Killing Hitler's Wife and Children

Great Debates
41

But then doesn’t that completely tie our hands? How do we (the collective we) conduct an effective defense? Germany was waging war on Europe, to stop that means blowing up their factories, and to blow up their factories means civilians must die. If next week the Iranians wanted to invade the US, could they do so but putting a handful of children on each landing craft? At what point to the civilians become complicit? Is there ever a greater good?

Reminds me of that scene from Clerks: In the first Star Wars they destroy a fully functioning Death Star full of Imperial soldiers. But in the third Star Wars they blow up a partially constructed Death Star. But there is no way you could have a construction job that big without hiring outside contractors. These guys had nothing to do with the war, they just needed work. So all the Rebels did was kill a bunch of civilians.

42

War is almost, but not quite, never ok. Having said that, you don’t have to kill civilians to fight a war.

43

There isn’t any going on in this thread.
Or can you cite anybody here saying that, in a war, our soldiers/leaders/military targets should not legally be hit by military strikes?

No.
First, people have stated that they accept that while collateral damage may be bad/horrible/whatever, that as part of a strike on a legitimate military target then it’s acceptable. I’ve pointed out, at least that international law backs that view.
On the other hand, targeting civilians has not been advocated or ok’d by any but one poster who has, pretty much rightly, had his post ignored. It should also be noted that specifically targeting civilians is also specifically against the international laws of war. Just like targeting military targets even if it leads to civilian casualties is specifically authorized by them.

Now, you’re essentially claiming that all war is to be outlawed. Okay… but what then is our option if military force is justified? Do you have a coherent alternative, or is it simply a demand that those who are immoral/whatever can launch whatever attacks they want, and in response other nations can tisk very disapprovingly?

Edit: but now your point seems a bit confused, as you seem to be arguing in another post that some degree of collateral damage is to be allowed. Can you flesh out your position more thoroughly?

WRT Stone’s quote, I’d wager the word is strawman if you’re attempting to equate attacking military targets due to their support of terrorists who attack America with terrorism.

It should also be pointed out that even in the bit you quoted that probably would’ve been left ignored, the goal was not to influence via fear, but total eradication. Of course, genocide is worse than terrorism, and I’m not sure what point you were aiming at in any case.

If Stevie McKillface went on a rampage in a diner and then retreated to his home and barricaded himself in and opened fire on the police when they tried to arrest him, then yeah, I’d say if anybody in the home was harmed when SWAT went in that the moral responsibility would lie 100% on Mr. McKillface.

44

Just to prove the point here, please cite, say, a dozen wars in which valid military targets situated in/near civilian areas were routinely hit with zero collateral damage.
How about six wars.
How about two.

One?

45

Refraining from killing civilians is always the greater good.

Wars should only be fought on battlefields by soldiers. Even then, it’s rarely truly necessary. Aside from, arguably, WWII, the US has never fought a single war that was really necessary for its own defense, therefore, no collateral damage was justifiable. Even in WWII it wasn’t justifiable. The US attacks on civilian pppulations in Japan made Osama bin Laden look like Gandhi.

Randall was right. The Rebels were nothing but terrorist insurgents.

46

I don’t know, and don’t care. I deny that any of them were justified, so what difference does it make how many there were?

47

Red herring. The hypocrisy is that you think your civilians are more sacred than their civilians. If it’s ok for you to kill civilians, then it’s ok for them to do it.

Would you be willing to kill your own child to get Mr. McKillface?

48

Not a bit, I am thoroughly confused. I can’t seem to wrap my head around the thought that "we killed his wife because he killed someone’s wife. We killed that terrorist’s family because he killed someone’s family.

The logic seems to fail. They are a terrorist because they targeted civilians, but to kill them, we have to kill civilians. It almost seems that if we did nothing fewer civilians would die.

49

So, none.
And you’ve made a claim that you not only cannot possibly back up, but that you neither know, nor care if it’s accurate or not. And what’s more, you evidently never knew if it was accurate or not but decided to say it anyways because it sounded good.

50

You pretty much do have to kill civilians to fight a war. Even if you don’t set out intending to kill civilians, civilians will die.

51

At the end of the day, a life lost is a life lost.

Or said another way, a terrorist could use a road side bomb to kill a family of five driving in their minivan.

Or a drunk driver could swerve across the yellow line, and kill a family of five driving in their minivan.

Or a military strike could kill a terrorist and his family of five driving in their minivan.

We have such visceral emotions to each of those scenarios, but in the end, a family of 5 died.

