More fodder for the debate still going on under the "Crunchy Conned" thread: this article from the Touchstone archives. It seems to me that what’s missing from the thinking of those who argue for practical pacifism in the face of a Hitler is some acknowledgment of a duty to protect the innocent. I’m bothered by a kind of glibness in the logic that says "Well, it would be immoral to resist, too bad, die." Real circumstances are likely to be rather more ambiguous than that, and I thought this article was excellent (I ran across it a few days ago while culling my back issues of the magazine, which I heartily recommend–it’s the subscription I would keep if I could only have one).
Let me reiterate, emphatically, that this is not a rejection of the principle that it’s wrong to target non-combatants.
—Maclin Horton
“Let me reiterate, emphatically, that this is not a rejection of the principle that it’s wrong to target non-combatants”
I think the evidence suggests that the Islamofacsists are the only group who actually target non-combatants. Israel certainly it not targeting women and children, and neither is the US.
Maclin, most “pacifists” do not like the label (pacifism, which, like appeasement, is often a provocative, dismissive term) as it is not precise to every circumstance and I for one am not an absolutist. Most “pacifists” I know would suport international peace actions to apprehend war criminals (like Saddam Hussein and George Bush).
But read Howard Zinn (a WWII bombardier over Germany killing many) or Pat Buchanan on WWII for the alternatives to total war which we missed and which cost an obsecene, staggering number of lives in consequence (40 million in the space of 4-6 years!).
Stephen Hand
Maclin, most “pacifists” do not like the label (pacifism, which, like appeasement, is often a provocative, dismissive term) as it is not precise to every circumstance and I for one am not an absolutist. Most “pacifists” I know would suport international peace actions to apprehend war criminals (like Saddam Hussein and George Bush).
But read Howard Zinn (a WWII bombardier over Germany killing many) or Pat Buchanan on WWII for the alternatives to total war which we missed and which cost an obscene, staggering number of lives in consequence (40 million in the space of 4-6 years!).
Stephen Hand
PS: I intended to write “International police actions” not “peace actions”. Sorry for the double post. Not sure how that happened.
SH
“war criminals (like Saddam Hussein and George Bush). ”
Stephen, there is no moral equivalence between Saddam and Bush. The polemics in your style of debating has not changed, I see.
Depends on where you are standing, whether George Bush is a war criminal. How many are now dead in direct or indirect consequence of a war he started in Iraq?
Only the Hague can decide that with certainty. I’m all for letting the international courts decide. If they absolve him, I will proceed with mea culpas, despite my own opinion.
It’s not polemics, it’s considered opinion, as your opinion presumably is too. I voted for Bush in 2000.
I think it is a dangerous dichotomy that is being set up, either we do nothing or we have complete war. I realize the hyperbole makes difficult, but the Vatican is quite clear in saying that we are not facing an existencial threat. The idea that we face the imminent loss of our civilization unless we fight numerous wars around the globe is a false choice.
9/11 wasn’t a good thing by any means, but it was not the first (or x-th depending on whose doing the accounting) salvo in the Islamic war to end Western civilization. There is hardly a conflict in the world that couldn’t be ratcheted up to total war if others used the same criteria we are using. We have time, and lots of it to deal with this problem.
Even those that claim Western Civilization will end as we know it in 50 years or so do so in large part betting that our moral decadence will weaken us. Most often this is expressed as our failure to reproduce. This means the largest contributing factor to our demise will be us. And this is supposed to give us justification for going all around and killing people?
Stephen, the context of my use of “practical pacifism” is that some–Daniel has voiced this view–hold that in practice a just war is impossible under modern conditions.
I’m glad that people are re-examining WWII. But hypothetical scenarios have only a limited usefulness–you can’t really settle an argument with them. A lot of southerners argue that slavery would have soon withered away without the Civil War. Well, maybe so, but maybe not.
What sort of “international police action” against GWB would you envision?
I think it is a dangerous dichotomy that is being set up, either we do nothing or we have complete war.
Just for the record, that’s not my view. Total war, in the sense of an absolutely merciless and indiscriminate attempt to kill as much of the enemy population as possible, is unacceptable.
Briefly, an international police force such as I describe in outline here:
http://tcrnews2.com/IntlPoliceActions.html
Called for it publicly right after 9/11 to apprehend Osama…
This allows us to agree with Daniel (and Benedict XVI) on the increasing difficulty of meeting Just War criteria, and at the same time realize that one cannot simply do nothing.
Reviewing history so as not to repeat it. When I consider the oceans of blood of the wars of 20th century, I am compelled to look for alternatives. In Christ I believe we have that.
I dare guess by far the great majority of wars are fought over tragic human passions, the seven deadly sins, and not objective wrongs so grievous that requires such a murderous response.
Jesus, I believe, snapped the cycle of violence by non-cooperation with evil and nonviolent resistance. The Police Actions (being in essence different from war and far less lethal, like grabbing Pinochet in London or Slobodon in Serbia) remains a last resort. If it takes longer, so be it. In a nuclear world, it seems to me, we cannot think as we did in the pre-science “fiction” era.
A dangerous police action was grabbing Eichmann in Argentina, drugging him and he wakes up in Jerusalem.
It was a one state solution and not international, so it falls short of an international police action which should be multilateral, but it aids in understanding the idea, and did not cause war with Argentina despite the border infiltration (breach of sovereignty) and deception.
For more see here
Steve
The final passage of “After Virtue” runs (loose paraphrase): ‘The barbarians are within the citadel and have been ruling us for some time. We are therefore awaiting our new saint Benedict ..’
If you think this is true, you will consider the alternative is total war or pacifism.
If you think on the other hand that eg Western governments have the rule of law, which isn’t typically ‘barbaric’, or that barbarian governments don’t devote quite large sums of money to aid for the third world, or that barbarian governments would not have sent billions of pounds in aid after the Tsunami, you may think that the term ‘Barbarian’ is an intellectually lazy exaggeration with respect to the present time. Sure, it’s just as easy to think up a list of three ‘barbaric’ things our governments do do, but that brings out the point that we have a ‘mixed’, not a purely barbaric government.
An attempt to completely wipe out the other side would be genocide. Total War I would consider a callous disregard for civilian life. I won’t pretend that civilian life can ever be left unaffected in war. Unfortunately, civilian deaths are tending to run 10:1 versus combatant deaths. This does not include those innocents who are maimed for life. While a 2:1 ratio wouldn’t make it right – the ratio itself being practical only for showing the effects, not necessarily the intent – I think there are better ways, even militarily, to address this problem without killing so many.
Better to let sleeping dogs lie and stop poking our fingers into the eyes of enemies, especially this kind of enemy.
No country is an island. We need to entice those who would be our enemies with incentives, we need to teach by example.
Occupation—especially in Muslim lands—is tantamount to rape with them. This is not wise.
The first task should be to “do no harm”. Give it time. Never fight a war at all, nut certainly don’t provoke them. A war that is not strictly and truly defensive cannot be moral. Set a deadline bring the troops home and build up a reasonable defense. Give the taxpayers and the poor their money back. Let young people live.
