civilian casualties and ethics

Today it was announced that US casualties in the war in Iraq have reached 2119. That’s an awful lot of people, but it barely merits consideration when put alongside the number of Iraqi civilian deaths (upwards of 150,000 according to some reports). The liberal pundits prefer to focus on the American deaths, thinking, no doubt, that they have to play to America’s xenophobia to rally dissent against the war, but in doing so they fail to expose the main injustice of government aggression—that innocent people are knowingly put to death—and accordingly they spoil a great occasion to challenge people’s blind faith and support of a corrupt system. It goes without saying that the motives for the Iraqi war are beyond dubious, but even if we grant the administration its best rationalization—that we’re fighting this war to help the Iraqi people and to export Democracy and freedom to the world (stop laughing), then does that justify killing 150,000 civilians? (footnote: America represents six percent of world population and consumes almost forty percent of the world’s energy resources. Do you really think that’s an exportable product?)

Think about it. If a person acted in the same way as even the most responsible government, not one in a thousand Americans would approve. If someone blew up an elementary school, for example, in order to eliminate a serial killer who had taken refuge inside, then not even the most callous pragmatist would condone the behavior—even if the serial killer were the most prolific in history (someone worse than Columbus, maybe). And yet that’s exactly what we do every time we declare war. We condone the killing of innocent men, women, and children. No war in history has spared the innocent. We know that. And we also know that every time we declare or support a war we are knowingly making a decision to kill non-combatants. So why do we do it?

Let’s take another scenario. Say I decide to blow up a dam in order to restore an eco-system. I have a noble objective, right? And I take every precaution imaginable to ensure that no human lives are lost. Nevertheless, a group of high school kids decide to go skinny dipping downstream when I set off the explosives at 4 am. How many Americans would approve of my actions? At the same time the mayor of Denver decides to implement a Light Rail transportation system (also good for the environment, right?), but the first week of its inception nine people are killed due to traffic mishaps involving the newly-placed light rail stops. Is anyone calling for the mayor’s head?

I’m not trying to make an argument for non-violence here. Life’s choices are far too complex to be governed by a particular ideology, no matter how well-intentioned the motives that inspired it. But I do hope to show how lenient we are in applying our own standard of ethics to government actions. That’s because ethics are pure hyperbole. They have little to do with right or wrong and everything to do with protecting what is ours or perceived to be ours (i.e. the precise opposite of altruism). Though our own ethical standards condemn our government’s behavior, we continue to honor our political leaders, pledge allegiance to the flag, and celebrate the Fourth of July. We do so, if we do so, because we’re cowards—because dissent and resistance require risk, and risk means potentially losing our status and our egoistic identities, which means potentially becoming something other than, and less than, American.

Civilian deaths during WWII (the good war): 25,000,000.