gosh by golly they even had ROTC programs during Vietnam.

So...let's see:

Army ROTC Programs
Army ROTC offers a four-year and a two-year program. The four-year program consists of both a basic and an advanced sequence of courses. The basic courses, normally taken in the freshman and sophomore.

...browse down...

Advanced

401. MILITARY LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT I (4). Methods of military research and problem-solving, briefing techniques, logistics, military justice system to include case studies. The Geneva Convention and laws of land warfare.

Let's look at a lesson plan:

LESSON NUMBER 13

TASK: PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

CONDITION: In a small group discussion environment.

STANDARD: IAW stated Army Values

TIME OF INSTRUCTION: 2 hours

LEAD IN: As a soldier, you must be a person of strong and honorable character committed to the professional Army ethic. This lesson will provide you with the fundamentals of what a leader must be to have the moral strength and courage to make hard decisions, the professional army ethic, and the ethical decision-making process.

PART V: PROFESSIONAL ARMY ETHIC

Discussion Question: What are ethics?

ANSWER: Ethics are principles or standards that guide professionals to do the moral or right thing.

Discussion Question: What are the steps in the ethical decision-making (EDM) process?

ANSWER: Interpret the situation, analyze factors and forces, choose course of action, and implement course of action.

Note: Take a minute to read the student handout. Identify the ethical dilemma in the Student Handout. Remind the students that ethical dilemmas exist when two or more deeply held values collide. The basic problem in this situation is a conflict between the value of "mission accomplishment" and the value of "obeying the laws of land warfare." Remember that each student perceives the situation in terms of his/her own personal beliefs, values, norms, and character. It is possible that some students may not value either "mission accomplishment" or "obeying the laws of land warfare" highly enough to perceive the ethical dilemma in this situation.

(Indeed, this is true RR)

Discussion Question: What is the second step in the EDM process?

ANSWER: Analyze all the factors and forces that relate to the dilemma.

Note: Select students to explain how each force in this model might have a bearing on the problem. Ensure that student responses include these key points:

a. Laws, Orders, and Regulations. The law of land warfare requires soldiers to avoid the unnecessary loss of civilian life and property. Your concern that violations of the law of land warfare fall under the UJMC might influence you to choose another course of action.

b. Basic National Values. Our country has a public commitment to defeat an enemy in battle. This commitment, however, does not condone the use of all available means, only what is militarily necessary to win. There is also a "principle of proportionality" that requires that violence in war must not create a greater evil than it seeks to destroy. Our country also has a public commitment to respect the rights and safety of civilians caught in the area of military operations. This commitment does not require that we abandon any plan that endangers civilians; rather we strive to minimize civilian casualties. Your interpretation of these commitments might influence you to call for mortar fire on the house. On the other hand, the psychological effect on both the local nationals and the American public could do more damage to the war effort than you would gain from aggressive actions. This consideration might influence you to choose another course of action.

c. Traditional Army Values. Mission accomplishment, concern for the safety of subordinates, and loyalty to the unit are all values that might influence you to call for mortar fire on the house. Obeying the laws of land warfare and showing concern for the innocent might influence you to choose another course of action.

Oh, and Vietnam had precisely the same problems Dubya and his chickenhawks repeated in Iraq...a total miscalculation of the war and its requirements made at a political level, and chronic misrepresentation to the American People.

That's ok troop...the only chance you got when you hear those war dogs bark, is to be one up on your brother...like a blind man in the dark...(Govt Mule).

Nobody expects you to be a war theorist...but you do have to mind that code of conduct...and we all know what it is...the UCMJ might get 'ya if you stray too far.