Advanced Ethics
26/10/2015
A Most Brutal Sport
Jus Ad Bellum, a justified waging of war; Jus in Bello, ethical battlefield conduct between warring states. Do you see the contradiction here in these terms? Before even understanding the specifics of what each means does it not feel awkward and alien to experience these terms beside each other? Justified, apparently, complementing the waging of war; and ethical, apparently, complementing the conduct of a battlefield. These terms do not complement one another and in fact do not make any sort of sense alongside each the other. Battle is the absolute degeneration of ethics, and so too war is the failure of justice. There are people who would attempt to ‘justify’ their conduct and their desires by professing to the masses that combat is ethical and war just but, to any mind not subdued by the proselytization of the fear-mongering tyranny of war-culture, this is plainly not possible. No combat is ever ethical nor war just because combat is an expression of hatred and of violence, and neither hatred nor violence can be contained. I may say to my enemy ‘I will respect you if we fight’, but within the heat of conflict, within the blind, fear-based actions of survival, there is no conscience and there are no morals, there is only that which stands between myself and the ability to continue living. Herein I shall examine the microcosms of militarism, that is combat, and with it extrapolate a claim to the macrocosms of militarism, that is war; no combat is ever ethical, and therefore no war is ever just.
Primarily let us examine War-Culture’s conceptual analysis of ethical combat, so that we might better understand what it is they claim. The conditions of ‘ethical combat’ are quite broad, and here I have chosen a select few areas to work with which I believe are most prudent to the respect of human lives, which after all is what the ‘ethics of war’ are concerned with: the respect of individuals by individuals. According to the Crimes of War website, the code of conduct on a battlefield prohibits:
• The targeting of civilian populations for attack
• Biological weaponry (use and experimentation)
• Use of asphyxiating gases
• Incitement to genocide
• Abuse of the sick, the wounded, prisoners of war, and all other combatants otherwise rendered unable to fight. Those soldiers whom are ‘outside of the fight’ are known as hors de combat.
Based on its economy, military, political influence, innovation, and culture; the United States remains the sole superpower of the present day (Bremmer) and is recognized as the world leader of democracy, a political system which values freedom and justice above all else. It is for this reason that I believe it appropriate to use them as a representation of the status quo of war in the current day, they are the most powerful nation on the globe and they ought to be a prime role model for all others, which seems to be supported when discovering that “[a]t the forefront of the United States’ foreign policy is the notion that America helps itself by helping others” (Kelly). Now please follow closely as I examine America’s ‘jus in bello’ since the end of World War Two, which is an effective measurement primarily because it was after the end of World War II that the amended Geneva Convention, prohibiting inhumane treatment of civilian populations and soldiers rendered incapable of continuing to fight, was added to the already present Hague Convention and Regulations of 1899 and 1907, dictating humane means of war such as the prohibition of asphyxiating gases and expanding bullets (Cornell) (ICRC). I also find this time frame appropriate because of the sobering effects of the World Wars on all peoples.
The Second World War let out into the Cold War, during which tensions between the developed countries was extremely high. In 1950 there began a civil war in Korea. The United Nations, under the leadership of the United States, flew over to intervene on the side of the South Koreans; the same as China intervened on behalf of the North (Milestones). On July 26, 1950, a horde of Korean refugees were gathered at a stone bridge near the village of No Gun Ri. Under strict command by U.S. superiors: no movement of Koreans was to be permitted across the battlefield for any reason, and so the refugees continued to amass. Suddenly a Lieutenant was shouting “fire on everything, kill ‘em all[!]” (Williams), and some four hundred Korean civilians were mowed down by the 7th Cavalry infantrymen, and strafed by U.S. planes. A Korean survivor recalls “[t]he floor under the bridge was a mixture of gravel and sand. People clawed with their bare hands to make holes to hide in . . . Other people piled up the dead like a barricade, and hid behind the bodies as a shield against the bullets” (Williams). Eighteen years later, March 16, 1968, in the midst of the Vietnam War, U.S. forces entered the Vietnamese village of My Lai and “[b]y the end of the day, they had shot and killed between 300 and 507 unarmed and unresisting men, women and children, none of them apparently members of the enemy forces” (PBS).
