X-Message-Number: 18103
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 21:09:19 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Moral Issues of War

>From: "Matthew S. Malek" #18084-5:
>... If the United States were sincere about wishing to end terrorism
>worldwide, the best place for it to begin would be at home, with the
>dismantling of its own terrorists.

It seems to me you are advocating a policy of no military action except 
(maybe) to defend against invasion of the U.S. It has its proponents but I 
don't think it would be the best policy. So (and not denying that the U.S. 
is imperfect and has made at least some major mistakes) where should the 
line be drawn?


> > You should be ashamed of yourself for such a blatant morally
> > relativistic response.
>
>Moral relativism?  Hardly.  I take a very simple view:  Killing civilians
>is wrong.  If the US does it, it is wrong.  If Al Qaeda does it, it is
>wrong.  I don't care which rich religious fundamentalist is behind it,
>Bush or Bin Laden.  It's still wrong.

Yes, it *is* wrong, in the sense of bad, evil. But in some cases it could 
be the lesser evil. Your "very simple view" does not seem to take this 
possibility into account.

>The relativism that I have seen here is more along the lines of, "It's a
>terrible affront to all of humanity when our citizens are killed, but no
>matter who _we_ need to kill in pursuit of our goals, trust us... it is
>sadly necessary."

Clearly this one-sidedness is very bad and wrong; killing is bad 
irrespective of nationalities.

>The war casualties of WWII were about six million over the course of six
>years, with fighting on three fronts (Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and
>the Pacific).  This figure does _not_ include the additional millions
>slaughtered in Nazi death camps.

The figures I've seen are far higher than this. About 15 million battle 
deaths alone; see, for example, the Grolier's artcle at 
http://gi.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_16.html#DATA. Civilian casualties are less 
accurately known, but comparable or maybe higher.


> > Then too, not granting this "foot in the door" to the communist USSR
> > might be viewed as a justifiable policy against this expansionist,
> > totalitarian system.
>
>This statement is _precisely_ why I dislike such intellectualized
>arguments.  It is far too easy to make cruel statements such as these
>without even realizing the inhumanity of the statement.

It is, I agree. One must be careful. But a case might be made that force 
was needed, in one theater or another, directly or indirectly, to combat 
communism. No force, then they take us over--any reason why not? So maybe 
that would have been better, but I doubt it.

>...
>The same logic can be used in other ways.  After all, if one believes that
>the current slaughter in Afghanistan is a good thing (which I do _not_)
>and has saved more lives than it has cost... well, doesn't that make the
>events of September 11th into _good_ things, as the US would not have
>outed its former allies, the Taliban, otherwise?  When applied thusly, the
>cruelty of your logic is quite clear.

To play devil's advocate for a constructive purpose, suppose that, instead 
of the 9/11 attacks, a wily bin Laden had pulled in his horns for awhile, 
worked quietly behind the scenes, then, ten years later, killed millions 
with weapons of mass destruction. Relative to that, the 9/11 affair would 
be good indeed, but that does not make it "good." (And if we don't stop him 
now, what's to keep bin Laden from getting these weapons anyway? Do you see 
how the present war might indeed be the lesser evil?) I think it's worth 
noting that, given the choices one sometimes faces, even the minimum evil 
can be quite bad in absolute terms.


> > A final thought is: granted, the nuclear bombings in 1945 were
> > horrible, frightening events that shocked the world. But if they
> > hadn't happened when they did, would a full-blown nuclear exchange
> > have occurred later, between opponents less conditioned to avoid this
> > particular evil?
>
>Again, we see the dangers of intellectualized arguments.  One cannot ever
>truly answer this question.  Hence, it is meaningless and irrelevant.

My feeling is that we are forced to consider "what if" type arguments (and 
some of these involve past history) to arrive at any reasonable guidelines 
for choices that need to be made today. Wish we always had something better 
to go on, but sometimes we don't, so they do have relevance.

>One _can_ point to hundreds of thousands of dead Japanese and tens of
>thousands of dead Koreans as concrete proof of the evil of using the bomb.
>Any possible "evil" in not using it is hypothetical only.

True enough, but one errs in focusing *only* on the bad consequences that 
actually happened, without considering whether even worse ones might have 
followed if another course had been taken. One is forced to consider the 
hypothetical.

>As far as your comment abut "less conditioned" nuclear powers, I don't see
>any evidence for the existance of such "less conditioned" powers.  Out of
>all the nuclear capable countries, only one has proven itself
>irresponsible enough to actually use such weaponry.

The fact that no other country has used nuclear weapons (nor the U.S. after 
the brief deployment in WWII), itself is evidence of the very conditioning 
I am talking about. The reason the "less conditioned" powers don't exist 
(according to this theory at any rate) is that they have seen how terrible 
nukes can be, something that would not have happened had they not been used.

I should credit Yvan Bozzonetti (#18088) with noting another possibility, 
that a "demo" nuke might have been detonated, sparing lives yet still 
ending the war and showing how bad things could get. This theory has it's 
advocates too (but also detractors). There is also the theory that Japan 
was ready to surrender anyway. I don't mean to minimize the seriousness of 
all this. There are many things one would rather not think about, 
especially when violence and killing are involved. But you are forced into 
such thinking, whether you like it or not, and especially in cryonics, 
where so much is resting on how the future unfolds and how we respond.

A very long life to all,

Mike Perry

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