Haditha - Moral Question

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, just replace one guy who killed indiscriminantely and replace with with a foriegn country who does the same.

[Victor Galis]

I mean, originally it was supposed to be about the WMD, now supposedly it's about the democracy, but really that doesn't seem to exist so much either. In the end it won't be about the oil either because the terrorists will blow that infrastructure up.

[Sandman]

Simple answer: no.

Even if the tactic works, it's still not worth it to use it. The simple reason for this is that a military 'victory' is not the same as a political victory.

Can you imagine what would happen if the US started razing villages as punishment? Military victory, political defeat. There'd be global outrage, mayhem at home, spiralling arms budgets, and more/bloodier conflicts in the future.

[Lancer]

That would be bad. I'd have to get my gun and march on Washington, and marching on anything isn't high on my lazy assed 'to do' list.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Victor Galis
If the US were to resort to this sort of tactics, than we REALLY would have been better off leaving Saddam in power.

Have you ever seen pictures of any of the mass graves they discovered in Iraq?



I deplore Bush as our president, but I'm glad we have gotten rid of a blood-thirsty, maniacal dictator.

[Ramo]

Are you saying that the US has resorted to these tactics (namely, a policy of indiscriminate massacres of civilian populations sympathetic to the insurgency)?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Ramo
Are you saying that the US has resorted to these tactics (namely, a policy of indiscriminate massacres of civilian populations sympathetic to the insurgency)?

riiiiiiiight


The mass graves I was referring to are the product of Saddam, genius.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You missed the entire point, MrFun. In fact, it is whooshing over your head higher than the 747s carrying passengers above your house.

If the US killed as many civilians per year, indiscriminately, as Saddam did (or likely more) would the ordinary Iraqi really be any better off?

[Ramo]

The mass graves I was referring to are the product of Saddam, genius.

Basic logic:

Victor says if X then Y.

You said that he claimed Y.

Then you must be claiming X.

Genius.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Ramo

The mass graves I was referring to are the product of Saddam, genius.

Basic logic:

Victor says if X then Y.

You said that he claimed Y.

Then you must be claiming X.

Genius.

But the whole thread has been debating the morality of X. It's kind of assumed that we are talking about the hypothetical strategy Berz suggests in the original post.

[Ramo]

Huh?

[Imran Siddiqui]

What he means is stop using letters .

[Dr Strangelove]

IIRC Nazis terror tactics did not eradicate the numerous resistance movements that sprang up in the various occupied nations, instead the resistance gained momentum and became a major factor in Germany's defeat.

Israel and Palestine don't seem to have terrorized each other into submission.

[Terra Nullius]

Re: Haditha - Moral Question

Originally posted by Berzerker
I'm defining the greater good as the lower body count, the longer the insurgency continues the higher the body count.

These are not moral values, they are physical objectives.

"Lower body count" and "length of insurgency" are simple strategic measures of success. There's no difference between this and, say an engineer trying to minimise MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure). So did you intend to ask a question about morals or not?

Would killing 20-30 people save lives in the long run?
What you're asking here is an operational question, not a moral one.

Is this for the greater good?
This might have been a moral question, but you have manipulated your definition of "good" into a simple repetition of the first question.

So we have two identical questions about physical objectives.

Where is your moral question?

[Berzerker]

Guardian

No, because the outcome of the war matters, not just how soon it ends.

And if the outcome is more death because the US wasn't brutal enough in the short term?

Because that's what ethics and moral codes are all about. There are things that can be fairly done and there are things that can not be done. If you can't judge any action without waiting to see the long term effects of it, then we can't have laws, we can't have judicial systems, we can't have organizations of any kind... we can't have a society.

But the greater good is a moral principle, one that requires the test of time. Didn't you mention Hitler? Knowing what he became, would we really condemn some guy who kicked Hitler's mom in the stomach when she was pregnant preventing his birth? Now, I'm not expecting those with this philosophy of knowing the distant future but we can certainly expect a more delayed judgement by an open mind when it comes to tactics being used in an ongoing war.

I didn't suggest that. You did.

You just posted this:

But what if a mushroom cloud over NYC could actually prevent something even worse some time in the future?

Then wouldn't your "greater good" require a mushroom cloud over NYC ?

I didn't suggest it, you did

Me neither, it seems.
That is, I do believe in a greater good, but my definition of it is a bit more complex than yours.

So your greater good might require more people to die rather than fewer? Yes, I can see why that could get really complex.

Bebro

Saddam also did a lot more then just killing a handful of civilians. It's not that you can kill 10 or 100 people and then the rest just does what you like, you have to execute power in that way constantly all over Iraq in the same way Saddam and his minions did. Are you willing to go down the same path? I somehow doubt that.....And even if the US would start that now, with the level of violence already so high I doubt it would do much to scare insurgents away, at least not the religious types.

Most of Saddam's massacres were in response to rebellions and the war with Iran, so he didn't need to do this constantly, just when rebels acted up.

Imran

It intrigues me that Berz is arguing that the 'greater good' = less deaths. In fact that is the argument advanced by those who propose, for lack of a better word, nanny laws. Ie, banning drugs like cocaine and heroin is for the greater good because less people will die because less people are taking harmful drugs. In other spheres, the argument made by Berz or likeminded individual is that the greater good ISN'T less deaths. In that case it is liberty.

So, it intrigues me that the argument is the greater good is less deaths, even over moral concerns.

You've missed the point, I'm not arguing for the greater good, I'm asking those who believe in the greater good to explain how they can condemn brutality if it saves lives.

Sandman

Even if the tactic works, it's still not worth it to use it. The simple reason for this is that a military 'victory' is not the same as a political victory.

Can you imagine what would happen if the US started razing villages as punishment? Military victory, political defeat. There'd be global outrage, mayhem at home, spiralling arms budgets, and more/bloodier conflicts in the future.

You are still arguing the tactic doesn't work by introducing other variables. So people would get mad at the US, and fewer people would die in Iraq. What does the greater good require?