Second Version. Are atrocities an integral part of war?
by
thermomax (student)
7229774 War and the Politics of Ethics POLI 30822
Are atrocities an integral part of war?
Introduction
This paper’s main argument is that war creates conditions that significantly increase the likelihood of atrocities occurring, but atrocities are neither integral nor limited to war. In order to understand this conclusion it is necessary to analyse what is meant by atrocity and how intention affects whether or not certain harms are atrocities. Therefore this paper first looks at what atrocities should be defined as and their relationship with war. Followed by an analysis of what justifications for war there are to compare to the likely occurrence of atrocity. These definitions will be used in conjuncture with historical illustrations of events in war with a particular focus on the My Lai and Son My Massacre from the Vietnam War on the morning of March 16th, 1968. My Lai was a hamlet 7 miles from Quang Ngai Town on the South China Sea that had the hundreds of deaths in a grouping of massacres by the US 23rd Infantry Division directed under 2nd lieutenant William Calley Jr. The military police concluded that 347 people perished at My Lai although a memorial at Son My remembers 504 victims.[1] While some soldiers refused to take part many others still raped and killed, women and brutally murdered men, children and even the animals.[2] Its use as a case study is pertinent due to the extent of the atrocities that took place there and usefulness in ascertaining what causes soldiers to commit atrocities. For my purposes “war” is defined as a legal condition which equally permits two or more groups to carry on a conflict by armed force[3]. To be “legally” permitted war has to have some just war justification, which will help to direct the ethical focus of this essay.
Defining Atrocity
To show that it is possible to have war without atrocity it is necessary to define what is meant by atrocity. This essay will use Osiel’s description of atrocities from a legal journal, which is defined as:
“[T]he deliberate harming of known non-combatants (and their property), a category encompassing both civilians and soldiers who have surrendered (or sought to surrender), and the use of prohibited methods of warfare against enemy forces.”[4]
This definition immediately raises the question of intention through the use of the word “known” implying that an atrocity would not occur if a non-combatant was harmed but was not the intended target of the harm presumably using the justification from the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE)[5]. Therefore the bombing of German cities early in World War II[6] with the intention of ending the war quickly by breaking the civilian populations will to fight may be permissible and therefore not an atrocity, because the intention is to end the war. On the other hand killing the villagers at My Lai is not excused, because it is the soldier’s direct intention to kill non-combatants as well as many other reasons which will be discussed below. But to justify why some killing of non-combatants is perhaps permissible requires a greater analysis of DDE, which this essay will examine next. The point at the moment is that intention may change whether or not an incident of non-combatant death is an atrocity.
Doctrine of Double Effect – Importance of Intention
If a soldier’s deliberate harming of non-combatants in war is only an atrocity if he intended the harm then proving that a soldier’s actions had the right intentions is necessary by further analysis of DDE. Walzer first outlines DDE as having 4 conditions:
The first condition is that the “act is good in itself or at least indifferent, which means for our purposes, that it is a legitimate act of war.”[7] The My Lai Massacre is certainly not good in itself as killing non-combatants should not be. Killing can, however be a legitimate act of war, which can be the point of using this doctrine, but the beating to death of the villagers and the raping are not legitimate because they are unnecessary only cause harm.[8]
The Second condition is that “the direct effect is morally acceptable-the destruction of military supplies, for example, or the killing of enemy soldiers”[9] Therefore destroying a military factory in a civilian area could be justified at this point, but murdering civilians, and destroying their homes would need a convoluted justification to be a direct effect of ending the war as soon as possible as the greatest kindness is to end war quickly.[10]
“The third condition is originally that “the intention of the actor is good, that is he aims only at the acceptable effect; the evil is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends.”[11] But Walzer alters it too “the intention of the actor is good, that is, he aims narrowly at the acceptable effect; the evil effect is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends, and, aware of the evil involved, he seeks to minimize it, accepting costs to himself.”[12] This change puts a double intention test ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
“The third condition is originally that “the intention of the actor is good, that is he aims only at the acceptable effect; the evil is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends.”[11] But Walzer alters it too “the intention of the actor is good, that is, he aims narrowly at the acceptable effect; the evil effect is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends, and, aware of the evil involved, he seeks to minimize it, accepting costs to himself.”[12] This change puts a double intention test on the 3rd condition moving focus further to the preservation of civilian life. This highlights the significance of the atrocity at My Lai considering the innocence of those that were killed; the problem of targeting civilians will be further assessed below.
