Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Mrs. Don-o
intentionally killing innocent human beings is not murder?

Not always. No.

What's "innocent"? Is it the civilians that work in a factory making war materiel? Or the people that run the lunch cart out in front of the factory? Or the children in the house near the factory?

Is it the child who unluckily happens to be in the house when we finally track down Bin Laden? Do we not bomb the house if he's not alone?

There are regrettable casualties in war. Nothing about war is clean and antiseptic. It is a dirty, filthy rotten, and sometimes utterly necessary business. It is a great many things, but it certainly isn't murder.

28 posted on 03/11/2008 4:57:19 PM PDT by Ramius (Personally, I give us... one chance in three. More tea?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies ]


To: Ramius
What's "innocent"? Is it the civilians that work in a factory making war materiel? Or the people that run the lunch cart out in front of the factory? Or the children in the house near the factory?

Kind of strange that you pose those questions since only in the first case are the individuals deliberately being killed, regardless of whether they are innocent. The lunch cart people and children would obviously be unintended casualties (i.e. collateral accidents).

30 posted on 03/11/2008 5:01:34 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature, not nurtureā„¢)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies ]

To: Ramius
I think you missed the word "intentionally." I am not saying that collateral deaths are murder. Collateral deaths can be justified if they are not directly intended, and if they are strictly unavoidable in achieving the larger (just and proportionate) military objective.

So to get specific. The weapons factory (or storage facility, or port facility-airport-reshipment center) is a legitimate military target, and the civilians who work they are not strictly non-combatants: they are directly contributing to the military effort. When you hit that target and they are injured or killed, it's not murder.

The people that run the lunch cart, the children in the house near the factory? The child who unluckily happens to be in the house when we finally track down Bin Laden? They are innocent: but you are not intentionally targetting them. Our military, the Israeli military (to mention two militaries who strive to uphold a just warrior ethic) would take steps to try to minimize these deaths if they can; but if they're caught in the crossfire, so to speak, that's collateral and that's not murder.

And as you know, our military would try to medevac them out and save their lives, if they can.

Those unintended injuries and deaths are not the same as murder. These deaths are foreseeable (though not intended) especially when you're fighting an enemy that operates out of residential neighborhoods, blends in with noncombatants and uses civilian shields. Once again, a good military may well end up leaving a trail of collateral damage inthat kind of situation which was NOT intended and which they strained every muscle to minimize.

What's not justified is: (1) deliberately targetting the "innocent," the non-combatants; or (2) deliberately choosing WMDs which cause indiscriminate destruction to "whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants." That is quite different from collateral deaths. That, strictly speaking, constitutes a crime.

41 posted on 03/11/2008 6:09:32 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Justice and judgment are the foundation of His throne.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson