On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
In today's Wall Street Journal, I criticize the stories coming out of the White House that portray President Obama picking al Qaeda leaders for a kill list. This comes on top of a series of leaks that are damaging our national security -- leaks that seem aimed at building up the President's credentials for reelection. I don't call for it in the piece, but this might be the most appropriate moment for an independent counsel. Thoughts?
The other issue that caught my eye in the stories was the claim that President Obama is a student of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and brings their views to his choice of targets. I found this unbelievable. Most American lawyers, not to mention one who was a community organizer and taught civil rights law, will not have come into contact with these Catholic theologians and their complex arguments on just war. But even if Obama did know about their contributions to just war theory, I cannot imagine that he is applying their thinking correctly. Which raises a second question: how would Catholic just war theory approach the question of drone warfare?
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Dec '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
I dont know about catholic theorists.
I kind of think that predator drones are probably morally superior to razing dresden to the ground via an optical bombsight.
If we are concerned about specific targetting of a single person, as somehow worrisome, as they don't have a weapon in their hand, I get that. But at the same time nobody really seems to question shermans march, or the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, which killed huge amounts of faceless unarmed people.
If building ships and manufacturing guns warrants bombing, shouldnt being a propogandist, or leader. I am fairly sure we bombed a lot of leadership bunkers in our time.
If the concern is that warfare requires risk, I would dispute that as well. Warfare has always been a race to do the most damage with the least amount of risk. Tanks, planes, chainmail, swords, etc, are all about increasing damage and minimizing risk.
If we are worried that its open to abuse, well, hasn't it always? Its why we have a congress, to keep an eye on what the president is doing and reign him in if we is getting out of sorts.
Dec '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
If the japanese version of rosie the riveter is a legitimate target of getting nuked (few people will question that this is so), isn't a guided missile into the home of a terrorist (a person engaged in some flavor of a paramilitary campaign, be it propoganda, supply, intelligence, communication, leadership, or actual armed combat) less troubling?
Edited on June 8, 2012 at 6:44pmSep '10
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
I we had an investigation over the Velerie Plame leak then we definitely need an investigation that sends people to jail for these MUCH more egregious and dangerous leaks.
Nov '10
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Guruforhire: I dont know about catholic theorists.
I kind of think that predator drones are probably morally superior to razing dresden to the ground via an optical bombsight.
If we are concerned about specific targetting of a single person, as somehow worrisome, as they don't have a weapon in their hand, I get that. But at the same time nobody really seems to question shermans march, or the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, which killed huge amounts of faceless unarmed people.
What do you think is so "specific" about a Predator drone? OK: it is more specific than carpet-bombing. But it is precisely the phony notion that a drone is somehow surgically precise, dropping terrorists with a sniper's keen specificity, that Administration shills use to imply that Obama is a warrior with a heart, a warrior with clean hands. Hello? It's a bomb. A Predator hits a geographical location, not a person. There is always collateral damage. Hundreds of people, you may be sure, were killed by US weapons in Libya, for example. How many of those were terrorists, and how many were children? I don't know, and neither does Obama.
Aug '10
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Occam's Razor suggests one answer for both questions: a narcissistic President.
If Obama believes drone warfare and commando raids are fighting "the good war" correctly, then he believes that he started the method and is key to executing it. (This is also why he personally chooses the targets.) Thus the most important consideration is not secrecy or the security of our operatives... it is to keep Obama in office. So the damage from leaks is OK if it keeps him in power another 4 years.
Similarly, as indicated by everything he has said from the 2008 campaign through now, Obama believes that his method of fighting is the moral way. If there can be such a thing as "just war", then according to Obama's thinking he must, by definition, be fighting that way.
It is hardly worth reading some old religious treatise to see what the actual philosophers had to say on the matter. It contains the word "just", and the President can admit... er, do... no wrong in his crusade to change the world. Obama subrogo omnia.
Edited on June 8, 2012 at 7:07pmJan '12
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Two points:
1) Are there no conservatives in our intelligence community? Why does every leak help the Democratic party. Under Bush, the leaks were intended to undercut his policies; under Obama, leaks are intended to burnish his credentials. Maybe conservatives in our intelligence community just don't leak because they have ethics. Feels good to think that.
2) The ONLY reason we have gone with the drone option under Obama is the worst thing he could ever imagine is to capture a terrorist alive. What would he do with him? He has no policy and hasn't thought about it. All he knows is that whatever Bush did was incorrect.
Remember this about what Bush did:
Sep '10
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
In my simple mind, there is a difference between drone strikes and Hiroshima/Nagasaki. In Japan we carried out a death sentence on several hundred K people because we hoped the strikes would end the war and reduce the casualties. And that's what happened. Maybe in some Jesuitical fashion, BO believes he's reducing casualties, but one would be a fool to believe that the drone strikes are going to end the war.
Actually I'd bet there are some retired military who know more about just war than BOnehead. Maybe they'd like to hold forth.
Dec '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
I dont dispute there is a difference, but we have scale here right? We wiped a quarter million people off of the earth to save some unknown number of our own guys.
We use predator drones and put a missile into specific locations to save ourselves from having to risk a small number of guys to due away with other targets.
When did it become morally ambiguitous to bomb bad guys? We are perfectly willing to put huge numbers of unarmed civilians into the legitimately bombable catagory, so I have a hard time with the idea that terrorists involved in command, control, operations or propoganda of a terrorist organization do not make the cut. A legitimate military target is in fact a target.
Jan '12
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Guruforhire
I dont dispute there is a difference, but we have scale here right? We wiped a quarter million people off of the earth to save some unknown number of our own guys.
We wiped out a quarter million people off of the earth to save some unknown number (presumably many more) of BOTH SIDES.
With how much destruction the Japanese would accept without surrendering, the remaining fight would have been very, very bloody. When you consider that after Hiroshima, the Japanese responded with "Is that all you've got?" they weren't going to give in without being decimated beyond all comprehension.
Dec '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
For the purposes of this conversation, I stipulate all of that, and is central to my arguement.
So why is shooting a small missile at a smaller numbers of people, who are actually engaged in some part of paramilitary operations, with low collateral damage, so controversial?
Edited on June 8, 2012 at 9:56pmApr '12
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
With apologies to Frank Drebbin: Scene: Obama getting award for his 1,000th terrorist killed in drone strikes. "The last two were just waiting in line to buy a falafel. Fortunately, they turned out to be terrorists."
Apr '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Using an armed drone for the purposes of attacking an enemy in a time of war strikes me as analogous to the role of the combat Sniper. Both bring calculated death outside the heat of battle. In considering the morality let us consider the requirements for waging a just war:
A just war must be fought as a last resort.
A war is just only if waged by a legitimate authority.
A just war can be fought only to redress a wrong suffered.
A war may be fought if it has a reasonable chance of success.
The violence must be proportional to the injury suffered.
The weapons must discriminate between combatant and non-combatant.
Of these requirements the one that stands out in this case is the last: is the Drone capable of distinguishing between an enemy and a non-combatant. I believe the answer is Yes. Moreover, since the drone operators are overseen by on-site legal counsel, the drone weapon has an extra level of safeguard not usually available to the Sniper in the field.
Therefore a Catholic would have to conclude the use of armed drones as presently employed is just and proper.
Mar '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Estimated Allied casualties for Operation Downfall (consisting of Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet) were something in the vicinity of 1,000,000 killed and wounded, possibly more. The resistance from the Japanese military would have been even more fanatical than it had been up until that time. There would have been enormous civilian casualties as well. Captured Japanese newsreels sent to inspire the Japanese forces overseas had shown teenage girls training with sharpened bamboo poles in order to make banzai charges.
The end result of those invasions would have meant devastation on a level that would have made Hiroshima and Nagasaki insignificant by comparison.
Nov '10
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Snipers select their targets --with their own eyes, putting themselves at risk to get the shot. Terrorists hide in the civilian population, and have no qualms about killing non-combatants. Obama has no qualms about killing anybody in the Predator's blast radius, so long as he can claim he got another terrorist. What does that make him?
