#war ethics

[itsmythang]

Reporter: How is it taking care of the Iranian people if you are bombing them?

Trump: The Iranian people, when they don't hear bombs go off, they are upset. They want to hear bombs because they want to be free.

[deniscollins]

Pentagon Rules Out Striking Iranian Cultural Sites, Contradicting Trump

If you were advising the President, would you recommend that the U.S. military destroy some of Iran’s cultural sites if Iran retaliates for the U.S. killing one of its generals due to his threats against the U.S.: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper sought to douse an international outcry on Monday by ruling out military attacks on cultural sites in Iran if the conflict with Tehran escalates further, despite President Trump’s threat to destroy some of the country’s treasured icons.

Mr. Esper acknowledged that striking cultural sites with no military value would be a war crime, putting him at odds with the president, who insisted such places would be legitimate targets. Mr. Trump’s threats generated condemnation at home and abroad while deeply discomfiting American military leaders who have made a career of upholding the laws of war.

“We will follow the laws of armed conflict,” Mr. Esper said at a news briefing at the Pentagon when asked if cultural sites would be targeted as the president had suggested over the weekend. When a reporter asked if that meant “no” because the laws of war prohibit targeting cultural sites, Mr. Esper agreed. “That’s the laws of armed conflict.”

The furor was a classic controversy of Mr. Trump’s creation, the apparent result of an impulsive threat and his refusal to back down in the face of criticism. When Mr. Trump declared on Saturday that the United States had identified 52 potential targets in Iran if it retaliates for the American drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, none of those targets qualified as cultural sites, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified correcting the president.

Nonetheless, when Mr. Trump casually said on Twitter that they included sites “very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture,” the resulting uproar only got his back up. Rather than simply say that cultural sites were not actually being targeted, the official said, he decided to double down the next day with reporters flying with him on Air Force One, scoffing at the idea that Iran could “kill our people” while “we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site,” saying, “It doesn’t work that way.”

The comments drew protests from Iran and other American adversaries who said they showed that Mr. Trump is the aggressor — and not just against Iran’s government but against its people, its history and its very nationhood. Even some of America’s international partners weighed in, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain breaking with Mr. Trump by issuing a statement through an aide warning against targeting antiquities.

Military leaders were left in the awkward position of trying to reaffirm their commitment to generations of war-fighting rules without angering a volatile commander in chief by contradicting him. Mr. Trump’s remarks unsettled even some of his allies, who considered them an unnecessary distraction at a time when the president should be focusing attention on Iran’s misdeeds rather than promising some of his own.

“We’re not at war with the culture of the Iranian people,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of the president’s staunchest supporters in Congress, said on Monday. “We’re in a conflict with the theology, the ayatollah and his way of doing business.”

Mr. Graham, a retired military lawyer in the Air Force Reserve, said he delivered that message to Mr. Trump in a telephone call on Monday. “I think the president saying ‘we will hit you hard’ is the right message,” he said. “Cultural sites is not hitting them hard; it’s creating more problems. We’re trying to show solidarity with the Iranian people.”

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Trump’s threats would only encourage despots of the world to target antiquities themselves.

“America is better than that, and President Trump is flat-out wrong to threaten attacks on historic places of cultural heritage,” said Mr. Reed, a former platoon leader in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. “Destroying some of these culturally significant Iranian sites wouldn’t be seen as just an attack against the regime in Tehran, it could be construed as an attack on history and humanity.”

Iran, home to one of the world’s most storied ancient civilizations, has 22 cultural sites designated on the World Heritage List by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, including the ruins of Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire later conquered by Alexander the Great. Others include Tchogha Zanbil, the remnants of the holy city of the Kingdom of Elam, and a series of Persian gardens that have their roots in the times of Cyrus the Great.

The United States is a signatory to a 1954 international agreement to protect cultural property in armed conflict and has been a leader in condemning rogue nations and groups that destroy antiquities, including the Islamic State’s destruction of sites in Mosul, Iraq, and Palmyra, Syria, and the Taliban’s demolition of the famed Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001.

