Did Reece Harding do the right thing?

[David]

Some of you will have heard of this young man's death over in Syria:

http://m.smh.com.au/national/queensland-surfie-reece-harding-dies-fighting-with-kurds-in-syria-20150701-gi2o6d.html

It's hard for me to think of a braver or more ethical thing you could do right now than helping the Kurds in their struggle for survival against ISIS. Yet, according to this government's 'Foreign Fighters' legislation, he committed a crime (and a serious one at that).

What do you think? Morally speaking, did he do the right thing? Explain the reasons for your choice below.

[Culprit]

Great Post David. My thoughts are he did what he believed in as do the other idiots on the other side. Suicide bombers do what they believe is right and that doesn't make it right. Personally I am so disillusioned with what's transpiring on a global scale that the only way I see to get out of this chaos is to remove Religion as a whole and that won't happen.

[Tannin]

Yup, the foreign fighters legislation is a dreadful idea. What would this have done to all the brave men and women who went to Spain in the 1930s trying to defend the elected government against Franco's fascist coup? They would have succeeded too if it hadn't been for Hitler and Mussolini sending in the storm troops and bombing the defenceless cities of that unhappy country.

[David]

[Tannin]

[Doc63]

We could always send the rioting prisoners over there with no smokes - that'd scare the shit out of ISIS.

[think positive]

[Wokko]

[swoop42]

If we had one rule for people like him and another for people who join ISIS then some would bitch and moan about it.

He might be fighting on the side of what most of us would conclude are the good guys in this battle but what if they end up inflicting the same sort of torture and murder on captured ISIS fighters or local sympathisers?

He isn't a member of our armed forces, isn't a trained soldier and doesn't have to abide by the rules of engagement or treatment of prisoners they do.

He's dead now and that should be reason enough why we don't want other individuals with good intentions following this path.

[HAL]

Do you think everyone will agree?

[David]

Certainly agree on the last part – but there's a big difference between "not endorsing or encouraging" and actively criminalising.

The grey areas you mention are one of the reasons I opposed this legislation in the first place. Personally, I'm not entirely sure what we're trying to do by legislating on foreign conflicts.

If you go overseas and commit a crime, like Rolf Harris or Schapelle Corby, you generally get tried and punished in that jurisdiction. If you commit something like war crimes in another country, shouldn't the same principle apply (up to and including extradition where necessary?). It doesn't matter who you fight for; commit a war crime and you get punished for it.

On the flipside, if you haven't committed some kind of war crime, why should you be punished at all? That goes for either side.

[swoop42]

War crime or not you're still potentially committing murder of another and while it can be argued it's in your defence or defence of others if you aren't a member of the armed forces or a I suppose in certain circumstances an approved security detail you don't have the same protections under the law.

Do we want armed vigilantes roaming the streets or police?

I doubt any person deemed to be fighting for the "good guys" will feel the full weight of this particular law but I think you do need some form of law to discourage people going.

[pietillidie]

I would be inclined to say he's foolish and irresponsible, not "immoral". *But* at his age, foolishness and irresponsibility can be forgiven, and are driven by so many still-developing emotions.

Certainly, there is nothing "moral" about getting yourself killed in a very high-risk endeavour about which you likely know very little. Better to devote yourself to a few years of awareness-raising and education than to die doing something like that.

Also, the chances of that sort of behaviour being motivated by what we recognise as "morality" are extremely slim. But, as I say, he was just a kid, so I feel for really sorry for him regardless.

It's a bit like the 3T and thousands of military lives thrown away wrecking Iraq for "moral" reasons; you could almost have spent 3T on anything for a better result. Well, the same applies to those who have thrown their lives away in this arbitrary manner. (And, of course, you can imagine what I think of those who throw other people's lives away like that, including ISIS or the idiots behind the Iraq War, or any ignorant moron who encouraged him to do as much).

Of course, you wouldn't say that at the poor kid's funeral, but let's not valourise high-risk, naive, and emotionally-confused decisions. Think "vulnerable mind who needed help", not morality, for goodness' sake.

[David]

Is it any more foolish or irresponsible than joining the Australian army, though?

That's a serious question. We don't know what he was thinking or what his exact motivations were, but let us at least consider as a hypothetical that he researched the conflict and knew exactly what the Kurds were fighting for (and while no war is black and white, the battle between the Kurds and ISIS is about as close to it as it gets). What makes him fundamentally different to the partisans joining the Russian forces in WW2 or the international brigade fighting against Franco in the Spanish Civil War?

I'm mostly a pacifist, but there comes a time and place when you need to take up arms. At this point in time, it is hard to think of any group that needs to do so (or is more morally justified in doing so) than the Kurds, and they obviously need all the help they can get. Going over there to fight for them carries immense personal risk, but if that risk is understood, then I struggle to see how it constitutes anything other than a brave and heroic act, frankly. Surely no less so than that of the young Australian men on the Kokoda trail.

[pietillidie]

^Well, as you may have heard me argue before, armies are a last resort for defending yourself, and it is horrifically immoral and unethical in my view to use them in any other way. It is also just as horrific to manage them improperly by giving them insufficient equipment and training, or by not doing everything in your power to minimise the psychiatric damage caused by exposure.

It is a very different thing to inject yourself into a remote situation about which you wouldn't know the first damned thing, than to defend yourself as a last resort when attacked on your own doorstep. That difference is known as sanity, not morality.

As I know you agree, morality is not the result of some mystical goodness lobe located somewhere in the brain. Rather, it is a combination of instinctual and deliberative behaviour. Deliberative decisions by their nature are subject to much calculation, thereby excluding reflexive instinct as the definition of "moral" in scenarios like this. In this case, the moral calculation was as follows: How can I best help those folk?

But, as I say, that's academic now for the poor lad. I only wish someone had've sweated a bit more to stop him because he wasn't thinking straight.