Oct '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
The idea of "drone wars" fascinate me, you would think it would be so precise and removed from risk....but to whom? The damage is one sided, but many innocent people are killed, homes are ruined and general environment damaged no matter how exact the targeting is. It is like a fanatasy war but only to those with the drone. Still fascinates me, thanks for the topic.
Jan '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Could be a huge topic to discuss, but I'd like to focus on one question: is this a war?
The rules of war are specifically for war, not just for killing. There's a difference. The moral considerations for killing specific people aren't the same as for war.
In a war, you have identifiable enemy combatants. Declaring a war really means that one country gives its soldiers legal warrant to kill any and all combatants of their enemy. The just war theory was created when an enemy was identifiable. A just war sets a fairly low standard of knowledge: if he's wearing an enemy uniform, he's a target ... so long as you're wearing one also.
You could use drones in a classic war situation, but that's not what's going on here. This isn't so much a war (where the standard of proof is low) as it is a campaign of assassinations.
The difference is that a targeted assassination, while it may still be moral, requires a higher standard of proof.
... continued ...
Jan '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
--continued
When a country authorizes war, they offer reasons for why they must resort to war. We usually skip past that part, because it always sounds like so much blather … but in this case, it turns out to be important. Explaining why you’re killing people isn’t just an afterthought. It’s part of the morality, because morality is still a form of reasoning, and so an explanation is required.
In this current situation, however, we don’t have an easily identifiable enemy. They don’t wear uniforms. So if we authorize killing, we not only have to explain why we’re killing al-Qaeda, we also need to explain why we think these targets are al-Qaeda. Unlike a criminal prosecution, the president doesn’t have to prove that the target committed a specific crime, but he does need to offer evidence for why the target belongs to al-Qaeda. The president needs to prove – to someone other than himself – that he has legitimate reason. He can’t just give himself a warrant to kill.
Maybe that process is secretly in place, but I haven’t heard of it.
Apr '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
KC Mulville:
In this current situation, however, we don’t have an easily identifiable enemy. They don’t wear uniforms. So if we authorize killing, we not only have to explain why we’re killing al-Qaeda, we also need to explain why we think these targets are al-Qaeda. Unlike a criminal prosecution, the president doesn’t have to prove that the target committed a specific crime, but he does need to offer evidence for why the target belongs to al-Qaeda. The president needs to prove – to someone other than himself – that he has legitimate reason. He can’t just give himself a warrant to kill.
Doesn't this raise the issue of the "Hostis Humani Generis" the enemy of mankind - the "Outlaw?" The traditional way of dealing with such a foe - say pirates ot highwaymen - was summary execution. They had placed themselves outside the law and so were not entitled to the protections of the law.
Having, through the gathering of military intelligence, identified an individual as a member of al Qaeda, isn't that sufficient warrant for taking action given that al Qaeda has already declared themselves our sworn enemy?
Edited on June 9, 2012 at 1:26pmNov '10
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
Herkybird
Having, through the gathering of military intelligence, identified an individual as a member of al Qaeda, isn't that sufficient warrant for taking action given that al Qaeda has already declared themselves our sworn enemy? · 1 hour ago
Edited 0 minutes ago
What part of "Predator drones do not target individuals. They are bombs, and kill everyone within the blast radius." do you not understand? If a Republican president were doing this, the MSM would be all over the non-combatant casualties story. The short-sightedness and hypocrisy of so many "conservative" pundits on this issue (and on other issues where they give Obama a pass) is appalling.
Apr '11
Re: On Independent Counsels and Just War Theory
This is a false and sleazy equivalence. Terrorists deliberately target non-combatants as a means to their political ends. "Predator" (actually MQ-9 Reaper) attacks target hostile agents to achieve military ends.
The appropriate standard for minimal force is what is actually available, not "magic-bullet" accuracy. The atomic weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were no more promiscuously destructive than a multi-sortie campaign with high-explosives to achieve the same military ends. They were just faster and exposed fewer US air-crews.
Your focus on blast-radius is rhetoric rather than analysis. You also seem to be conflating blast radius with the effects of multi-munition area bombing. Reaper acquires targets with daylight and infra-red TV, and uses precision munitions, including laser targeting for Hellfire missiles. They really do target individuals. How innocent the by-standers are is another matter.