Experts said that what Mr. Trump described would likewise violate international law. “We and others accused ISIS of war crimes when they did this,” said Jeh C. Johnson, a former secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama who previously served as the top lawyer at the Pentagon. “Certainly, in aggravated circumstances, it should be considered a war crime.”

Mr. Johnson and others said there could be situations that are murkier, if the actual cultural value was less clear or it was being used as a military facility. Still, Mr. Johnson said, “my guess is his national security lawyers did not vet that tweet.”

Indeed, the president’s advisers ever since have sought to deny that he was actually making a threat even though his initial tweet said the sites — including those of cultural importance — “WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD” if Iran responded to General Suleimani’s killing.

“President Trump didn’t say he’d go after a cultural site,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted the next day on Fox News. “Read what he said very closely.”

But just hours later, Mr. Trump made very clear that he thought cultural sites were in fact legitimate targets. “They’re allowed to kill our people,” he told the reporters on Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from his winter holiday in Florida. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”

By Monday, the White House was again denying that Mr. Trump actually made a threat. “He didn’t say he’s targeting cultural sites,” Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor, told reporters. “He said that he was openly asking the question why in the world they’re allowed to maim people, put out roadside bombs, kill our people, torture our people.”

[trekkele]

S3.E17.

Ok tbh i liked this episode beginning because Archer is essentially right.

Children dont get treated as the enemy. Ever. And the end doesnt make that clear enough imo.

[ibraelsamman]

“Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they want to. Always they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries have seen courage confused with picking up arms, and cowardice confused with laying them down.” 

[elhombredeaccion]

Justification

(I've been wanting to write my thoughts out on this for a little bit. I will attempt to be serious while explaining a few things along the way)

When learning about ethical theories, a great many things become apparent to the one seeking knowledge. The end goal, the basic ideas, the lexicon, they all change rather little. The means are often very different, whereas the ends attempt to stay as comfortably close as possible.

One of these shared ideas is the logic behind what makes something ethical in a particular theory. To quickly and messily summarize that logic in a sentence; "The theory calls for decisions to be made under these considerations (laws, guidelines, etc.), and if a decision is made in accordance to those considerations, then the decision is ethical".

Here's an example - Utilitarianism asks us to perform an action that will cause a minimized amount of total harm and the most amount of aggregate good. Assume I don't buy myself that nice tie, and instead donate to charity that amount it would have cost me, a far-reaching act. Thus, acting to the rules the theory lays out, I have performed an ethical act.

Here is where the problem sets in for my train of thought. The act is figuratively branded, and in a way, so am I. The act was ethical because it was an available action in that situation. An action itself is given a status; it is either ethical, or it is not, and as long as the rules are followed, it is indeed ethical.

Ethics and law are sometimes hand in hand, and other times display little affection for one another. Laws are not always ethical, and ethical actions are not always legal. But there is a word I would like to introduce to use (for myself) to help this division.

Justification. Something that is just may not be ethical, but something that is ethical will always be just. I must stress that this is my own definition in a long-running thought experiment. If it resembles an idea out there, I would 1) love to know about it to learn and 2) to give the writer proper credit. Recognize this writing is not academic even in a loose sense, but I digress.

In any case, to see justification in action, I'll apply Utilitarianism to Bernard Williams' experiment of "Jim and the Indians" as he did years ago. The idea:

You are visiting a foreign country, of which the government has welcomed you with open arms. They are in the middle of a conflict, and on this day, have captured twenty rebel soldiers. There are men, women, children, the sick, and the elderly, and are to be executed within the hour. However, the Representative with you wishes for you to personally execute one of the rebels in celebration of your visit and new ties to the country, and if you do so, he will release the other nineteen with no penalty. If you personally do not execute one, all twenty will be killed summarily. There are those two options, and that is all.

For the sake of the thought, disregard law. What is the problem here ethically?

Here is where my problem lies. When is it ever ethical to kill another human being?

