A Question of Ethics In War
 

Your country is at war with another nation. The enemy has placed a command and control bunker under a childrens hospital with 1000 children in it. If you do not take out the bunker your nation is going to suffer at least 1000 KIA and Wounded personal (a number which is based upon the ratio of casualities that your forces have been sustaining from similar weapons systems under the control of said bunker). Do you hit the bunker taking out the children as well or do you refrain from hitting the bunker and sustaining the casulaities?

Wasn't there a scenario a couple of years ago in one of the new Russian replics where the rebels took over a school with a couple hundred kids inside threatening to blow up the entire palce if the soviets didn't meet their demands. As I recall the Soviets sent their army in and the end result was a bunch of dead terrorists ( or freedom fighters depending on your POV) and dead children. You're damned if you do and fu**ed if you don't.

No decison is a decision..you have a choich to make regardless of the consequences.

Tragically, once the enemy starts using children as shields, the shields become legal targets as well. There's a kind of "gentlemen's rules" for war that says that you shouldn't kill innocents if possible, but that the enemy is liable for reasonable collateral damage. If you park your tanks in the front yard of the daycare, don't go to the umpire later complaining that your enemy shelled a daycare -- he shelled your tanks, which you placed poorly.

It's a principle that too few people understand, especially in our country.

Dan

You hit the bunker.

Russia handled this well. Morphine gas through the vents, once everybody was out, soldiers walked around calmly & ventilated the skull of each terrorist. How many hostage taking muslims have you heard of in Russia lately?

Very true and the Ruskies are well known for this. The terrorists know that you do not fuch with the Ruskies, or you die, so they moved on and hit other targets.

The sooner that we get this through our thick skulls the better...

Look at a before and after pic of the Abbey at Montecasino.

Is this a weak attempt to say that we must destroy the innocent in Iraq in order to protect Americans?

What would the kill ratio on this proposal Tabs 1000:1?

We have a 500:1 ratio in our favor in Iraq and I think people in the USA have said it's enough already.

No Cdr. Kach22i,
it's a ?.

I for one would like to hear 'what would you do ?.


Rika

No brainer in the context Tabs has laid out - you strike, and strike hard. However, in real life it's never that easy.

Remember trying to take Saddam out based on bad intelligence? How many people in Iraqi restaurants and nearby apartment buildings were killed to get this one man?

Such events are a tragedy of war and are accepted but never applauded.

No brainer in the context Tabs has laid out - you strike, and strike hard. However, in real life it's never that easy.

Remember trying to take Saddam out based on bad intelligence? How many people in Iraqi restaurants and nearby apartment buildings were killed to get this one man?

Such events are a tragedy of war and are accepted but never applauded.

I heartily agree.

The way the question is worded, I say you green light the strike.

In reality, I think you say, "the chances of killing/apprehending the enemy might not come along every day, but they come along more often than the moment of someone's mortal death". As such, you make the decision with the less permanent consequences and hold your fire, hoping to get a shot at the enemy at a point in the future when the consequences (or "collateral damage" to use the military euphemism) aren't so dire. Plus, in the "real world" it's not like if you don't take out the command/control right now there's a guarantee of your folks dying as a result. That can normally be dealt with as a separate scenario.

Since that isn't an option in the hypothetical question (it's an either-or - either their people die or your people die), I say you let their people die. Your ultimate loyalty/responsibility is to YOUR people.

I believe this is an isue that is well settled under international law. The answer is that you can strike in certain situations. The overriding factor is that all reasonable precautions must be taken to minimize civilian casualties.

The question of whether you can strike at all is one of proportionality. If the bunker is Hitler's and it will shorten WWII, you can strike after taking whatever precautions that are possible to minimize civilian deaths. If it is just a run of the mill comand and control structure in downtown Syria and you're in a sporadic battle with the Syrians but not a complete hot war, you probably can't.

The question of proportionality decides whether it is permissible, but at all times you have to do what you can to minimize civilian deather.

No question - drop a daisy cutter on it.

The Russian gas thing was actually not the school takeover, but rather the theatre in Moscow. The really sad part about that one was that a lot of the hostages died from the gas because the military would not tell the hospital what they had used on them, secrecy and all. So the doctors didn't know how to treat the ones that had adverse reactions. IIRC, they did shoot every one of those sleeping terrorists in the head, which I applaud.

The school takeover was a lot dicier and I think a lot of the kids died in that one.

Maybe there are less lehal ways of jamming and cutting all communications from the command center that do not involve dropping a daisy cutter on it...just a thought.

Aurel

Unfortunately, the winner dictates the ethics.

the school hostage thing was is beslan. the russians had a hard decision to make. it didn't pan out that well.

the most important effect was that the georgian/muslim terrorists learned that taking children hostage wasn't going to get them what they wanted.





back in 1979 jimmy carter was contemplating a rescue mission into iran to save the hostages. a couple green berets were in the oval office briefing jimmy and the cabinet. one officer explained that they would come in come in with flash bangs and shoot any revolutionary gaurd types who resisted.

carter's secretary of state , warren christopher, wanted to prevent further bloodshed, and aske if it was possible to "just wound them".

Too bad. IIRC, Ahmadinajead was one of those guards. Would have been a two-fer, had we capped him.

in the circumstances you describe, you take out the target

Funny how the more things I hear about the Carter Administration, the lower my opinion of it becomes, which I would not have thought possible