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January 22, 2005

When Simple Isn't Quite So Simple

Jim Henley highlights a horrific picture from Iraq showing a child covered in her parents' blood shortly after American soldiers killed her parents when they refused to stop their vehicle when told to do so. Jim is upset, and understandably so, and he explains: "You do not put your countrymen in a position to cause this unless you have no other fucking choice whatsoever." It's an understandable reaction to a terrible situation; if you can look at the photo without flinching, I have to question your humanity. Jim's position seems pleasantly simple: unless you have no other choice, don't go to war. However, Jim's argument that this is all simple isn't quite as clean as that.

How many wars has our country fought in which we had no other choice whatsoever? I'd say three or four: the Revolution, the War of 1812, maybe the Civil War, and World War II. We could have ended the Revolution at any time, but at the cost of losing a war for our national existence, so it seems fair to say we had to fight that one. The War of 1812 saw British troops burn the White House, so we probably had no way out of it. The Civil War we could have ended by not fighting, but that would have meant the end of America as we knew it, so we'll call that a war we had no choice but to fight. In World War II, we had no political choice in fighting Japan after they attacked Pearl Harbor, although they never threatened the American homeland so we certainly could have negotiated a peace satisfactory to the Japanese without threatening our existence. As for Germany and Italy, that was absolutely a war of choice: yes, Germany declared war on the United States following Pearl Harbor, but there was precisely zero chance of Germany invading North America. So World War II was at least half a war of choice.

Of our other major wars, the Mexican War and the Spanish-American War were clearly wars of choice (and of conquest), while Korea and Vietnam were wars of choice but were also viewed as both defense of allies and checks on the expansion of Communism. We could have ducked World War I, in which case Germany likely would have forced a peace on its terms and the 20th Century would have looked very different. Using Jim's simple rule, we would have avoided all of these wars. Would we have been right to do so? For all the protests about America in South Korea today, the older folk are well aware of how different their lives would have been had America not come to their defense in 1950. Had we not given up the ghost in Vietnam, the people of South Vietnam likely would feel the same way. As for World War I, it's difficult for me to imagine the world somehow having turned out better with a German victory. While that might have avoided the rise of Hitler, France and Britain would not have been decisively defeated and there would have been another war on the continent between France and Germany.

And what about World War II? We certainly had a choice not to fight Germany, yet not only did we do so, we made defeating Germany our priority over defeating Japan, the country that had brought us into the war. Were we wrong to do so? Was fighting Germany a bad choice for the United States? I don't believe so, and I don't know that Jim would either. Sometimes going to war now when you have a choice is better than waiting until you really do have no choice.

This is not to say that we were necessarily correct to go to war in Iraq. While I continue to believe that was our best option at that point, I certainly cannot prove that to be so, and I have come closer to Jim's position as the war has gone on (although not for the reasons many might assume). But this accident, however horrible, does not prove the wrongness of the war. We knew (or should have known) before we began the war that innocents would die and that bad things would happen even under the best of circumstances. The fact that they have is irrelevant to the rightness of the war. If we were right to go to war in Iraq, then this tragedy is just that, but no indictment of the war itself. If we were wrong to go to war in Iraq, then this doesn't make it any more wrong (albeit, more horrible).

War is a horrible, horrible thing. Robert E. Lee, watching his men win a massive victory at Fredericksburg in late 1862 observed "It is well that war is so terrible, lest we should grow too fond of it." Wellington famously observed that "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won." And few are familiar with the full text of General William Sherman's thoughts on war: "I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have never fired a shot in anger nor heard the screams of the wounded who cry aloud for more blood, more desolation. War is Hell." We are learning these old lessons anew in Iraq, and if we did not consider them when weighing war in Iraq, we certainly must before expanding this war to Iran or Syria. But, as nice as it might be to have a simple test on which to rely, simply deciding that we won't fight unless we have no other choice isn't a viable option.

Again, I am not saying that Jim is necessarily wrong in his argument that the war is wrong. Only that his assertion that it's simple is inaccurate. To bastardize a last quote, this from the original Battlestar Galactica: the opposite of war isn't always peace. Sometimes it's slavery.

Update: Radney Balko points out some of the problems that this will breed.

Posted at January 22, 2005 08:40 PM

Andrew Olmsted

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Comments

From what I know of the War of 1812, we started it. In my opinion we also lost it, but that can be debated. We were in the midst of signing an armistice when Jackson won at New Orleans. I could misinterpret it though.

I guess my point is that that one probably could have been avoided with a little better leadership.

I don't know that I agree with your view of whether or not there was a choice for the other wars. That is for another time though.

