# War casualties should be added, not subtracted! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 6, 2006, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613 "2006-09-06T12:02:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613/21 "2006-09-06T16:49:38Z")
[QUOTE=Puzzler] **treis** , I must admit I’m a little bothered by your answer to case (3). Would _you_ really stand there to die? Don’t you think it give a lot of power to immoral people ready to wield these techniques? But let’s make it more, hmmm… difficult. You are the security guard, and for some reason you only have a machine gun. You are guarding a popular shopping mall. The guy shooting at you announced that he intends to kill as many bystanders as possible. He starts with shooting at you, as you’re the only armed person there. Now what? If you choose the option of dying you in fact endanger others that he may (or may not) kill later. But if you shoot, you will surely harm quite a few. (Yes, I realize it’s not the same scenario. So let’s call it case (5)). [/QUOTE] I don’t even accept the premise that a security guard at a shopping mall would have a machine gun, so answering this hypothetical is futile. In Franco Spain members of the _Guarda Civile_ walked around with what looked like Tommy Guns slung barrel down over their shoulders. Quite unsettling. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613/22 "2006-09-06T17:01:26Z")
It isn’t uncommon in Europe to see elite police units (such as Italian Carabinieri or French Gendarmerie) armed with submachine guns. Very disconcerting to an American eye. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2006, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613/23 "2006-09-06T17:54:16Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] It isn’t uncommon in Europe to see elite police units (such as Italian Carabinieri or French Gendarmerie) armed with submachine guns. [/QUOTE] And they are more than capable of shooting at bad guys without killing hundreds of innocents, making the hypotheticals above even more silly. ---
**Author:** ![Puzzler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d07c76/32.png) [@Puzzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Puzzler)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2006, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613/24 "2006-09-07T12:35:45Z")
Firstly, guys, _off course_ the scenarios I described are fantastic, far-fetched, unrealistic and \. I was _trying_ to walk a thin line between discussing specific cases (which are too complicated to analyze in full) and keeping it purely abstract. I guess I failed at that. _sigh_ [QUOTE=Ravenman] Point taken, but let’s not focus excessively on the verbiage I used to describe the views of various terrorists. Terrorist groups routinely describe their “military operations” as some sort of self-defense against the aggression of whatever country they dislike – Al Qaeda has described its attacks as justified under the principle of the Islamic world being entitled to self-defense from Western agression. In short, I don’t think focusing on the definitions of the terms I used actually answers my question at all. [/quote] Fine. Terrorists, by definition, are out to inflict terror. They do it by targeting random civilians. I doubt any but the most naïve would think that terrorism may, say, conquer a land, or have purely military goals (I distinguish here terrorism from guerilla war). IOW, I was referring to casualties (civilian or others) caused in a course of a battle that has military goals, fought against military groups. Not civilians targeted randomly. [QUOTE=Ravenman] Who, exactly, is claiming that? I think you’ve constructed a great big strawman that distorts what people have really said about the numbers of casualties in the recent war. [/QUOTE] Oh, _ **quite a few** _ on the web. Maybe fewer on this board, but let me see if I can find examples from here as well… OK, here’s [one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7597082&postcount=51) > [@Der Trihs](#): > > > [@Sam Stone](#): > > > > In the meantime, Hezbollah is loading its rockets with BB-shot and other shrapnel to maximize civilian casualties. But somehow, that doesn’t get the anti-Israel crowd’s hands wringing about the injustice of war. > > Because so many Lebanese are dying, and so few Israelis. [here’s another](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7629673&postcount=18) [QUOTE=treis] Israel is basically trading 15 Lebanese civilians for every Israeli one. That’s where the immorality lies. [/QUOTE] [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7606722&postcount=108) is not the same, but is in the same “neighborhood”. > [@DMC](#): > > Well that makes it okay then. Israel’s also not done yet. How high does the number have to be before you find it unacceptable? A thousand, ten thousand, 3.8 million? By the way, using the U.S.'s actions in Iraq as some sort of moral compass isn’t going to win most of us over. Hell, we had zero reason to kill those civilians. Okay? [QUOTE=davenportavenger] Whether it does or not, one person’s life is not worth as much as that of a hundred people. Even if that life is your own. [/QUOTE] Under _any_ circumstances? [QUOTE=tomndebb] **Puzzler** , I’m curious. Based on your premise (with your modifications), would it have been appropriate for the U.S. to nuke all of Southeast Afghanistan in the interest of effectively taking out all of the al Qaida command officers in early October 2001, before our attack had forced them into hiding? [/QUOTE] Off course not. Not unless they has firm intel saying AQ is planning a nuclear assault on the USA from one of those caves :dubious: . But I do hold the states had a moral right to carpet bomb the area, if they had good reason to believe this would annihilate AQ’s command officers, even if in the process quite a few innocent bystanders would be hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2006, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613/25 "2006-09-07T19:31:23Z")