Mutually Assured Destruction is madness, more precarious a perch than ever before. It makes one long for the good old bilateral tensions where only two or three were tensing one another.
We should be working for internetional WMD disarmament. Not acting like some of us have the right to possess them and some do not. NONE have the right to possess that which is intrinsically evil. They see our hypocrisy only too well. And it is working towards proliferation and recruiting terrorists like pinworms on dung.
We can build a better world—not utopia—but a better world than we are building now.
Pacifism or total war? That is madness. There is much that can be done—and not done!—in between.
SH
I would like to know where the proof of GWB intentionally is targeting civilians….whereas Saddam’s litany of atrocities is a mile long
http://www.indict.org.uk/index.php
Maclin,
You call “glib” the assertion, “Well, it would be immoral to resist, too bad, die.” But if it is immoral to resist, we may not resist, right? The only other alternative is to say one may do what is immoral if the provocation is bad enough. I think you call it glib because the answer is clear. It may not be an easy answer, but it is clear.
The lack of clarity comes in particular situations — does *this* war fit just war criteria? Can modern war fit just war criteria? Even if it can, can we expect modern governments to follow just war criteria? Is there an alternative to war as we know it — such as the police action that Mr. Hand discusses?
I confess that I am not sure what you are saying. You say, “this is not a rejection of the principle that it’s wrong to target non-combatants.” But you seem to be saying, as well, that is merely glib to insist that we may never target non-combatants even if the alternative is something like national suicide. In other words, you seem to be supporting a principle which you would be willing to ignore in practice if the alternative were bad enough.
Sheesh. How many times am I going to have to say that I believe targeting civilians as such is wrong? Wrong, wrong, wrong. And forbidden. Hiroshima and Dresden, for instance, were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. An attempt to crush the will of the enemy by indiscriminate slaughter is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And forbidden.
Well, my apologies if I’m being obscure. What’s at issue in my mind is the degree to which defensive measures that could be expected to produce civilian casualties might be allowable. Evaluating that seems to me to involve a recognition that there is some obligation of defense. As the Touchstone piece to which I linked says, I’m not convinced that pacifism on the part of a head of state is correct.
I used the word “glib” to indicate my sense that the answer is too simple. It’s correct in the abstract, of course, and we can construct a scenario in which it would be, as the saying goes, a no-brainer in practice. But any situation likely to actually occur is also likely to be more ambiguous–likely to involve those situations where civilians are not intentionally targeted but are likely to be in the line of fire.
Alternatives are really another question. Stephen Hand’s suggestions are interesting. I’d have to think about them some more before offering an opinion. I agree that few wars are fought for truly defensive reasons.
p.s. by “alternatives” above I don’t mean the alternative of simply not doing whatever is in question, but the exploration of new and mostly untried methods of resolving conflicts and dealing with aggression.
I’ve been surprised to learn in the course of the discussion of Just War doctrine that a war is supposed to be defensive to fit the theory. I don’t want to go back there, but GB entered WWII, not in self-defence, but because Germany broke a treaty by invading Poland. Given that Poland is in the opposite direction from the UK in relation to Germany, this was not precisely self-defence, unless self-defence includes the opponent behaving in a scarey way in general.
Maclin, I think we said a while back that defensive measures that result in civilian casualties are permissible if the civilian casualties are truly incidental. One is not bound to refrain from military acts because they might result in some civilian casualties, but only if they can be described as directly targeting civilians.
If a principle is true in the abstract it is true also in the concrete. If civilians are merely affected by a military act that is proporitonal to a purely military end, then they are not targeted. If the “line of fire” is not proportional to the military end, then the civilians are not merely in the line of fire but are the targets, regardless of anyone’s wish. In the latter case, the means in question may not morally be used, no matter what. That’s all that’s been said, by me at least. In what way or ways is this evaluation wrong — which I take saying it is “too simple” means?
“too simple” is directed at the functionally pacifist position: that it’s effectively impossible for modern war to be moral, and therefore we can’t fight.
Francesca’s point is interesting. All my life I’ve heard people say “If only we had stopped Hitler sooner.” That would have required action even less plainly defensive than what she describes. Would it have been wrong?
Comment about the abstract is meant not to suggest that it isn’t true in the concrete but that the concrete doesn’t necessarily fall into line in a clear and obvious manner.
I read somewhere (I’d have to find the source) that it has been the case since the first world war that 7 civilians die in war to every soldier; in Lebanon it was 10:1. Such ratios make traditional, I believe, warfare morally unacceptable, thus we look for moral alternatives, especially in an age of high tech arial bombardment when the other side might not even have an air force or anti-aircaft capacity. Superpower v. Bedrock.
I think it is clear that if we know with a moral certainty that an action will cause more civilian deaths systematically than military deaths, then the action or conflict cannot go on as such.
Yet many, sinning against the virtue of patience, “want to get the war over quick” and thus think anything which hastens that is acceptable, so it becomes total war for a time. But that is immoral. 7 out of 10 who die will be civilians we know with relative certainty. That logic is often extended to justify nuclear wars in the past (Nagasaki, Hiroshima), present of future. Nuclear weapons, after all, make short shrift of any enemy, very efficiently.
As for the question of war and defensiveness, war must be stricly defensive according to Just War criterion, we know. Therefore the Nazis were culpable for Poland which had a right to resist and summon allies to help. However, a right to resist doesn’t mean there are not higher ways, spiritually, to resist as Gandhi showed. That is what Zinn and Ghandi were getting at.
Again, most wars are shams fought over human passions and the seven deadly sins, even if every aggressor paints his aggression as “liberation” “freedom” unto a beautiful future, suggesting to the hapless unprotected, exposed victims that their suffering is in their own best interests, if they only knew it, though limbs fly through the air, soldiers hiding in tanks.
But there are “new” or other ways of conflict resolution. The vested war sector however (Eisenhower: “military-industrial complex”) call it appeasement to want to exercise patience and diplomacy. They’d rather show off how their weapons work, otherwise how will they get contracts next time (this was Eisenhowers warning).
Chomsky said if pickles were the cash crop in Iraq we wouldn’t be there. We’d tell them to stick their liberty and freedom where the sun doth not shine as we did in Rwanda, Darfur and how many other places?
“If only we had stopped Hitler sooner.”
Peemptively, preventively… But that is really an odd utopian warrior kind of thinking, where victory is all that matters. Pandoras box opens. As soon as kings get paranoid they wage wars to prevent wars.
Aggression is what made Hitler, Hitler. That Britain did NOT wage offensive war gave it the moral high ground. Nihilism doen’t care about such things, virtue and all that quaint nonsense; but it is minimal justice in a christian world view.
The Touchstone article is pretty worthless; it nowhere discussed the inherent nature of modern weaponry, which the last two popes have suggested renders modern warfare immoral.