The forth condition is that “The good effect is sufficiently good to compensate for allowing the evil effect; it must be justifiable under Sidgwick’s proportionality rule”[13]Simply put the evil act must be proportional thus at My Lai if the reason for the attack was that the villagers were in fact the enemy then it is still not proportional to kill them since they did not fight back, so could have easily been captured if that was useful to the war effort.
Under DDE the My Lai massacre comfortably fails these conditions making it an atrocity, but how it fails each condition is important to show how war could be fought without atrocity if the intention is right.
What is war?- A Just War
Paraphrasing Lord Kitchener some argue that “all war is an atrocity”[14], perhaps arguing from a pacifist stance[15] which as a generalisation argues that there is no justification for war.[16] However even if ideally there would be no war in the world, the fact is that war is still a regular occurrence in the world today and it is better to have a system that encourages just conduct in war and just cause to go to war namely a just war theory.[17] Although Clausewitz may view war as limitless[18] or guided by a Hobbesian “necessity of nature”[19] war is in fact guided by rules made up through international law such as the Geneva Conventions (1949) and other treaties and agreements between nation states. Nevertheless the actual fighting of war is still hell most of the time,[20] because it involves killing and there is nothing more final to a person than being killed. These high stakes encourage us to break with restraints,[21] which leads to an escalation of violent behaviour if not kept in check by some form of morality system. Therefore there is a need to justify a system that protects “innocents” from atrocity, such as when non-combatants are killed as per the above definition. This may be provided by the DDE justification in conjuncture with Just War theory.
To provide arguments against atrocity it is also important to know whether a political community is fighting a just war, because if it is not just then even if they fight in a just way, it could be argued that, the aggressor is responsible for all the consequences including and especially the death of non-combatants.[22] Therefore philosophers have developed principles that govern the rules for starting a war. These principles are: just cause, competent authority, comparative justice, right intention, and limited objective, and as a last resort, reasonable hope of success, proportionality and lastly discrimination.[23] This essay is more concerned with just conduct in war, but the point to take from here is that if a conflict is not just then, it could be argued that, all killing by the aggressor is unjust and therefore an atrocity, so atrocity is integral to all unjust wars. Nevertheless we still condemn criminal acts in unjust war[24] as well as in just wars.
By fulfilling the principles mention earlier it is possible to embark on a just war, such as humanitarian intervention[25], a Preventative war[26] such as a Pre-emptive strike[27] as well as self defence, but nevertheless the war must still be fought in a just way and the duties are the same whether fighting wars of aggression or defence.[28] Therefore atrocities may still occur.
Causes of Atrocities
Although atrocities can happen in civilian life such as where serial killers like Harold Shipman or Ted Bundy try to avoid detection of their crimes, in war it can often be done more openly. Realists apologise for atrocity in war by saying “yes, our soldiers committed atrocities in the course of the battle, but that’s what war does to people, that’s what war is like”[29] and that atrocity is results from “duress and necessity.”[30] However that is an unsatisfactory answer because it does not explain why some wars have more incidents of atrocities such as My Lai[31] in Vietnam[32] compared to others. If wars have differing amounts of atrocity surely it is possible to encourage conditions that reduce the incidence and maybe to have a war without atrocity. Osiel argues that “the social organization of military life and the experience of combat have fostered atrocities”[33] and shows how they have fostered atrocities in 4 ways:
“(1) by stimulating violent passions among the troops ("from below"); (2) through organized directed campaigns of terror ("from above"); (3) by tacit connivance between higher and lower echelons, each with its own motives; and (4) by brutalization of subordinates to foster their aggressiveness in combat.”[34]
The Mai Lai Massacre probably resulted from a combination of these causes, in particular, 1) ,3)and 4) help us to understand what conditions in war foster atrocity. The first cause of atrocity “from below”[35] happens when individual soldiers, as creatures of desire, are able to indulge their passions: for women, alcohol, food, revenge of lost comrades, or simple blood lust.[36] These base desires may be easier to conceal under the confusion of war as opposed to in civilian life, but they are more atrocities committed in war especially in Vietnam then there are incidents of serial killers in society. Therefore this cause may account for the serial killer or rapist who seeks to take their anti-social criminal opportunity where they can, but does not wholly explain the extent of rape and murder in My Lai. However the context for My Lai gives motivation for “revenge of lost comrades”, since in the preceding months the Tet Offensive was launched by the North Vietnamese which caused “American losses [that] reached 4,114 dead, 19,275 wounded, and 604 missing.”[37] On top of that Clouse argues that the “South Vietnamese felt that the Americans were planning to desert them, and the U.S. servicemen, frustrated by a war they could not win, began to show hatred toward all Vietnamese.”[38] However this cause of atrocity is part of the cause for atrocity by connivance.
