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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (16673)	1/17/2002 5:29:00 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "The use of force is immoral per se, unless you are doing it in self defense or in the defense of others." Agreed, but if the object of your violence (1) has no effect on the target (i.e. Saddam), and (2) is directed against someone other than the target (i.e. Iraqi conscripts and civilians), then it's immoral. We can justify it only by dehumanizing our enemy, as humans are pretty effective at doing. Re: "Even so, the use of force must be commensurate with the threat, and reasonably calculated to achieve the intended purpose." Bombing kills people. Death is the ultimate limit in violence. You can't kill people deader than dead. Consequently, it's not possible to talk about "commensurate" with respect to military operations that result in death. Commensurate, on the individual level would be "an eye for an eye", or a "bloody nose for a bloody nose". Perhaps you could do it by ignoring the individuals and looking only at the societies as a whole, but I find that rather socialistic and dehumanizing. Violence can be commensurate between societies, but tell that to the particular individuals that death is exacted upon. No, there can be no "commensurate" response that involves killing the enemy. Commensurate stops at the level of sanctions and the like. Once you get to the point where you are killing people, you ought to start with the people who are causing you the problem, not with some 18 year-old pimple faced conscript who happens to be drafted into the unenviable position of ammunition loader for an anti-aircraft gun. He has a mother, sisters, brothers and a father. He is a human being, and he is not a person who is causing us any problems at all. He's a person, he has a right to live on this beautiful planet, and it's only moral to kill him in very, very, very restricted circumstances. The same applies to our own soldiers, but we've got the technology advantage that means that the human cost of violence is almost entirely borne by the enemy. But that does not give us the excuse to ignore his existence. He likes food, reads novels, watches TV, gossips with his buddies, he admires a pretty girl. He's a human being and we cannot morally cut him down in the prime of life in order to make a political point. To take the life of innocent people is a serious thing, and we should only do it if we have an immediate goal of utmost importance. Taking out Saddam would be such a goal, but that doesn't appear to be our goal over the last 10 years. Certainly maintaining our appearance of power is not much of a goal. Our actions in Afghanistan were perfectly in keeping with what I am calling moral, and they were very effective in demonstrating our power. We did the right thing there, and as far as I can tell, we are continuing to do the right thing. We can do the right thing in Iraq if we decide to. But if we're going to have to kill Iraqi soldiers, then we should kill Saddam as well, or better, instead. -- Carl