Of course, until recently, most commentators have insisted that civilians should not be directly targeted, even though the massive numbers of dead are predictable as “military” targets are struck. Is this moral, to kill huge numbers of civilians to get at a military target?
And now, and I want to thank crunchy con man Rod Dreher for calling my attention to it by his approvingly linking to them on his blog, many neocon pundits are calling for direct targeting of civilians. As the general pattern is for pundits to run ideas up the flagpole to test the reaction before politicos attempt them, it seems to me that we are being primed for total war.
As I said on another thread, realpolitik demands a formula for victory, and Jesus Christ asks “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” How we answer His question determines whether we consider a few hundred thousand dead women and children an acceptable thing or not.
It seems to me that to say that a 10:1 civilian/soldier death rate automatically renders an act of war unjust presumes that the purpose of all acts of war is to kill the enemy rather than defeat him. However, if I am targeting infrastructure or missile sites because that will disable the enemy it is always possible that there are no actually enemy soldiers near the target, but there are civilians. Even if most civilian have headed the warning and cleared out some will stay or be forced to stay and get killed. You’ll get your 10:1 ratio, but I don’t see that that renders that act, which was not targeting enemy soldiers, is unjust. This reminds me of the other discussion somewhere else about multiplier of the management salary vs. the worker’s wage.
Maclin wrote:
“‘too simple’ is directed at the functionally pacifist position: that it’s effectively impossible for modern war to be moral, and therefore we can’t fight.”
But to call the “functionally pacifist position” too simple, you have to show that it is wrong, either in its premises or in that it draws the wrong conclusions from the premises. From what I recall, you haven’t done so; you have only suggested that the position could have dire consequences, which no one denies. But confessing Christ before Caesar had dire consequences, often not only for onesself but for his family. Refusing an abortion could have dire consequences, when maintaining a pregnancy could cost a woman her life.
As for Miss Francesca’s point, all things being equal, Hitler could have been “pre-empted” when he invaded the Sudetenland, since the war would have been fought in defense of Czechoslovakia’s sovereign rights. The defense of Poland, considering jus ad bellum, even on the part of Great Britain, had justice, since it was defense of an ally. Now whether, in both cases, the means would have been or were just, is another question.
Mr. Gotcher,
To be clear by civilian I mean non-combatant. A truck driver killed while transporting rockets in a war is not a “civilian” death.
If the “line of fire” is not proportional to the military end, then the civilians are not merely in the line of fire but are the targets, regardless of anyone’s wish. In the latter case, the means in question may not morally be used, no matter what.
Especially (assuming I understand the above statement correctly) if the military end or aim is to hasten the termination of a war by dropping a nuke on whole civilian populations, ala Japan.
All wars, of course, can be ended more quickly by dropping nuclear weapons on civilian populations. It also ensure saving the lives of the victor side. It is called “doing evil that a good may come” and is, we know, prohibited by Catholic moral theology.
American blood, I think we all agree, is no less, and no more, precious than any other civilian blood anywhere.
As for preempting Hitler-like characters, one will have to keep the Crystal Ball polished, and sit on the lid of Pandora’s Box. Egoistic warrior princes will not so scruple if history is allowed to instruct us, it seems to me. For some things that look like certain war can be averted through wisdom and compromise (Cuban Missle crisis)
“Let us never negotiate through fear, but let us never fear to negotiate”—JFK
SH
Dan, I read the Touchstone article last night, and even though it doesn’t discuss modern weapons, it didn’t seem worthless to me. It made two important points
1) It distinguishes what it calls ‘jihad or crusade’, which regards war as good in and of itself, and justice war doctrine, which does not do so.
2) It explains that waging war can fall under the duty to ‘protect’ one’s own people.
This idea of a duty of protection is given as an explanation of why a state may wage a war, whilst an individual is obliged to turn the other cheek. In this sense, whether or not the causa belli is actually ‘defensive’ (literally to defend one’s own country rather than, say, the breaking of a treaty), a just war is always defensive, in the sense that its justice consists in protecting a nation from harm.
Last comment from me, as we are going in circles and I have too much else to do: But to call the “functionally pacifist position” too simple, you have to show that it is wrong, either in its premises or in that it draws the wrong conclusions from the premises. From what I recall, you haven’t done so; you have only suggested that the position could have dire consequences, which no one denies.
No, I am trying to suggest the possibility of a moral obligation to defend which could be at odds with the moral obligation not to defend.
Sorry, I don’t get what the missile driver has to do with anything I said.
Maclin wrote:
“I am trying to suggest the possibility of a moral obligation to defend which could be at odds with the moral obligation not to defend.”
But there is no moral obligation to do anything if one must, in the process, do what is immoral. Otherwise, one would have to say that, in certain circumstances, the immoral is morally obligatory; that one may at times have the duty to sin. If defense of another requires a violation of the moral law, then that defense is not of obligation.
To put it another way: I have a duty to defend my family. I may, then, choose the means required for that defense. But I may not choose means that violate natural law. So, even if I choose means that are perhaps inadequate, though moral, I am acting out my duty in a way that is in accordance with the moral law. In a similar way, I have a duty to support my family. But that does not mean that I may support them by doing work which harms others. In either case, by refraining from doing evil, am I neglecting my duty? I don’t think so, because I do my duty according to the restraints laid on my human nature by God. I do my duty the best I can.
Master Christopher:-
This was the argument that persuaded Helmuth von Moltke that it was immoral to try to overthrow the Nazi régime by assassinating Hitler: “Why are we opposed to the Third Reich…Isn’t it precisely because it is a lawless system? We cannot set about creating something new, initiating a renewal, by committing a lawless act ourselves. And murder is always unlawful.”
The difficulty, of course, is that such reasoning always leads to inaction in the face of evil perpetrated by others. (“Well, I’d *like* to do something about genocide, but…”). It was the version of “morality” against which Bonhoeffer protested–in my view, rightly. That’s not to suggest that Bonhoeffer had all the answers, either, but he correctly perceived that a “morality” that abandoned others to their fate lest we risk doing the wrong thing is too convenient by half, and not moral at all.
“For the sake of God and of our neighbour, and that means for the sake of Christ, there is a freedom from the keeping holy of the Sabbath, from the honouring of our parents, and indeed from the whole of the divine law, a freedom which breaks this law, but only in order to give effect to it anew. The suspension of the law can only serve the true fulfilment of it.”
Dr Murphy:-
Inspired by your example, I too did a little reading of Elizabeth Anscombe. And (with reference to your mention of Britain’s declaration of war on Germany), she too argued that there was nothing morally objectionable in principle to pre-emptive war. The question for her was not who resorted first to force, but who was in the right.
Mr. Blind Squirrel,
So, we may commit adultery, rape, murder and perhaps even torture young children, commit blasphemy, deny the Faith, as long as we have an end in view which we see as effecting the divine law anew? We may betray our friends, family, parents, wives and children; seduce the chaste; lie to those who trust us; become traitors to our fatherland, etc. etc. as long as, by doing so, we save the world from Hitlers?