Osiel argues that “Atrocity by connivance often occurs by means of what the official Report on the My Lai massacre referred to as "a permissive attitude" on the part of commanders "toward the treatment and safeguarding of non-combatants." For instance, Vietnamese strikers who accompanied Special Forces units were often allowed "to catch the chickens and pigs that were running loose" during destruction of a village, "since plunder was accepted as part of their payment for fighting."[39] In atrocity by connivance, troops are simply given to understand, through winks and nods of acquiescence, that spontaneously-initiated atrocities will not be penalized.[40] Thus a soldier’s account that the value of Vietnamese life was systematically cheapened[41] is in line with this theory for creating atrocity.
Osiel further argues that brutalization of soldiers could lead to atrocity as this desensitised the soldiers to killing.[42] This was the experience of the United States Army in Vietnam. As an historian of that episode observes, "[s]oldiers sufficiently angry and vengeful, who are frustrated in their efforts to retaliate against the enemy itself, sometimes vent their aggressions on whoever is available." He suggests that atrocities such as the My Lai massacre almost inevitably result.[43] Therefore when war is felt to be fought unjustly by the enemy then there is resentment, a sense of scores unsettled and a deeply felt need for individual or collective revenge.[44]
Targeting Non-combatants in Just wars
As the initial definition of atrocity showed it may be difficult to be sure that a soldier does not intend harm on non-combatants; which are certain classes of people outside the permissible range of warfare.[45] Moreover so long as a soldier fights in accordance with the rules of law, no condemnation is possible.[46] But the problem arises when there certain classes of people that may move between non-combatant and combatant, whose deaths in certain places at certain times draws a thin line between when atrocities occur thus making them very likely to occur. Walzer argues that when a person is engaged it an activity that is solely a military activity, such as making weapons, then they can be a justified target and may be killed.[47] Thus a military factory worker can be killed by a bomb as collateral damage in the factory when he is working, but not when he away from the factory. So even if the villagers in My Lai were aiding the enemy, it still wasn’t justifiable to kill them at home because they were not solely engaged in enemy activity especially when they surrendered as soon as the US soldiers began firing. This is in line with fact that it is not justifiable to shoot soldiers who surrender, because they then drift too into the definition of people who can no longer be killed. This is backed by accounts of soldiers describing not killing lone enemies, because it felt like murder.[48] So a war that that ruled out “perpetual harassment, sniping, ambush and surprise attacks”[49] would significantly reduce the resentment described above that leads to atrocities by soldiers. Walzer points out that past wars have indeed been fought this way, but the arrangements have never stable.[50]
Conclusion
This essay found that atrocities are very common place in war. Although it is possible to fight a war without atrocities perhaps in the manner of medieval battles in the past with even more ridged rules of conduct it is unlikely to happen. The current setup of war encourages atrocities, because the militaries systems find advantage is making their soldiers more aggressive in order to be better killing machines. Unethically commanders can foster hate in soldiers and actually encourage atrocity as an illegitimate tactic to break the enemy although this would clearly be unjust. The May Lai massacre was found to be created out of the frustrations of war and enemy guerrilla tactics, that make soldiers feel like the enemy is fighting unjustly and thus illicit an unjust response in this case in the form an atrocity.
This essay found importance in the rules of just war theory guided by the DDE of in order to determine whether harm to certain groups constituted as an atrocity. These rules of war were found to rule out purposeless or wanton violence,[51] but highlighted the difficulty of identifying when a group could be justifiably harmed in war. This meant that although not integral, atrocities are very likely to occur during times of war.
