----- Original Message ----- From: "Gautam Mukunda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 1:27 PM Subject: Re: Winning the War on Terror
> --- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > So, the war met that criterion. Further, it is > > clear to me that the number > > dying every year is less than it was before...far > > less. The US does have > > some moral responsibility for the civilians killed > > by the insurgents, but > > not the same type of moral responsibility that the > > actual killers have. It > > has the same level and type of moral responsibility > > as it had for not > > stopping Hussein's killing before. Thus, the US > > made a difficult choice > > that benefited Iraq. > > Dan M. > > In general I agree with most of this, but I wanted to > question this statement. The US is clearly trying > quite hard to stop the insurgents from killing any > civilians. It may not be doing as good a job as it > could (people can disagree on that), but it seems to > me that our moral responsibility is considerably > decreased by that fact. It is. It would be far worse if we ignored the problem. Lets see if I can state this correctly. If we weight whether intervention in Iraq is in the best interest of the people of Iraq we absolutely must weigh the probability that a number of them will be killed by those opposed to our intervention. Generally, I would put the moral responsibility for each death we could have prevented by intervening at a level comparable to each death that others would cause fighting our intervention. For example, if we were to intervene in a country who's leaders were murdering 1000 per year, and we botched things so bad that it ended up with 30,000 per year dying, then we have a lot of culpability for messing things up. >We still bear some - some > innocent people in Iraq who are now dead would still > be alive were it not for our actions. We should never > pretend otherwise. But, equally, _many_ innocent > people in Iraq who are now alive would be dead were it > not for our actions, and it seems to me that bears > into the moral weight we bear for the innocent deaths > as well. I have no argument with that statement. If we could stop slaughter without risking deaths of innocents caused by those opposing our intervention, then there would be a strong moral imperative to try that first. But, I am not arguing that was a realistic option in Iraq. Our options were to intervene, and risk the deaths we did, or not intervene, and know that there was a very high probability that the normal slaughter would continue. So, one of the advantages that I concede to your position of supporting the war is that, over the medium term, things are clearly better for the people in Iraq today than they were 15 months ago. I'd agree that over the long term, the prospects for a decent life vs. torture and or death for an average citizen of Iraq are better now than they would have been if we just let the status quo run on. Thus, that particular moral responsibility is less for us than it would be for not intervening. But, we still need to consider it. One of the ways that evil is sold is with the argument that it benefits the people in the long run. We still need to accept responsibility for the negative consequences of our decisions. I hope you see that I have tried to accept the consequences of my viewpoints on the war in Iraq. I don't think there was a choice to make that didn't have horrid negative consequences for the lives of some people we don't know. I don't think that we had an easy, harmless, obvious choice. Having said that, I still think it is more moral to be an active player than to withdraw from the world and pretend you don't have any ability to do anything. There are numerous Christian quotes on this, from the parable of the talents, to Teresa of Avalon who said "when I withdrew from the world I sinned less, but in the world, I can do more charity," to Luther who stated "if you must sin, sin boldly." I don't really think I'm arguing with you here, Gautam. I think I have heard you argue for similar things. I may very well not be expressing this clearly, but I hope this is at least a bit more clear than the original. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