Convenient ethics, indeed!
And if, Mr. Squirrel, you hold to this “morality,” no wonder you go by a pseudonym.
As a Catholic, for me Bonhoeffer is no authority; not even a remote guidepost. But when he says we may commit any monstrosity, no matter how debased (which one must take “suspension of the law” to mean)as long as the end is really, really good, I must place him in my mind with the ranks of bloody and accursed heretics, worse than those for whom the fires of the inquisition burned.
Master Christopher:-
Well (as you may have surmised before the red mist descended over your eyes), that’s not *quite* what Bonhoeffer is saying. But either you already knew that, or can readily find out.
Last word from me too on this one. I have always felt keenly Bonhoffer’s problem and asked myself what I would do if I had a grenade in my pocket and was with Hitler in the same room.
It’s a preposterous question for one who hates war, just as the situation of war is preposterous.
Would I pop him and myself that good may come? I am aware of the complex moral difficulties. It is a deeply existential predicament.
One of the reasons I have always told my friends who are absolutist pacifists (most are not absolutists, though all are true peacemakers) that I could never declare such myself, is because it is like announcing oneself to be a saint or martyr ahead of time before one is in that situation.
How do I know I wouldn’t run like Peter who heard the cock crow three times after his bold declaration of bravery and fidelity?
Until I am in the situation I cannot say. The predicament must test me, not words.
If I had a genade in the same room as Herr Hitler, I can only say I might very well pull the clip— but I cannot say for certain, short of being in that predicament.
Until then I am supremely suspicious of the powers who wage or provoke hubristic wars innumerable against innocent civilians who bear the lethal brunt of such horrors. We are called to be peacemakers, actively called.
SH
Mr. Squirrel,
What I surmised was the plain meaning of the text you quoted. This is what you quoted Bonhoeffer as saying: “for the sake of Christ, there is a freedom … indeed from the whole of the divine law…” If there is a freedom from the *whole* divine law, there is freedom from any part of it. Even the parts that forbid the most debased forms of sin.
If that is not *quite* what Bonhoeffer is saying, what is he saying? Where, good Squirrel, does he draw the line? More to the point, where do you draw the line — for who, in the end, gives a dam about what Bonhoeffer thought? What commands of the divine law are expendable and which are not? Who has given anyone permission to “suspend” the divine law?
Master Christopher:-
To clear up your misapprehensions above, you might try reading the first sentence I quoted in the context of the second. From there, you could go on to look at Bonhoeffer’s Ethik (Munich, 1949). You may not wind up agreeing with him, but at least you would be engaging with real arguments about real moral dilemmas rather than straw men of your own creation
But just as I don’t give over my days to endless back-and-forths with Chickesque proponents of sola scriptura and other charter members of the Angry Brigade, I’ll have to direct you to your local public library should any additional queries occur to you.
Mr. Squirrel,
It is unclear what you mean by the first sentence you quoted — do you mean Von Moltke’s? Or do you mean the first sentence of Bonhoeffer? Regardless, neither clarifies anything. The Bonhoeffer quote still says there is freedom from the whole divine law — what else does this mean except that any part of the divine law may be violated if there be a good enough reason to do so. This is no straw man — it is the clear meaning of the statement. You presumably thought this statement clear enough on its own since you originally quoted it without supporting context.
But, Mr. Squirrel, I fear you won’t answer this question, just as you won’t answer the others I have posed. Instead, you’ll say, “go read Bonhoeffer” and then call me a devotee of Jack T. Chick. But such a reply makes one suspicious that you cannot adequately defend your position or even explain it.
Dear Francesca- I spoke unclearly; the essay is certainly worthwhile as an introduction to just war thinking. Where it is worthless is in this conversation. No one here has promoted absolute pacifism. All can imagine a just war, at least speculatively. The essay does not address the changes in warfare that the last century brought about. It does not address the fact that in modern war the numbers of civilian dead greatly exceeds the number of military dead, violating the principle of proportionality.
That is what this conversation is about, not whether or not war can ever be justified in the abstract.
Dan, I agree the omission of a mention of the character of modern warfare is serious. But still, I found the essay helpful because I’ve never found the argument – in reference to the ‘turn the other cheek’ type statements – that ‘private’ is one thing, and ‘public’ is another, convincing. So I found the point about the duty to protect others helpful.
In reference to modern warfare, what do you think about the point which I think Blind Squirrel made over at Open Book (there were so many threads, I can’t remember which one it was) that more civilians died in the taking of a Japanese city named something like ‘Okinawa’ than in the bombing of Hiroshima? Are ‘modern warfare’ and ‘modern governments’ also in a sense abstractions? Aerial bombardment seems to be the essence of what ‘modern warfare’ generally connotes to the average person. But does it actually have an essence?
Okinawa is an island, not a city. But yes, that’s correct about civilian casualties. See here.
I very strongly recommend With the Old Breed at Pelelieu and Okinawa by Eugene B. Sledge to anyone who wants to know what combat in the Pacific was like. Be prepared for some horrifying stuff. You certainly can’t blame soldiers like him for seeing the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings as good things.
I am not sure what is the point of the point that more civilians died in the taking of Okinawa than in the bombing of Hiroshima. Is it that the bombing of Hiroshima is rendered acceptable because it resulted in fewer civilian casualties than an invasion of Japan would have? But the immorality of the bombing of Hiroshima does not arise from the number of people who died there but from the fact that it was a direct, intentional killing of noncombatants. To argue that the bombing was rendered acceptable because the alternative would have been worse is to fall back on consequentialism.
Too, it is important to consider the “necessity” of an invasion of Japan. It seems it was rendered necessary because of the Allied policy of unconditional surrender. It appears that if the Allies had allowed Japan to surrender conditionally, such an invasion would have been unnecessary.
Finally, an invasion using more conventional means could be immoral for the same reason as the bombing of Hiroshima, if it is conducted indiscriminately.
Mr. Zehnder: In the context (if remarks on threads really have contexts), Mr. Blind Squirrel did not intend to justify Hiroshima or to say that the lesser numbers killed than at Okinawa made it OK. He was making the point that the more ‘modern’ the warfare doesn’t mean the worse, in the sense of more innocents dead. Dan has said that the very nature of modern warfare renders the old fashioned just war tradition out of date. All of us must feel at times that ‘modern wars’ (meaning 20th century wars) seem worse than the pre-modern versions. I followed up a link to a site run by a Kevin Jones, which had an article by Eric Kuehnelt-Leddin on democracy and monarchy, in which he claims that the wars fought by monarchs consisted in battles between armies, not in the mass murder of civilians. Given this common feeling that ‘modern wars’ automatically involve more indiscriminate killing (which I tend to share), Mr. Blind Squirrel’s point that there was actually more bloodshed at Okinawa than at Hiroshima helps us to discriminate between our emotions about modern warfare and the facts about some modern wars. As a judgement of the practical reason, a moral reflection on modern war and modern warfare is naturally related to the facts of a particular case.