I was opposed to going into Iraq because I thought we should destroy al Qaeda first. I also see the Saudis as a bigger threat than Saddam, but that could just be me. I said before we attacked that we would end up with more terrorists than we had before and it appears Iraq is a big training exercise for al Qaeda. They get to send people to train without endangering their core leaders.

Sure, many will die, but the ones who come out will be battle tested and knowledgeable of our tactics and weaknesses. A lot could have been prevented with more intelligent planning and a little less arrogance, but it was severely lacking.

The debate isn't any longer whether or not we should have went into Iraq because that was made long before the debate began. What could Saddam have done to stop it? If there were no weapons, he had no way to prove to us they weren't there. We would say they were hidden.

The choice we had in Iraq was how to fight. We did a good job destroying a 3rd tier military, but that should never have been the goal. Like non-championship teams, when we had the chance to "put it away," we missed it because we didn't understand.

We had the choice to complete the task in Iraq, but didn't do it. Instead we made the choice to celebrate early in the 1st quarter and let the opponent regroup. They will never win, but the way we have been doing it neither will we.

Posted by: Scott at January 23, 2005 12:28 PM

"We knew (or should have known) before we began the war that innocents would die and that bad things would happen even under the best of circumstances. The fact that they have is irrelevant to the rightness of the war."

I would phrase this differently. As you say, it should be assumed at the outset that any war will result in the death and suffering of innocents. Therefore, a war is only justifiable if the alternative is worse than the death and suffering of those innocents. That's how I would interpret Jim's "...unless you have no other fucking choice whatsoever."

The problem I have with your phrasing is that I've heard it used to dismiss the death and suffering of innocents as irrelevant to the morality of starting a war. You have to judge the ethics of an action by all the predictable consequences of that action, including the consequences that you didn't want. It doesn't make moral sense to say "people always suffer & die in war, therefore we'll dismiss that consequence from our calculations, and only judge the war on the value of our intended goals in starting it." I'd support all sorts of crazy actions (including war) if I didn't have to factor the inevitable negative consequences along with the positive results.

To clarify - I doubt you really meant that the human cost of war is completely irrelevant to the morality of starting one. I expect (hope) that when you said "If we were right to go to war in Iraq...", your assessment of "right" included the calculation of that cost. Nevertheless, I've heard phrasing similar to yours used to dismiss the importance of recognizing the cost to the innocent.

Posted by: tonydismukes at January 24, 2005 03:52 PM

Andrew,

The War of 1812 was easily the most avoidable confrontation in US history and frankly an excruciatingly stupid decision driven by partisan politics. We had absolutely as much justification for going to war with Napoleon's France. The strongest reasons for going to war with the UK were to spite the Yankee traders and to engage in piracy against the East India Company.

We were utterly unprepared and unequipped to fight that war...and we deliberately started it. The British were also excruciatingly stupid for burning Washington, but they only did so after establishing beyond any reasonable doubt that the US had no capacity to stop their light raiding force from burning the capital. It took two years for them to get around to destroying amicable relations for the next century, but they were aided and abetted by moronic and juvenile US politicians. The worst thing is that if the US could have held off declaring war for another two to three months, there would have existed no justification to go to war. The British had already conceded to our demands before we declared war. The War of 1812 was the most avoidable war we ever fought, and not coincidentally one of the key reasons why we didn't fight another one for more than thirty years.

While I believe that there are good reasons for going to war, the War of 1812 was the worst folly in US political history.

Posted by: Patrick S Lasswell at January 25, 2005 03:31 AM

While I agree with Patrick I think that it is core value to learn from our mistakes so is in our nature to do so but we must focus on whats happening now in Iraq . I think its foolary to
fight Iraq the only reason Bush did this is becase he is a fool in our nature it is natural to care aboutothers its like tony dismukes said the only reason war exists is because of positive income from war america thinks that from
having war it will gain control over land like
in the spanish american war from wich the USA
gained much land in the phillipines including
Puerto Rico a massive sugar cane producing island
and once it got Puerto Rico American stock
prices went up wich in the end could only mean
more money for the goverment and again like patrick said many wars fought in american history
could have been avoided i think this war was also avoided . another factor in this war was when 911 happened (god bless thier souls) america was quick to point the finger at iraq

its human instinct to have war but we have the decision to go or not but lets face it there
hasnt been a real fight for freedom since the
civil war

"Give me liberty or give me DEATH"-Patrick Henry
a great american.

and what you just read was the opinion of a twelve year old.My opinion

Posted by: Charles H Crawford at March 15, 2005 01:37 PM

the war of 1812 was resulted wtih no winner, but with a loss of life. reasons for this war could of been solved within a short period of time. with no winner the war just destroyed land and lowered the population.

Posted by: alan at May 31, 2005 05:31 PM