I cannot say that it is impossible to justify a human death. The law reflects this. We have self-defense, a right to guard our property and our loved ones according to our laws. But do we ever ethically kill someone? Killing someone does not just erase them from the present. It erases all of their possible futures. Societies across thousands of generations have recognized a murder as wrong, but if we can justify it, it becomes right? I cannot see beyond that.

I am not asking for an ideal peace, or for a world without death, or something so impossible as grasping water. I want some of us to realize that no matter who or what a person may be or become, they are still a human being, with rationality and free will. I cannot hide behind class, race, sex, or state of origin to ignore this. I cannot say that I am American, therefore my life is worth more. I cannot say that I am male, so my life is more precious. The only thing our lives should be valued in is our capacity for sentience.

What I wish for is an idea in ethics that will embrace the difference between justification and ethical. Sometimes ethical actions contain what would be otherwise unethical actions due to the engagement of the thought or theory; under most conditions, killing someone is ethically wrong, and perhaps in some cases of life or death we do have a right to defend ourselves, to desperately try to save ourselves. I just would like for us not to pretend that is different to make ourselves fee better.

- Chris

[skullshapedteacup]

Attack of the Drones

           Photo:USAF Photographic Archives 

Drone presence is being felt in multiple countries at the moment such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen. With the US being the largest stock holder of drone technology, boasting over 600 units in active service. The way in which these unmanned, soon to be autonomous, aerial assault vehicles are used is a hot topic of war ethics at the moment. Where does everyone, the American/Foreign public and the American Government, stand on the issue and what moral questions does their use bring into the spotlight.

Surely there are going to be differences in opinion with such a switch up in how warfare is played out. Technology is growing exponentially, in complexity and capability, so isn't it about time our codes of war ethics were updated from the, written by candle light, Geneva convention. 

So what has people so geared?

Many advocates of drone use are that way inclined due to several reasons. One such reason is the fact that individuals can be targeted rather than having to invade whole countries. The aspect of saving the pilot's life who would otherwise, by yesterday's technological boundaries, be at risk upon entering the war zone is also an obvious advantage.

It is claimed the accuracy of the machines is higher than the calibre of a pilot. Thus less civilian casualties and structural damage would ensue from attacks. It has also been stated that whilst a pilot is isolated in the final decision making process of the operation, whatever that may be. With drones there can be multiple levels of command providing insight into the decisions on the ground. Ultimately aiding in better all round governance of the available force.

Cost effectiveness is another massive advantage over previous aerial surveillance/campaign vehicles. There were multiple reports on the big, wide web most with the tone that, for the job of long-term surveillance with occasional directive use e.g. on-call strike action, the drones are a much sounder candidate. 

And the other slant?

Many fear drone use due to the detachment it brings from the battlefield. A hypothetical parallel may be drawn between a child squashing a line of ant's as they cross the garden path and a drone pilot bombing a potential target and a family who happen to be in the area on the way to school. By providing that physical detachment from the battlefield we surface multiple issues which have to be accounted for;

Does the detachment and inhumanness of the situation make it easier to kill?

How often do accidental killings occur and how are the accidental killings classified? 

What methods of identification are used for specific targets and how sensitive are they? 

Does the lack of accountability make superpowers more inclined to undertake less morally viable tasks?

Does the non-transparency of American drone use in other countries (e.g. Waziristan) act as direct provocation of these countries?

The media has covered much of what has become to be known as extra-judicial killings in many of the USA conflict zones. The policies governing these events seem to not completely account for them with regards to their legality. This is especially true when it focuses on civilian casualties. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has exhaustively compiled data, from several countries where drone service is known to occur, assessing the extent of casualties. 

The lack of government discussion on the matter in congress and during the recent presidential campaigns needs to be questioned. If the shoe were to be on the other foot and the American people were on the receiving end of not only the attacks but experienced the life of continually looking over your shoulder for an incoming drone, would many be singing their current tune.

With regards to how other international powers will exercise their use of drone technology once they reach a similar technological peg is another issue. Before we reach this stage it seems that increased regulation and accountability for those who currently draw on the drone task force is needed.

There are many more facets of debate available and a vast quantity of information is accessible to help inform your views if you wish to read on ......