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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | ^ Binary thinking, David ? Surely you are being ironic.
It was a combat situation. The probable complexity, pressure and uncertainties of the situation, and the contradictory and shifting objectives it involves, are about as far from binary thinking and the trolley car problem as can be imagined. Yet you want an inquiry which is going to come up with a neat clear conclusion about negligence or not. Phew !
But let's play the game. You are a pilot in these circumstances, David, charged with destroying IS and aiding the Iraqi fighters on the ground. The Iraqi forces (probably from the equivalent of about Lieutenant level) - call in an airstrike at a target on the ground, because someone is trying to kill them from what appears to be an IS strongpoint. What are you going to do ? Bail out and conduct your own reconnaissance, then try and find your plane again ? And when they charge you with negligence, do you feel that justice has been done ? It's not a trolley car problem, it's a real world messy situation full of complex issues.
Alternatively, you eschew airstrikes and consider it ok that many more civilians get killed in ISIS's city-prison through a long ground war - it's ok because you do not personally have an involvement in that.
It's not binary thinking to recognise that a decision has to be made, to understand that there are no good options and perfect information, and to admit that therefore horrible things are going to happen in war. |
If one has any serious regard for human life and the gravity of cutting it short – and that of injuring others for life, and leaving widows, orphans and grieving parents behind – then one adopts whatever precautions are required in order to avoid that, even if it means ten ISIS commanders go untargeted. You check and triple check. You abort at the very last moment if you have to. If you're unsure, you pull out. Of course you do.
And if you don't, then it's because you've internalised the (yes, binary) trolley problem logic of killing a few to save a few more. And whether or not you meant it to happen this time or that time, you are deliberately making that choice, because if you are not putting in the due diligence to ensure that there are no civilian casualties, then you have already decided that there will be at one time or other. America's track record in this area seems to suggest that they have well and truly made that choice. |
Firstly, by the time you have checked and triple checked, you've been shot dead by the IS fighters who are holed up there. Secondly, you almost certainly do not have the time, for they will be gone by the time you have checked (if you could check and stay alive).
if you believe that airstrikes cannot be conducted because IS use human shields, then that is a defensible position. I think it is validating their strategy and making their use of human shields more likely and extensive, in the end, and it is certainly making ground operations - with a far higher human toll - more likely. Still, it is defensible, in a trolley-problem kind of way. What is indefensible is to countenance the idea of airstrikes with forensic scrutiny beforehand. A morality that you can't execute is not really a morality at all.
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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This is where, as much as I cringe to write it, drone strikes might be a substantial improvement on old-fashioned bomb dropping. But they, too, have far too many casualties at the moment, so they will need to improve the technology (or execution of it) greatly before they can be considered a safe alternative.
(The fact that we're even discussing more or less ethical ways of killing human beings is a sad reminder of how barbaric war is. We've thankfully reached the stage where we no longer kill murderers and child molesters, but we can't even get to a stage yet where we can guarantee we won't accidentally slaughter Middle-Eastern children, let alone talk about whether it's right to take out hits on ISIS fighters.)
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ I'd say drone strikes are probably worse. The best intelligence you can have in air strikes is ground-level intelligence. In the case of the air strike being discussed above, it appears that this is what they had.
War is unspeakably horrible, a fact that finally began to be understood by the Western civilian after 1914-18. It is better to avoid being involved in it at all, I agree. But it is sometimes the least worst option in a world where evil exists. It might be better to leave the Arab peoples to sort out their internal grievances in the courtly way which is endemic in that part of the world, without taking sides, no matter how barbarous the faction, but in this case I find it hard to sustain that view.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Skids 
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Mugwump wrote: | ^ I'd say drone strikes are probably worse. The best intelligence you can have in air strikes is ground-level intelligence. In the case of the air strike being discussed above, it appears that this is what they had.
War is unspeakably horrible, a fact that finally began to be understood by the Western civilian after 1914-18. It is better to avoid being involved in it at all, I agree. But it is sometimes the least worst option in a world where evil exists. It might be better to leave the Arab peoples to sort out their internal grievances in the courtly way which is endemic in that part of the world, without taking sides, no matter how barbarous the faction, but in this case I find it hard to sustain that view. |
I just find it grimly ironic that the war that started it all (Iraq II) was framed in more or less the exact same way – as the least worst option to save people from evil tyrants, prevent the instability of the area from wreaking havoc in the West, grant democracy to the subjugated, etc. Those claims may be less specious this time around, but it's not exactly an approach that has had much vindication of late.
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | ^ I'd say drone strikes are probably worse. The best intelligence you can have in air strikes is ground-level intelligence. In the case of the air strike being discussed above, it appears that this is what they had.
War is unspeakably horrible, a fact that finally began to be understood by the Western civilian after 1914-18. It is better to avoid being involved in it at all, I agree. But it is sometimes the least worst option in a world where evil exists. It might be better to leave the Arab peoples to sort out their internal grievances in the courtly way which is endemic in that part of the world, without taking sides, no matter how barbarous the faction, but in this case I find it hard to sustain that view. |
I just find it grimly ironic that the war that started it all (Iraq II) was framed in more or less the exact same way – as the least worst option to save people from evil tyrants, prevent the instability of the area from wreaking havoc in the West, grant democracy to the subjugated, etc. Those claims may be less specious this time around, but it's not exactly an approach that has had much vindication of late. |
I have some sympathy with that view too. In general, I think that wars other than in narrowly defined self-defence are nearly impossible to justify. The trouble is, we started one in 2003, and I'm not sure it is ok to start a wildfire and then just walk away when the homeowner asks for your help.
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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Jezza 
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010
Location: Ponsford End
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Jezza
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010
Location: Ponsford End
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Evil evil, just wrong, greedy nutjobs
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| ^^^ Nutjobs, certainly - but why "greedy"? |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| Pies4shaw wrote: | | ^^^ Nutjobs, certainly - but why "greedy"? |
Aren't they doing it to grab land? New locations for their religion? Bigger church plate? Isn't it a snatch for something doneone else has got? Even if they destroy it?
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ Nope, just intimidation I think.
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
mixed with a little ideology. These Isis fruitbats have systematically destroyed religious and historical artefacts all over the middle east. They want their caliphate, so wiping out a few Christian churches fits all the agendas.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Skids
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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Swedish Prime Minister: We'll 'Never Go Back' to Allowing Mass Refugee Immigration
The prime minister of Sweden now says his nation will "never go back" to allowing mass immigration from terrorist nations like Syria, Libya and Iran.The U-turn comes after a Muslim terrorist, who came to the country as a refugee and sought asylum, killed four people in a truck attack. Rakhmat Akilov, a refugee from Uzbekistan, hijacked a truck and deliberately drove into pedestrians on central Stockholm's main shopping street on Friday.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/15272/swedish-prime-minister-well-never-go-back-allowing-joseph-curl
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