Maclin: As inveterate websurfers know, there has been much discussion of Benedict’s remarks to some German reporters that “war is the worst solution for all sides. It brings no good to anyone, not even to the apparent victors. We understand this very well in Europe, after the two world wars.” In response to some criticism of these comments on First Things, someone pointed out that Benedict was speaking as a German to German reporters; someone else noted that the ‘European’ experience of WWII was different from the American. And vice versa, one might say: I grew up with my father’s (b. c. 1934) stories of the bombardment of London, but, outside Hiroshima and ‘Tora, Tora, Tora,’ the war in the Pacific doesn’t enter my picture of it.
Maclin,
I know that Christopher has already asked you about this, but would you please explain your sentence: “No, I am trying to suggest the possibility of a moral obligation to defend which could be at odds with the moral obligation not to defend.”
How could one have a duty to violate a duty – or to put it another way, that if I don’t offend God and endanger my salvation, I will thereby offend God and endanger my salvation.
Ah yes, First Things. Great fans of the Pope as long as he can be rendered tame by their creative spin.
I think that Americans can hardly imagine what it is like to have been through what Europe has been through.
The latest evidence of the futility of war is the aftermath of Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Does anyone think Israel is more secure?
All they did was make Hezbollah more popular than they had ever been in Lebanon. Polls say that among Muslims support is around 90%, while before the invasion only a minority supported them. Even among Christians, historically anti-Hezbollah, support is now over 50%.
Mr Storck said: How could one have a duty to violate a duty – or to put it another way, that if I don’t offend God and endanger my salvation, I will thereby offend God and endanger my salvation.
It makes me think of Aeschylus ‘Antigone’ – the duty to brother against the duty to the state. This is a tragic situation.
Dan, yes, the IDF lost badly by the sound of things.
I know that Christopher has already asked you about this, but would you please explain your sentence…
No. :-)
Serious reply: I greatly respect Thomism but it doesn’t seem to handle ambiguity very well. Or at any rate Thomists don’t seem to. I’m not saying anything so very strange–it only boils down to what I’ve said before, that real situations often don’t fall out very nicely along crystal-clear lines delineated by principle. I realize that is not a theologically rigorous statement. Francesca’s use of the word “tragic” is apropos.
There has been some good discussion of this question at Open Book, a thread called “No ‘good war?'”
Francesca, regarding perceptions of WWII, you’ll have no doubt heard in other discussions an observation that is true for me as well, that I might well not be here if we had invaded Japan. Much of the Pacific war was about as close to hell as man is capable of creating. I think we all agree that the bombing of Hiroshima as well as much else in WWII was wrong, but I get impatient with those who, in hindsight, explain how they would have avoided the whole situation (as somebody in the Open Book discussion has been doing).
Maclin,
I think, rather, that Thomism (and sometimes Thomists) dispels ambiguity where it need not be.
Now, I don’t claim the mantle of Thomist here, but regarding your statement that there are conflicting duties — I argued that there were not conflicting duties, since one does not have the duty to do anything if so doing requires an immoral act. This is not to say that one forced into such a dilemma is not involved in a tragedy. It is not to say that the decision wouldn’t be tortuously hard to make, or that in any particular situation, the exact character of the action would be clear. It is a cold determination of the nature of human acts, made in the abstract, but applicable to concrete situations.
It is the same kind of determination one must make if he has the choice between an abortion and the death of his wife — that despite the foreseeable result of the death of both mother and child, one may never engage in a direct killing of the innocent. It would be tragic if one had to make this decision, but would the decision to forego the abortion involve a violation of the duty one has to protect the life of his wife? Or the woman to protect her own life?
It is not to say … that in any particular situation, the exact character of the action would be clear.
We could probably just leave it at that, as we really are going in circles, and that’s the essence of my view. The abortion example doesn’t resolve the question because international relations involve far more variable, uncontrollable, and unknown factors–just as what-if-Nazis-were-raping-your-daughter doesn’t resolve it in the other direction.
Yes, Daniel, Israel is probably worse off now. As I said when this started, Israel is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. A very likely outcome now is another and worse war a few years from now, after Hezbollah is rearmed under the noses of a feckless and impotent, if not complicit, multi-national force, and the Jews of Israel decline to follow the counsel of Caelum et Terra and accept martyrdom or at the very least another diaspora, the last one not really having worked out all that well for them.
but I get impatient with those who, in hindsight, explain how they would have avoided the whole situation
Why? It would have been easy to avoid WWII, and we had no dog in that fight. Germany didn’t want to fight us (we declared war on them) and Japan hit us because the felt war was inevitable and needed to hit first to have any hope of victory (and they were right).
Simply by being neutral we could have stayed out of that fight. Stalin would have probably lost, and Germany would have never held Europe very long.
Why must we fight in every “just” war, anyway? Right now there are hundreds of potential justice issues we could fight over. It is not our job, and we don’t even know if we improve things. 100 million killed by USSR; we had a lot to do with that by taking Stalin as a partner.
Maclin,
By my statement, “that in any particular situation, the exact character of the action would be clear,” I do not think I mean the same thing as you do. You would pose an opposition and ambiguity on the level of principle — that two moral duties can collide; that one may not be able in a particular situation to choose any course but an immoral one — should I acquiesece in the killing of innocents or should I abandon my duty to defend my own people? What I meant is that it may be unclear to someone how a principle applies to a particular act. For instance, one may not kill non-combatants — but does this apply to the assassination of political leaders? One may not procure an abortion — but how does this apply when an embryo implants itself in the fallopian tube? Would removing the embryo constitute an abortion?
And no one has said Israel has to commit national suicide. What has been said is that in defending itself Israel or any other nation may not do anything that offends God or the natural law. What has been said is that no cause, no matter how great, important, or honorable, justifies or allows for even the smallest sin. What has been said is merely Catholic moral teaching. Your position seems to be that, given a nation’s duty to defend its citizens, these principles may not apply, or they do apply, but not really, or they apply but one may not have the leisure to follow them. In sum, your position has to come down to either that certain moral principles are not as absolute as others or that at times sin is unavoidable or, worse, that one may at times have a duty to sin to avoid sin.
You would pose an opposition and ambiguity on the level of principle
Wrong. You are using the word “duty” with scholastic precision. With that usage then, as you say, any sort of conflict between duties is a logical impossibility–it’s like saying that 2 + 2 is both 4 and 5. That’s fine, I’m all for this kind of precision in moral theology. I am using the term rather more loosely.
I’m going to get ticked if you keep saying I’m denying the principle that one may not directly and intentionally target non-combatants. I have never intended to say anything more than that it is not always clear how to apply the principle, that it may not be clear exactly what one’s duty, in the precise sense, is. We seem to be talking not just in circles but past each other, so I’m once again withdrawing.
As for Israel, national suicide, etc.: if one is going to advocate practical pacifism, one must face the fact that, in principle, national suicide may in fact be an obligation, whether or not that’s true of Israel right now.