Two years after the Korean War is when the Vietnamese War began, and the Vietnamese strike and feint tactics were vastly superior to the American strategies at the time and the U.S. became increasingly desperate for a win within the thick, mountainous jungles. It was in pursuing this win that “millions of litres of defoliants such as Agent Orange were dropped on Vietnam” (Scott-Clark and Levy). American scientists claimed then, as they do still, that the defoliants which they dropped out of planes and into the jungles of ‘Nam were transitory chemicals which were not harmful to humans. Yet in 2003, nearly fifty years after the fact, “[t]here [were] an estimated 650,000 [afflicted victims] in Vietnam, suffering from an array of baffling chronic conditions. Another 500,000 [had] already died. The thread that weaves through all their case histories is defoliants deployed by the US military during the war. Some of the victims are veterans who were doused in these chemicals during the war, others are farmers who lived off land that was sprayed” (Scott-Clark and Levy). The Americans using chemical weapons in the Vietnamese jungles is by no means an isolated case, either in country using them or in war during which they have been used. The Americans ‘tested’ distilled mustard gas as well as a variety of nerve agents in Panama in the 1950’s (FOR). Even thirty years later, in the 1980’s, there was still popular and persistent use of poison gas and nerve agents by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War, the precursors of which were, ironically, sold to Iraq by various U.S. allies. Furthermore Iraq was supplied with strategic information relevant to the deployment of such weapons by the American Central Intelligence Agency (Dyer).
Later in the same Iraq-Iran War, Saddam Hussein contracted Hassan Al Majid to ‘deal with the Kurds’ and by Decree No. 160 granted Majid unrestricted permissions to do whatever he felt was needed. Majid got straight to work, having Personal Directive No. 28/3650 signed off on. 28/3650 “declar[ed] a zone that contained over a thousand Kurdish villages to be a prohibited area, from which all human and animal life was to be eradicated. [‘]It is totally prohibited for any foodstuffs or persons or machinery to reach the villages that have been banned for security reasons,[‘] the directive stated. [‘]Concerning the harvest, it must be finished before 15 July and, after this year, farming will not be authorised in this region... The armed forces must kill any human being or animal present within these areas[‘]” (Nezan). The Iraqi forces did this via chemical bombing, and did so with arms and funds from the Western countries, with equipment from France and Russia, and with technological upgrades from Germany (Nezan). “In August 1988 the United Nations Sub-Committee on Human Rights voted by 11 votes to 8 not to condemn Iraq for human rights violations” (Nezan). Among the 11 votes to not condemn Iraq for this heinous genocide, were Russia (then the USSR), France, and the United States. France and the U.S. were two of the signatory bodies upon the 1925 Geneva Convention which was put in place as a means of condemning the use of poisonous, asphyxiating or other gases, and of bacteriological methods of warfare. Russia signed the same treaty three years later in 1928 (UNODA). So these three countries are some of the founding fathers of biological and chemical weapon prohibition, and they voted that Iraq should not be condemned for chemical genocide.
Twenty years after the Iraq-Iran Conflict, the U.S. found itself invading Afghanistan. One of the victories was over an Iraqi prison called Abu Ghraib, where Saddam Hussein routinely held public executions and torture sessions with those which he held there, twenty miles west of Baghdad. The Americans captured the prison, reconstructed the entire facility, and began holding prisoners of their own there. In the summer of 2003 a major investigation into the happenings of the American-held Abu Ghraib was under way. Written testimonies, eye-witness testimonies, and a horde of photographic proof, all intimately detailing the torture of Iraqi prisoners being held there: physical, emotional, sexual, and religious torture. The most interesting thing is that the American torturers seemed to not understand that they were in the wrong, they are seen in photographs smiling and giving thumbs-up beside piles of bloodied, naked Iraqis with bags over their heads (Hersh).
So we have now reviewed several conflicts which occurred under the ethical guidelines of both The Hague Convention and Regulations of 1899 and 1907, as well as the (amended) Geneva Convention of 1948, and what we find within this review is outright savagery. As established within two particular agreements, The Hague Convention and The Geneva Convention, both of which America has agreed to by the signing of, we discovered that ‘ethical combat’ is combat in which civilian populations are not a target, asphyxiating gases, and chemical and biological weapons are prohibited, arranging or supporting genocide is prohibited, and hors de combat are to be respected as such. Together we have grazed the surface of American militarism over the past fifty or so years, and within that menial cross-section of history we have come to understand that America, as well as other reputable nations, has committed atrocious acts during times of war, not once or twice but, over and over again. The guidelines of ethical combat are not being followed, nor are they being enforced. Why would a state (or many states for that matter) agree to certain regulations regarding their conduct, and then proceed to blatantly disregard those same regulations? If they had an issue with the ethics of such regulations then they could have not signed, or they could have motioned for an amendment before they did sign. Alas these states read the documents, agreed to their contents, and signed off saying they would conform to that which is outlined within. The obvious answer is that they did believe the regulations were in their best interest, and perhaps even believed that it was possible to follow them. But some rules are difficult to follow, no matter the intent and admitted conformity behind them. For example I may have a personal rule against kicking others’ genitals, I may view it as inhumane, unnecessary, and slightly barbaric to do so. However as Johnny and I are brawling and Johnny suddenly produces a lethal weapon from some concealed spot and bares down upon me with a wide stance: I am going to kick Johnny’s genitals. I am going to kick them as hard as I can, because if I do not then Johnny will kill me. I justify the misconduct to myself by thinking that in this particular case it was okay to abandon that belief and stoop down to such a savage level of play because of the situation I found myself in.