Bibliography
Books
Amstutz, M.R, (1999) International Ethics: Concepts, Theories, and cases in Global politics, 3rd Ed. United States Rowman & Littlefield
Brule, C, M, (2011) Our Bravest Young Men. 1st Ed. United States, Author House
Sheehan, N, (1989) A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, 1st ed. London, Jonathan Cape,
Walzer, M, (2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, 4th ed. United States. Basic Books,
Wells, R. A and others (1981) The Wars of America: Christian Views, 1st ed. United States, Wm. B. Eerdmans
Journals
Lichtenberg, J, (1994) War, Innocence, and the Doctrine of Double Effect, Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, Vol. 74, No. 3 pg. 347-368
Oliver, K, (2003), “Atrocity, authenticity and American exceptionalism: (ir)rationalizing the massacre at My Lai”, Journal of American Studies, vol. 37, no.2, 247-268
Osiel, M. J (1998), “Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline and the Law of War” California Law Review, Vol. 86, No. 5,
Miscellaneous
Fiala, A. "Pacifism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/pacifism/>. (03/05/2012) 23:08pm
McIntyre, A (2011) "Doctrine of Double Effect", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/double-effect/>. Accessed: (03/05/2012) 22:16pm
________________
[1] Sheehan, N, (1989) A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, 1st ed. London, Jonathan Cape, Pg 689-90
[2] Oliver, K, (2003), “Atrocity, authenticity and American exceptionalism: (ir)rationalizing the massacre at My Lai”, Journal of American Studies, vol. 37, no.2, Pg 247
[3] Walzer, M,(2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, 4th ed. United States. Basic Books. Pg 41
[4] Osiel, M. J (1998), “Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline and the Law of War” California Law Review, Vol. 86, No. 5, Pg 952-3
[5] McIntyre, A (2011) "Doctrine of Double Effect", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/double-effect/>. Accessed: (03/05/2012) 22:16pm
[6] Lichtenberg, J, (1994) War, Innocence, and the Doctrine of Double Effect, Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, Vol. 74, No. 3 pg. 364
[7] Walzer, M,(2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, 4th ed. United States. Basic Books. Pg 153
[8] Sheehan, N, (1989) A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, 1st ed. London, Jonathan Cape, Pg 689-90
[9] Walzer, M,(2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, 4th ed. United States. Basic Books. Pg 153
[10] Ibid. Pg. 47
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid. Pg. 155
[13] Ibid.
[14] Brule, C, M, (2011) Our Bravest Young Men. 1st Ed. United States, Author House Pg. 291
[15] Fiala, A. "Pacifism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/pacifism/>. (03/05/2012) 23:08pm
[16] Ibid.
[17] Walzer, M,(2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, 4th ed. United States. Basic Books.
[18] Ibid. pg. 23
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid. Pg 28
[21] Ibid. Pg. 32
[22] Ibid. Pg. 23
[23] Amstutz, M.R, (1999) International Ethics: Concepts, Theories, and cases in Global politics, 3rd Ed. United States Rowman & Littlefield Pg. 100-104.
[24] Walzer, M,(2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, 4th ed. United States. Basic Books. Pg.33
[25] Ibid. Pg. 101
[26] Ibid. 76
[27] Ibid. Pg. 85
[28] Ibid. 127
[29] Ibid. pg 4
[30] Ibid.
[31] Sheehan, N, (1989) A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, 1st ed. London, Jonathan Cape, Pg 689-90
[32] Osiel, M. J (1998), “Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline and the Law of War” California Law Review, Vol. 86, No. 5, Pg 1023
[33] Ibid. Pg 1029
[34] Ibid. Pg 1029
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid. Pg 1030
[37] Wells, R. A and others (1981) The Wars of America: Christian Views, 1st ed. United States, Wm. B. Eerdmans pg 190
[38] Ibid. pg 190-191
[39] Osiel, M. J (1998), “Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline and the Law of War” California Law Review, Vol. 86, No. 5, Pg. 1037-1038
[40] Ibid.
[41] Sheehan, N, (1989) A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, 1st ed. London, Jonathan Cape, pg 690
[42] Osiel, M. J (1998), “Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline and the Law of War” California Law Review, Vol. 86, No. 5, Pg. 1041
[43] Ibid.
[44] Walzer, M,(2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, 4th ed. United States. Basic Books. Pg 132
[45] Ibid. Pg. 42
[46] Ibid. Pg. 128
[47] Ibid. Pg. 146
[48] Ibid. Pg. 143
[49] Ibid.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Ibid. Pg 129