David, you answered your own “Why?”
I’m sorry to tick you off, Maclin, but you really seem to be saying far more. At least you expression is capable of intepretation beyond what you intend.
How else can one apply any principle of “thou shalt not” than by not doing what is forbidden or by doing only what is permitted? If a nation’s leaders know that they may not target civilians even in self defense, than they apply that principle by not targeting civilians. The only gray here comes from circumstances and persons and means: is the target civilian or not? Are the means we are using indiscriminate or not? But once such things are established, the duty is clear. One may not use the means in question or target that population.
The only gray here comes from circumstances and persons and means…
Ya reckon?!?
No offense, Maclin, but I’m with Chris and Tom here: you do appear evasive.
I am not a Thomist, but it seems to me that if one determines that a certain act is inherently immoral one is not obliged to hem and haw and express all sorts of misgivings about it.
There may be a time when it is good to sympathize with the temptations people face, when those are not readily recognized, like addressing the very real loneliness and difficulties that face homosexuals who are trying to be chaste to a fundamentalist convention. That might even be prophetic, so long as one does not advocate discarding the moral principle that to give in to such temptations is gravely sinful.
However, we find ourselves in a culture where what? 95%? of the people think Hiroshima was a morally good thing to do, where even now pundits, even those who claim to be our friends (like Mr. Dreher) are calling for indiscriminate war and seeing Hiroshima as a model!
At such a time there is much to be said for moral clarity. God did not issue footnotes with the Ten Commandments.
And I did not offer any practical advice to Israel; I am doing moral theology here, not practical politics.
If I were to offer advice it wouldn’t be to surrender to their enemies, but to act in a way that doesn’t create so many.
My father, too, most likely would have been part of an invasion of Japan, and quite possibly would have been killed.
It nevertheless has always seemed a pretty weak argument to say that we should have used atomic weapons lest the world be deprived of the presence of Daniel Nichols…
i really hope you men, who I assume are breadwinners and heads of household, do not go through these mental gymnastics and machinations when a crazy man jacks you minivan……
No offense to you, either, but if I’m striking y’all as evasive, y’all are coming across to me as willfully or stupidly misreading what I’m trying to say. As I know you’re not stupid, and will assume you’re not malicious, I must fall back on the possibility that I have not expressed myself clearly. I never thought it would be so difficult to communicate the idea that determining what is right under complex circumstances is not always perfectly straightforward.
Maclin,
Is there a difference between saying: “determining what is right under complex circumstances is not always perfectly straightforward.” To which I would entirely agree.
And saying: “I am trying to suggest the possibility of a moral obligation to defend which could be at odds with the moral obligation not to defend.” To which I vigorously disagree.
You said both. This is why some of us haven’t been sure where you’re finally coming down.
I didn’t intend any difference in substance.
What if I substituted for “at odds with” something like “might be difficult to reconcile with”?–meaning “difficult” as implied in the “determining…” sentence.
Maclin,
If you meant to say, “I am trying to suggest the possibility of a moral obligation to defend which one might find difficult to reconcile with the moral obligation not to defend,” I have no problem with it and would even agree that such moral obligations exist. The difficulty would then be in the mind of the person, not in the intrinsic character of the duties in question.
And, Squirrel–
I don’t drive a minivan but a 12 passenger Dodge Ram van (a manly vehicle — check out the name!) and a 1966 Ford Truck (even more manly; it’s got no power steering, and it’s real death trap, to boot.)
I may be beating a dead horse at this point, but, Maclin, if all you meant to suggest is that sometimes it is difficult to understand exactly where our duty lies and sometimes it may even appear as if we have contradictory duties (which of course is impossible since God cannot contradict himself), then I have no disagreement with you on this point.
Here is the issue as I see it. Maclin was basically trying to counter the almost automatic condemnation of Israel simply because civilians were killed. What he is saying is that THAT reaction is incompatable with the just war theory, even in its most restrictive interpretation (one which I would endorse). It is practicaly pacifism.
Isn’t the heart of our latent disagreement the question of whether large numbers of civilian deaths are acceptable so long as that is not the intention of the one attacking? Even if the large numbers of dead are inevitable and foreseen?
I would hold that this is forbidden, even if the goal is some other strategic one.
Others here hint that this is acceptable…
Mr. Gotcher,
My position all along has been that an act of war is not unjust simply because it results in incidental civilian deaths. The key word here, however, is “incidental.”
Daniel raises another question, I think. What if there are means that, while essentially not targeting civilians, result nevertheless in greater than expected civilian casualties? This could happen if some ordinance sets off a fire that burns large areas of a city; the ordinance used might be proportional to the end in view, but its use has an incidental effect that, while not unforeseeable, may be thought morally avoidable.
But what if the means have the inevitable effect of killing civilians, say, at a ratio (to soldiers) of 10:1 or even 5:1? Or perhaps even less? Could such a means really be said to be proportional to the end in view?
Too, according to just war theory, the evil caused by warfare cannot be greater than the evil addressed by it. (“The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated,” says the Catechism).
I don’t think this is said simply in consideration of one’s own people, but of the innocents on both sides (for the innocents of the enemy have no less the right to life than the innocents of one’s people). If, in protecting our own people, we lay waste another, is this proportional?
I addressed the raw proportionality issue in an earlier comment. No one rebutted it, so I presume what I said stands.
You should not assume, Mr. Gotcher, that just because no one replies to something you’ve said that it has been accepted by one and all. There are numerous reasons why one might not reply.
Mr. Gotcher,
I assume the post to which you refer is the following:
“t seems to me that to say that a 10:1 civilian/soldier death rate automatically renders an act of war unjust presumes that the purpose of all acts of war is to kill the enemy rather than defeat him. However, if I am targeting infrastructure or missile sites because that will disable the enemy it is always possible that there are no actually enemy soldiers near the target, but there are civilians. Even if most civilian have headed the warning and cleared out some will stay or be forced to stay and get killed. You’ll get your 10:1 ratio, but I don’t see that that renders that act, which was not targeting enemy soldiers, is unjust. This reminds me of the other discussion somewhere else about multiplier of the management salary vs. the worker’s wage.”
What you say here addresses the point that the means must be proportional to the end in view. But the second principle I referred to above does not have to do so much with the means but the over all effect of the war. Even assuming the use of proportional means, if the effect of the war is a graver evil than the evil to be addressed, the war lacks proportionality.
Further the right to life assumes a right to the means of life. You cannot destroy what is primarily civilian infrastructure without basically targeting civilians. A man can be killed with a knife-thrust to the heart or he can have all food and water removed from him; both are murder.
Another way of putting the same thing. If civilians are immune, the property of civilians is immune. Property is the extension of a man, what he needs for his livelihood. No one has the right to take this by direct acts from another.
That anyone could consider a 10:1 ratio of civilian to military deaths acceptable is mind-numbing.