Our current international struggles seem to provide a counter to my argument against the possibility of just war as we are faced with the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). ISIS is a regime committed to radical jihadist beliefs, and they are committing acts of terror against their enemies across the globe. Their enemies are not just soldiers of foreign militaries, and their enemies are not confined to the Middle Eastern countries, their enemies are every/anyone whom is not a radical jihadist; that means you and me and all the children of the world (all those whom are not their own children, presumably). ISIS has stated its intent to kill everyone whom it cannot convert, and their actions grow more aggressive every day, from public beheadings of ‘non-believers’ to coordinated, synchronous terror attacks throughout major international capitals. Surely it is ethical to kill these terrorists? Surely to stand up for ourselves in the face of such atrocities can be considered a just war? Absolutely not, no combat is ever ethical nor war ever just, for it is the nature of combat to be unethical; it is the nature of war to be unjust. When people are stricken with fear they will do unthinkable things, whether they are civilian or soldier, whether they are prisoner or guard, they will have fear for what is to come and they will do anything to escape that fear. One cannot control how one’s reptilian complex will respond to a fight or flight situation, much less to a fight or die situation. We could talk for decades to spell out the exact specifics of ethics in combat, and talk for decades more to whittle those ethics down to a list which everyone agreed to be able to undertake, but when the time comes and the consciousness is given the option between gross misconduct and the possibility of death, the former will always be the case. So I say to those in question of the ethics of a fight against ISIS, no such war is just; even to balance the scale weighed upon its other side by a war most unjust. That does not mean we cannot fight, just that we must realize that what goes on in war, and specifically in the heat of battle, cannot be controlled and so cannot be constrained to ethical and unethical actions. The true atrocity in war is that the civilians whose tax money is funding these torture-prisons and ‘chemical experiments’ continue to agree to pay into a military budget because they are indoctrinated into thinking that their countrymen are over in some savage outland stopping the savagery as a bunch of gentlemen, killing only when needed and respecting the foreign children and women. When our soldiers are out on the battlefield, scared of anything that moves or makes a sound, they will act just as savage, and ruthlessly as the ‘mongrel horde’ which they face, if not more so. Killing is a most brutal sport, and although it seems unavoidable at times such as during the reign of the Nazi regime, and again now as the Islamic Holy War rages, it is necessary that the chain of violence is broken at some point with a brilliant act of supererogation. Violence begets violence as war begets war, and while retaliation against National Socialists, or against Radical Islamites may be morally permissible; any and all ways in which such retaliation unfold are morally impermissible. There are ways to settle disputes which do not involve blood, and such ways truly embody the meaning of civility. Thou shalt not kill, for thou art civilized.
Works Cited
Bremmer, Ian. “These Are the 5 Reasons Why the U.S. Remains the World’s Only Superpower”. Time. Time Inc. 2015. Web. URL = http://time.com/3899972/us-superpower-status-military/
Dyer, Gwynne. “Why Iraq?”. The Mess They Made. McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2007. 41 – 70. Print.
Hersh, Seymour M. “Torture at Abu Ghraib: American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?”. The New Yorker, 10/04/2004. Web. URL = http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib
Kelly, Tom. “U.S. Foreign Policy and Diplomacy”. U.S. Department of State. Bureau of Public Affairs, April 17, 2014. Web. URL = http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/rm/2014/225003.htm
N.a. “TEST TUBE REPUBLIC: Chemical Weapons Tests in Panama and U.S. Responsibility”. Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). N.d. Web. 21/11/2015. URL = http://forusa.org/programs/panama/archives/chem-report/part2.htm
N.a. “Geneva Conventions”. Cornell University Law School. Legal Information Institute, N.d. Web. 16/11/2015. URL = https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/geneva_conventions
N.a. “Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare”. United Nations for Disarmament Affairs. N.d. Web. URL = http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/1925
N.a. “Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 18 October 1907.” International Committee of Red Cross. N.d. Web. 16/11/2015. URL = https://www.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/195
N.a. “Milestones: 1945 – 1952”. U.S. Department of State. Bureau of Public Affairs, N.d. Web. 16/11/2015. URL = https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/korean-war-2
N.a. “American Experience: My Lai”. PBS. Corporation for Public Broadcasting, n.d. Web. 16/11/2015. URL = http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/mylai/
Scott-Clark, Cathy, Adrian Levy. “Spectre Orange”. The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 29/03/2003. Web. 20/11/2015. URL = http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/29/usa.adrianlevy
Williams, Jeremy. “Kill ‘em all: The American Military in Korea”. BBC, 17/02/2011. Web. 16/11/2015. URL = http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/korea_usa_01.shtml
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