52

How about this. Let’s set aside the issue of killing children and change it to rape. Would you be willing to rape a baby to save a thousand lives? If you really want to me to contrive a scenario, I can do it, but just taking it at face value, isn’t it less bad to rape a baby than to kill one? If you’re willing to kill that baby, then you should have no problem with raping it.

Does that sound too out there? Well how about this. You can save 10,000 soldiers, and all you have to do is pour gasoline on a four year old and set him on fire. That’s not out there at all. That’s what inceniary weapons do, they set little kids on fire. If you’re willing to do it from long range, you should have no problem doing it by hand.

the problem is that people don’t really, truly think through the horror of what they say they’re willing to do whn it’s a long distance hypothetical. Except it isn’t long distnace or hypothetical for the families you’re willing to hurt.

53

But how do you go into a war knowing that? Wouldn’t surrender be a more humane option?

54

You are ignoring the actual, legal, distinction.

If police capture McKillface and then go back into his house and shoot his wife in the head, then she’s been targeted. If in the process of capturing him she gets killed, she’s not the target, he is. In the first case, they’re 100% responsible and engaging in criminal activities for which they should be prosecuted. In the second, McKillface is to blame and as long as the police’s actions were tactically sound, there’d be no real problem.

Same with any Taliban (or other) terrorist. Use a basic thought experiment. Let’s say that Osama was hiding in some family’s home. Would we, then, never ever try to get him since he was safe and we couldn’t yell Olly Olly Oxen Free? Or would we try to kill/capture him? Would he be the target, or would the family he was with? If, instead, he moved into the middle of the arctic tundra into a little hut, would we bother the family, or would we only concentrate on Osama?

That shows us who the target is and what’s actually happening, rather than fairly silly comparisons of “we’re killing his family because he killed other people’s families”.

And again, if you are against collateral damage (something that’s not totally clear yet), then are you against it in all cases? If so, then what method would you advocate for just wars to be prosecuted? Or as you pointed out, can anybody wage a 100% successful invasion by simply having a few kids along on each landing craft?

55

It’s perfectly accurate. You’re trying to argue a fallacious point. Just because something HAS happened doesn’t mean it HAD to. Name a war you can prove that a.) was necessary for the immdeiate self-defense of a given state and b). that could not have been won without killing civilians.

56

Yes, but my civilians are more sacred than their civilians. The protection priority chart goes:

  1. Friendly civilians
  2. Friendly soldiers
  3. Enemy civilians
  4. Enemy soldiers

The enemy, of course, believes the same thing, and is likely going to be valuing the lives of their soldiers over our civilians.

57

I should’ve known that this argument would crop up sooner or later.

By this logic, a murderer is totally morally neutral, since we all would die of old age anyways. A drunk driver is the same as a guy who has a blowout and swerves over the yellow line. A doctor who loses a patient on the operating table due to complications is the same as someone who tortured and kills their victim slowly.

This sort of thinking removes any and all actual moral calculus. Terrorism is no more wrong than hitting a valid military target is no more wrong than dying on the operating table is no more wrong than living to a ripe old age and having a heart attack during a really great orgasm.

58

So does it all come down to Mens rea?

Start then, we with the premise that the murder is NOT morally neutral, he is bad, he his morally negative. How then, do we kill him while remaining morally positive?

We went into Afghanistan because of the attacks on 9/11, in which approximately 3000 civilians were slaughtered. But then what happens after we’re responsible for 3000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan?

I remember during the last Israeli war against Gaza, trying to explain why it was okay for Israel to kill civilians while targeting militants, but not okay for militants to kill civilians while targeting civilians.

The answer always came back, “it’s not okay to target civilians.”

So would it have been okay if the militants were targeting something else and then just missing really bad?

Sad another, and more inflammatory way, what if bin Laden said, “oops, I was trying to hit a military base, my bad.”

59

If your primary goal is protecting your opponent’s civilians, then yes, surrender would be the preferable option. But then if you surrender, that will have consequences too.

How do you go into a war knowing that? You do it because you’ve made up your mind that the deaths of the people who are going to die in the war, both on the side of the enemy and your own, the maimings, the woundings, the destruction, are less important than your goals in the war, and that the consequences of not going to war are more severe than the consequences of war. War has rightly been called “the calculus of death”, and that’s what it is. It’s terrible, it’s cruel, it’s merciless. You can try to make it as humane as possible, you can say that civilians shouldn’t be targeted, that prisoners and those who surrender should be well treated, that property shouldn’t be destroyed, but in the end, in war, men die.

60

All innocence is equal.