Civilian casualties, as traditionally understood before the dawn of technological warfare, were to be minimal and incidental, a peasant shot by a stray arrow, or a field trampled by a charge.
To kill vast numbers of innocents, even as a side effect to destroying a military target, is disproportionate and evil.
I was talking to a young graduate of the College That We Will Not Name recently, discussing the Israeli attack on Lebanon. I mentioned the huge numbers of civilian casualties, the villages wiped out, the children killed. Totally dispassionate, he said “Yes, and that is a shame.”
“You sit there calmly and say it is a shame”, I said, “but if those were your children lying dead in the rubble of your home you would be filled with rage, and that would not be unreasonable.”
It sort of shocked him, I think, but for a moment he seemed to get it. (He gave the impression of being someone who rarely talks to anyone who does not reinforce his opinions. I don’t think he knew quite what to make of me).
I think we finally are getting at the heart of what some of us perceive to be an evasiveness from some here: “Of course it is wrong to target civilians”, you say, but then start hemming and hawing.
Are you thinking, with Mr. Gotcher, that a 10:1 ratio is acceptable so long as the civilians were not the “real” targets?
Daniel, I suppose that 8:45 comment is addressed to me. I don’t intend to participate any further in a discussion where good faith on my part is not presumed. It’s certainly been an educational experience to find myself on the receiving end of the hermeneutic of suspicion, but not one I wish to prolong.
Maclin, I think Daniel’s comment was addressed, at least immediately, to Robert Gotcher, who had earlier said that a 10:1 ratio of civilian to military deaths was not ipso facto an injustice, and who had just appealed again to his earlier post without specifically identifying it.
“Are you thinking, with Mr. Gotcher…” implies that “you” is someone other than Mr. G. And I had earlier been accused of being evasive, as well as “hemming and hawing.” But as the kids say, whatever…
Maclin- Sorry if we offended you; it isn’t a hermeneutic of suspicion but one of precision. This is a discussion of the implications of the just war tradition in light of the technologicalization of warfare. I am not alone in not understanding what you are saying, or not saying. You have not been clear; don’t take it personally if we try and guess where you stand.
Maclin,
I did not mean ever to suggest that you were being evasive or willfully perverse or anything like that. I just found various things you said unclear and even contradictory. It seemed to me you were upholding the principle of the immunity of citizens while undermining it.
I’ve been following this for a while; thought I might throw in a few thoughts.
Daniel Nichols has stated a few times how the technological advances of modern warfare makes a just war almost impossible. Don’t you think that (with perhaps the peak at Hiroshima)technological warfare has sort of come full circle? For instance, with modern technology, a military force can blanket a target area with “evacuate immediately!” flyers, then after giving adequate time, a laser-guided/GPS/heat-seaking missle can hit a target with the accuracy of a couple feet. My point is that technology has enabled armies to sustain fewer casualties, not more, when compared to WWI and WWII.
I’ve felt like I’ve resonated with Maclin’s take on this discussion since he started trying to articulate it. And several times as I’ve read others’ responses, I have said out loud, “He’s NOT saying that!” Anyway, I don’t know how to say it any better myself.
Here’s a question: When is a civilian not a civilian? Let’s say you have a military site you want to surgically take out, and you broadcast and print tons of flyers giving people a chance to leave. What if many civilian people decide or are convinced to stay, even families, because they think it is worth being a human shield for the “cause”? Kind of like if your local city scheduled the demolition of a building, and protesters decided to cross the caution tape and go into the building just before detonation. Are they then no longer innocent bystanders?
Maybe another way of restating Maclin’s point (at least the way I perceive it) could be to consider the Catechism’s statement, “the use of arms … must not produce evils graver than the evil to be eliminated.” What goes into the equation of Evil#1>Evil#2? I would offer that it is not strictly a comparison of the number of lives lost, civilian or not. Things like the likelyhood of the aggressor to use indiscriminant means of destruction, the idealogical evils of the aggressor being spread if they were to take over, and even “we possess the truth about just war theory so we are more culpable for our decistions than they are” could all factor in to deciding that the evil is worth eliminating, or not.
Another interesting point in that line from the Catechism is that it really seems to imply that new evil can be done as long as it is less grave than the aggressor’s evil. When I think of it that way, it is not a position I agree with on face-value, nor do I think Maclin does either, but it is right from the Catechism. I guess maybe you aren’t supposed to separate the two, but only consider the net evil. So that way you could say, “If I do nothing, there will be grave evil, but if I do something, there will most likely be less evil because of my actions.” Seems like shaky logic to me, but why would it be in the Catechism that way?
I don’t say that you are making this confusion, Mr. Ellis, but we must be clear about the distinction between moral and physical evils. The latter can sometimes be done directly – e.g., I pull out a splinter from my son’s hand causing him pain, which is a physical evil – the former can never be directly willed or sought. It wasn’t clear to me which you were referring to. I think the Catechism is speaking of physical evil.
Dan- I think the myth you articulate about “smart weapons” has been pretty well debunked.
As for warning civilians, that is mostly a propaganda stunt, like when the Israelis made phone calls to the one house in the Lebanese village that had a phone, which of course was the most affluent home, whose owners had fled.
Like hurricane evacuations, the poor most often do not have the resources to flee, even with impending disaster.
At any rate, the recent Israeli action in Lebanon had the by now familiar civilian to military ration of 10:1. The Hezbollah response was more proportionate, with a far greater military casualty rate. Whether this was an intentional decision to restrain civilian deaths or not, I don’t know. Traditionally Islam has condemned attacking civilians, but the modern jihadist radicals, using logic identical to that used by Western thinkers, have redefined the word “civilian” out of existence.
To the leafletting point:
It seems to me that directly targeting civilian infrastructure and property is also forbidden by the moral law. Human life depends on certain external conditions — food, of course, but also shelter and,in most places, such things as electricity. To strike at such things is to strike at the means on which human life defends; it is, then, to strike at human life. You call kill a man by a dagger to the heart or by removing all his food. Both are murder.
To Christopher – The leafleting point had nothing to do with targeting civilian infrastructure. The idea was to allow civilians time to get out and stay away from a millitary target. Also I think your comparison of a dagger to removing food and shelter is weak. Food and shelter removed temporarily won’t kill a man, and the greater nations, especially the United States, have usually supplied food and shelter to those displaced by war, famine, disaster, whether caused by them or by others.
To Mr. Storck – I agree that we can distinguish between moral and physical evils, and I would say that the Catechism is speaking of physical evil. So could one say, “This aggressor is committing a moral evil (choosing to attack) which is going to cause physical evil to my people, so I will defend myself by causing physical evil to his people, with the hope that overall the physical evil caused to both of us will be less than it would have been if I had done nothing.”?
