The "Evil of War"

Plumb Bob posted a thoughtful response to my criticism that his focus on Obama's (alleged) pedestrian moral flaws, while ignoring Vice President Cheney's declaration that he authorized the torture U.S. detainees, evidenced a clear ideological distortion of his moral judgment. Plumb Bob's post is short, worth reading, and is a prerequisite to understanding my reply below.

Plumb Bob,

There are many things in your post that I wanted to respond to, but I will limit myself to the most important issues.

First, in saying that you were “straining at a gnat, while swallowing a camel,” I was not accusing you of moral turpitude. I was arguing that your ideological commitments had commandeered your faculties of moral evaluation. You considered Obama’s (alleged) reflexive distancing of himself from politically embarrassing associations worthy of discussion. But you did not find Vice President Cheney’s public declaration that he supported the authorization of torture equally worthy of discussion. That astonished me. Even if Cheney’s actions ultimately prove defensible, your failure to recognize the greater importance of Cheney’s admission demonstrated that your ideological commitments are clouding your moral judgment.

Torture is obviously more important than a willingness to abandon one's friends when politically expedient. That you initially missed this should give you pause.

Second, and far more important, you fail to understand that the term “evil” is equivocal. We sometimes use that term to describe the tragic character of reality and the choices it forces upon us. War is sometimes necessary and justifiable to protect a nation’s security or vital interests. Acts of war require extreme and deadly violence. Such acts are tragic and terribly unfortunate, but may nonetheless be morally justified, provided that they do not exceed certain limitations, and assuming that the perpetrators are morally justified in fighting the war in the first place. Ordinary acts of war are “evil” in the limited sense that they are tragic, terribly unfortunate, and to be avoided if at all possible.

However, we also use the term “evil” to describe behavior that is morally impermissible to a degree reaching depravity. Ordinary acts of war, while evil in the “tragic and regrettable” sense, are not evil in the stronger “morally depraved” sense. Violence perpetuated against active combatants during combat operations is, within certain limits, morally permissible. It is “evil” only in the sense that it is extremely regrettable and tragic. To the contrary, violence perpetuated against unarmed non-combatants, or against combatants who have been rendered helpless by capture, is evil in the latter sense.

Your view seems to be that because the violence of war is always evil, we can draw no moral distinctions between the various kinds of violence that a soldier (or a leader) might commit (or authorize) in defense of a nation. But all civilized nations rejected that premise long ago and codified specific moral limitations into the laws of war. Civilized nations have long recognized that certain types of violence are so morally depraved that they must be universally condemned and punished as a matter of law, despite the fact that such measures might prove useful to a nation’s war effort.

You argue that:

“War is a horrible thing; but wars are fought among men, and not only should we honor the men who have to fight them, we should honor the leaders who surrender their clear consciences to make the hard decisions during those wars. Attempting to make criminals of them perverts justice, and endangers us all.”

War is indeed a terrible, tragic, and necessarily violent activity, and hence an “evil.” But there are limits to what is permissible, even in war. That means that there are certain “hard decisions” that cannot be allowed because they cross the line into depravity and barbarism. The torture of captured combatants has long been recognized as morally depraved, and has thus been criminalized as a matter of U.S. and international law for decades.

Individuals (or leaders) who torture (or authorize the torture of) captured combatants make themselves criminals by violating these prohibitions. We recently reaffirmed our commitment to this principle when we prosecuted and imprisoned the soldiers responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. At the time, when the abuses could be pinned on low level "bad apples," no one argued that torture was an acceptable tactic of war. President Bush instead condemned the soldiers' conduct and promised swift punishment. The argument you're making now is of a more recent vintage - its an argument tailored to a fuller understanding of what truly went on and who authorized the abuse. Unfortunately, its no more persuasive that it would have been had it been offered in defense of Lindy England's behavior.

No one needs to criminalize Vice President Cheney’s decision to authorize torture. Our democratically elected leaders criminalized torture a long time ago. Vice President Cheney made himself a criminal by violating our laws against authorizing torture.

Joe H.