The Forgotten Issue
October 9, 2010 - by
Back when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we figured fightin’ was going to be the key to winning the war, so we told General McArthur to charge and keep charging and not to worry about the amount of havoc he wrecked until the Japanese were whipped.
In the same vein in 1944 and ’45 we dropped tons of bombs out of the sky onto Hamburg, aiming to destroy a German tank factory but knowing one of those bombs was sure to land in some grandfather’s living room and blow him to smithereens which we didn’t like but as General Sherman said, War is Hell.
Over the seven decades since Pearl Harbor our thinking on fighting wars – and just about everything else – has changed.
Last year, when President Obama announced he was sending more troops to Afghanistan, it sure sounded like we were about to charge. But, then, in the next breath the President said he was going to pull the same troops out of Afghanistan in 18 months which sounded like we’d already made up our minds to retreat.
Back in the old days we’d tell our soldiers to fire when they saw the whites of the enemies’ eyes, but, today, in Afghanistan, we tell our Marines not to fire at all until they make ‘a positive ID’ of a terrorist and if the terrorist happens to be standing in a crowd of civilians aiming his rifle we tell the Marines not to even dream of calling in an air strike for fear the bomb may hit the wrong person.
That’s a fine sentiment but when you come right down to it it’s also a brutal moral choice: We either drop bombs on terrorists, knowing they will also kill civilians, or spare the civilians and make it easier for the terrorists to kill our own soldiers. (In fact, there was a story in the newspaper the other day about a Marine who was killed when – to protect civilians – his commander withheld the order fire.)
The Jesuits, who’ve been studying these types of choices longer than just about anyone, have decided if you drop a bomb and blow up a civilian that’s unfortunate but as long as you’re fighting a ‘Just War’ and didn’t mean to kill the civilian there’s no actual sin involved. It’s tragic. But not evil.
Protestants, of course, are divided. The way my friend Paul the theologian sees it the core problem here is Original Sin: Because Original Sin means sooner or later you’ll find yourself in a fix where you have no good choices – where your only choices are between evils. The way he sees it killing the civilians is sin. But getting our soldiers killed to spare the civilians is a sin, too, and those two choices, he says, are exactly what General Sherman had in mind when he said, War is Hell – because either way you end up with bad blood on your hands.
The man who has the unfortunate duty to make this choice is the President and – with the support of our generals – President Obama’s decided to protect the civilians and risk our soldiers. The President and the generals say that’s right because to win the war we must win the hearts and minds of the civilians – so blowing them up isn’t helpful. We’re also building roads and schools in Afghanistan to win the civilians’ hearts and minds.
Of course, a lot of people disagree, particularly parents of soldiers. They say, suppose you’re an Afghanistani civilian caught in the middle of a war between us and the Taliban – then we come along and build a school in your village. That’s fine. But the moment you stand up and say, See, these Americans aren’t such bad fellows, the Taliban shoots you. So, practically speaking, we’re not going to win anyone’s hearts and minds until after we kill the terrorists – which the President’s policy makes it harder to do.
And here, they say, is another troubling sign of the times: We are at the end of an election, while we’re fighting a war, and this choice has barely been debated. It’s not mentioned, not discussed, not spoken of.
The Forgotten Issue
October 9, 2010/
Back when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we figured fightin’ was going to be the key to winning the war, so we told General McArthur to charge and keep charging and not to worry about the amount of havoc he wrecked until the Japanese were whipped.
In the same vein in 1944 and ’45 we dropped tons of bombs out of the sky onto Hamburg, aiming to destroy a German tank factory but knowing one of those bombs was sure to land in some grandfather’s living room and blow him to smithereens which we didn’t like but as General Sherman said, War is Hell.
Over the seven decades since Pearl Harbor our thinking on fighting wars – and just about everything else – has changed.
Last year, when President Obama announced he was sending more troops to Afghanistan, it sure sounded like we were about to charge. But, then, in the next breath the President said he was going to pull the same troops out of Afghanistan in 18 months which sounded like we’d already made up our minds to retreat.
Back in the old days we’d tell our soldiers to fire when they saw the whites of the enemies’ eyes, but, today, in Afghanistan, we tell our Marines not to fire at all until they make ‘a positive ID’ of a terrorist and if the terrorist happens to be standing in a crowd of civilians aiming his rifle we tell the Marines not to even dream of calling in an air strike for fear the bomb may hit the wrong person.
That’s a fine sentiment but when you come right down to it it’s also a brutal moral choice: We either drop bombs on terrorists, knowing they will also kill civilians, or spare the civilians and make it easier for the terrorists to kill our own soldiers. (In fact, there was a story in the newspaper the other day about a Marine who was killed when – to protect civilians – his commander withheld the order fire.)
The Jesuits, who’ve been studying these types of choices longer than just about anyone, have decided if you drop a bomb and blow up a civilian that’s unfortunate but as long as you’re fighting a ‘Just War’ and didn’t mean to kill the civilian there’s no actual sin involved. It’s tragic. But not evil.
Protestants, of course, are divided. The way my friend Paul the theologian sees it the core problem here is Original Sin: Because Original Sin means sooner or later you’ll find yourself in a fix where you have no good choices – where your only choices are between evils. The way he sees it killing the civilians is sin. But getting our soldiers killed to spare the civilians is a sin, too, and those two choices, he says, are exactly what General Sherman had in mind when he said, War is Hell – because either way you end up with bad blood on your hands.
The man who has the unfortunate duty to make this choice is the President and – with the support of our generals – President Obama’s decided to protect the civilians and risk our soldiers. The President and the generals say that’s right because to win the war we must win the hearts and minds of the civilians – so blowing them up isn’t helpful. We’re also building roads and schools in Afghanistan to win the civilians’ hearts and minds.
Of course, a lot of people disagree, particularly parents of soldiers. They say, suppose you’re an Afghanistani civilian caught in the middle of a war between us and the Taliban – then we come along and build a school in your village. That’s fine. But the moment you stand up and say, See, these Americans aren’t such bad fellows, the Taliban shoots you. So, practically speaking, we’re not going to win anyone’s hearts and minds until after we kill the terrorists – which the President’s policy makes it harder to do.
And here, they say, is another troubling sign of the times: We are at the end of an election, while we’re fighting a war, and this choice has barely been debated. It’s not mentioned, not discussed, not spoken of.