To Daniel – you surprise me with the confidence with which you state things as fact. 1) Why are smart weapons a myth that has been debunked? Even if a country did not have the technology right now, just the desire to be able to defend one’s country in a manner that protected as many lives as possible is not a myth to be debunked, it’s a goal to work towards. Maybe you are saying that it has been tried and it didn’t work. Of course there have been failures, but at least admit that technologically advanced militaries can be much more accurate than they used to be, and if that is the case, there is no reason why they could not become moreso. 2) Why is warning civilians mostly a propoganda stunt? I’m sure it has been done for that purpose, but there is no reason that it can’t be a ligitimate way to get people out of harms way. 3) I’m not talking about hurricane/hiroshima evacuations, just getting several blocks’ distance away from targeted buildings, which is much more possible for the poor and weak than regional evacuations. 4) I am not trying to place Israel, Lebanon or Hezzbollah beyond criticism with any comments I’ve made. Israel inflicted a lot more damage than Hezzbollah, but my understanding is that Hezzbollah had more indiscriminate (i.e. less control/aiming ability) bombing going on than did Israel, so it was very likely that chance and lack of firepower was all that kept Hezzbollah from causing the same or greater civilian casualties. To even suggest that Hezzbollah was trying to be restrained in their attacks compared to Israel seems unrealistic to me. 5) “Traditionally” Christianity (which the West has for its heritage) and even Judaism has condemned attacking civilians (and any person at all, for that matter) much more consistantly than Islam, don’t you think?
Mr. Ellis,
The target would be a military target if the means used to destroy it were not of such fire power that they would necessarily destroy more than the target. For instance, if to destroy an anti-aircraft gun I use a bomb of such power that it destroys a neighborhood, then the proper target is the neighborhood, not the anti-aircraft gun. I am destroying the gun by destroying the neighborhood.
That “the greater nations … have usually supplied food and shelter to those displaced by war, famine, disaster, whether caused by them or by others,” is accidental to the consideration. They may supply these and, then again, they may not. Further, how long will it take them to supply this aid? How many people will die in the meantime, from contaminated water, from a lack of electricity supplied to hospitals, from disrupted food supplies, from exposure in refugee camps, etc.? What will be the longer term effects from the destruction of wealth-producing property?
If it were a matter of destroying only one neighborhood, obviously the impact might be quite low. But rarely if ever are the strikes so sparing.
Christopher, I agree with everything you wrote. Those are all the considerations that the leaders of a nation should consider if they are going to use just war criteria to defend themselves. They should consider the moral obligation to involve as little of a target as possible in their attempt to disable the aggressor, give as much notice and assistance as possible for all civilians (and even all combatants who wish to lay down their arms) to get out of the way, and then be ready to immediately supply food, shelter, medical assistance, and long term rebuilding aid to all those affected by their actions. No one is doing that adequately in my opinion.
Daniel Ellis wrote: “To Mr. Storck – I agree that we can distinguish between moral and physical evils, and I would say that the Catechism is speaking of physical evil. So could one say, “This aggressor is committing a moral evil (choosing to attack) which is going to cause physical evil to my people, so I will defend myself by causing physical evil to his people, with the hope that overall the physical evil caused to both of us will be less than it would have been if I had done nothing.”?
I would say that it’s not “causing physical evil to his people,” i.e., the aggessor’s, that one is permitted to do, but rather to repel his armies, etc. Certainly one may destroy his missiles, etc. and sometimes doubtless civilians will be killed accidentally in the process, but I would say that there are limits on what can be allowed accidentally even against a clear aggressor. So, e.g., I seriously doubt if one could entirely (indirectly) destroy an aggressor’s country even if that were the only way to protect your own country from conquest. The simple conquest of one country would seem to be a lesser physical evil than the entire obliteration of another country, and to permit a conquest, when one has no alternative that is moral, is not a moral evil, but to destroy a country would be a moral evil.
Moral and physical evils are incommensurate, but sometimes one has to estimate the gravity of physical evils to see what would and would not be a moral evil. But one is not weighing moral evils, as if we had a choice of committing a greater or a lesser moral evil. To directly commit a moral evil is never allowed.
Dan- I was speaking of the 1991 Gulf War, when the term “smart bombs” was first used. It was also the first time in my life that I saw what happens when the State and the Media unite in a propaganda campaign.
We were treated to film footage, video-gamelike, which showed smart bombs going down chimneys, seeking out the bad guy over in the corner and eliminating him. Reporters gushed at how advanced weaponry made such precision possible and practically eliminated unwanted civilian deaths.
I didn’t believe a word of it, though I had no proof, only instinct.
In the two years or so following the war small articles would occasionally pop up way back in the newspaper correcting the original claims. It turned out that only a small minority of the weaponry used in the war was “smart”, and that many of the smart bombs weren’t all that bright after all; going off track, hitting the wrong targets, killing civilians. When all was said and done it turned out that the civilian to military casualty ratio was about standard for modern warfare.
At any rate, throughout history technological development has meant increased destruction in warfare, and I have no reason to doubt that pattern will change. Call me a luddite…
And evacuating a few blocks away is hardly a credible option in the sort of widespread bombardment that we saw in Lebanon, or in any modern war. Again, the poor simply may not be able to evacuate.
I said in my comment that I didn’t know if the lower civilian casualties from Hezbollah’s rockets was intentional or not, but it simply is a fact. There was nothing discriminate in Israel’s campaign, and the casualties were overwhelmingly civilian. That is also simply a fact.
Finally, of course Christianity traditionally teaches that civilians are to be spared in warfare, a teaching widely violated in practice. I don’t know about Judaism; you do have all those Old Testament accounts of indiscriminate slaughter. But while Islam has always been militant, this idea that there is not such thing as an innocent civilian- along with several other innovations by the modern jihadists- is really aberrational, a radical departure from traditional Islamic teaching.
Daniel Nichols wrote: “evacuating a few blocks away is hardly a credible option in the sort of widespread bombardment that we saw in Lebanon, or in any modern war”
I agreee, but I’m not saying that anyone is doing it right. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. We can’t lose all hope. I’m trying to suggest a way that just war theory could be used by a morally-minded power to defend itself. There wasn’t a very good attempt at that by either side in the recent bombardments in Lebanon and Israel.
“throughout history technological development has meant increased destruction in warfare, and I have no reason to doubt that pattern will change. Call me a luddite…”
You can’t say that we have increased destruction since Hiroshima. You can’t say that we have even had a war with the kind of destruction of WWII. I wouldn’t call you a Luddite – just hopeless, unless you see another way to true peace between nations that you are not expressing. (Besides the obvious duty of praying for world peace.)
Mr. Storck, I agree with all your distinctions. You can articulate these things better than I. With all you have written, I would only say that it gives support to Maclin’s original assertion that “I am trying to suggest the possibility of a moral obligation to defend which could be at odds with the moral obligation not to defend.” Discerning what is the one true moral obligation in a given situation can be unclear,until one has weighed out all the possible outcomes.
Dan- The capacity for destruction has increased exponentially since Hiroshima. The next world war, the one the neocons crave, will dwarf WWII in deaths.
I am not hopeless, but what is this talk about “another way” to true peace? Surely you don’t believe the current American policies are leading to true peace?