Body counts mean little, other than which side is better at killing. The statistic tells you nothing about the moral justification or lack thereof for the conflict. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613/26 "2006-09-07T20:09:05Z")
> [@Puzzler](#): > > Now, I claim that the casualties from the two sides of war should not be subtracted from each other. If country A had X casualties and country B had Y casualties, and X\>Y, it doesn’t follow that country A is more right or moral [than] country B. This is quite true, depending on the nature and circumstances of the casualties. If country B kills more of country A’s soldiers than vice versa, well, that’s how you win wars, innit? On the other hand, if country A is killing soldiers in battle while country B is carpet-bombing orphanages and hospitals—well, that’s not supposed to be how you win wars. > [@Puzzler](#): > > On the contrary, I claim that the war casualties from both sides should be added, and the moral fault of all casualties is the aggressor’s. So, in the “example” above, if country A initiated the hostilities, they bear the fault for the X+Y casualties of war. This, I think, is horrifically counterproductive. It would give the “aggressed” side a strong incentive to respond to any initial attack as bloodily and catastrophically as possible, irrespective of humanity or justice, because all the blame would fall on the aggressors. “Hey, they attacked us first and killed a few of our soldiers, so the more of their cities we destroy in return, the more it’s their fault, because they were the aggressors! Yippeee! Nuke 'em, boys!” Baaaaaad idea. We want rules of war that give the participants incentives to **stop** killing as soon as possible when their minimum strategic goals have been achieved, not incentives to kill unnecessarily. > [@Puzzler](#): > > BTW, just to make perfectly clear: I do not claim that every reaction from the side of the aggressed is justified. Then I think you’re going to have to give up this “adding up casualties and blaming them all on the aggressor” approach. Because it offers the “aggressed” side an extra motive to inflict as much damage as possible, which IMHO is not something wars need more of. ---
**Author:** ![Puzzler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d07c76/32.png) [@Puzzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Puzzler)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613/27 "2006-09-08T21:36:28Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] This is quite true, depending on the nature and circumstances of the casualties. If country B kills more of country A’s soldiers than vice versa, well, that’s how you win wars, innit? On the other hand, if country A is killing soldiers in battle while country B is carpet-bombing orphanages and hospitals—well, that’s not supposed to be how you win wars. [/quote] I think that much is clear. I was talking about casualties (even civilians) who are caused during “normal” war, conducted under the “normal rules of war”, i.e., while trying to hurt the other fighting force. [QUOTE=Kimstu] This, I think, is horrifically counterproductive. It would give the “aggressed” side a strong incentive to respond to any initial attack as bloodily and catastrophically as possible, irrespective of humanity or justice, because all the blame would fall on the aggressors. “Hey, they attacked us first and killed a few of our soldiers, so the more of their cities we destroy in return, the more it’s their fault, because they were the aggressors! Yippeee! Nuke 'em, boys!” Baaaaaad idea. We want rules of war that give the participants incentives to **stop** killing as soon as possible when their minimum strategic goals have been achieved, not incentives to kill unnecessarily. Then I think you’re going to have to give up this “adding up casualties and blaming them all on the aggressor” approach. Because it offers the “aggressed” side an extra motive to inflict as much damage as possible, which IMHO is not something wars need more of. [/QUOTE] I have said before that I don’t think the aggressed should have a cart blanch to kill as many of the other side as they see fit. However, as the war is the fault of the aggressor, unless something extraordinary had happened (like nuking their cities, or carpet bombing orphanages,) the moral responsibly is the aggressor as well. Having said that, I must admit there’s an ugly little Puzzler that’s lurking at some dark corner of my mind, saying “allow the aggressed an (almost) free hand. Maybe it will give an prospective aggressor incentive to stop the war and the killings **before** they even start." Anyway, at least based on what I read in this thread, it seems that the majority here does not feel that “body count” = “morality index”. Which I’m glad to hear, as that POV seemed to me rather popular on the web during the recent war. As far as I’m conserved, this thread has finished it’s job. BTW, am I the only one who thinks the term “rules of war” is something of a paradox? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-casualties-should-be-added-not-subtracted/371613.md?page=1)