Both the torture of Iraqi prisoners (70% – 80% of whom are innocent according to the Red Cross) and the beheading of Nicholas Berg (who was a pretty clearly innocent American businessman) are, of course, horrible and immoral. That the beheading of Berg would probably be considered more humane than sexual abuse to the average Arab male does confuse matters a bit, but when you look at the history of warfare (and both sides of this conflict believe this is war), neither of these events should be all that surprising.
Armies spend countless hours of basic training making the enemy seem less than human. In fact, that’s part of the point: we’re us, the “good” people, the Band of Brothers (or Sisters), fighting for Freedom and Democracy and All that’s Right. And they’re “them,” the enemy, the “evildoersss,” the freedom-hating enemy. Rather than men or women with families, histories, aspirations, desires, they are “targets.” Rather than people with fears and joys, knowledge and abilities, they are “enemy assets.” When the other guy is a mere beast, it’s a heck of a lot easier to squeeze that trigger or chop his head off or lead him around by a leash.
Once you’ve established “themness,” you can actually say things like “Well, if they were going to be a threat to our interests, they will have to suffer the consequences.” It’s a lot easier to shoot a coyote that threatens your sheep than a fellow shepherd.
This shows pretty clearly the true nature of war: rather than a an imposition of will by force, war is simply the breakdown of morality. Rather than a punishment meted out, it is the failure of cooler heads to prevail on a massive scale. It is the failure of diplomacy, genuine influence, economics, culture, civilization, and basic human empathy. In other words, by declaring war, by training for it, by waging it, we open ourselves up to the sort of behavior that results in the Abu Grhaib prison scandal and the beheading of Nicholas Berg. Rather than being the exception, war and crimes against humanity are synonymous.
Our literatures and moving-picture narratives – our ad hoc mythologies – are all full of times when war was chivalrous and clean, noble and courageous. History tells us otherwise. Despite moral aims, such as the fight against fascism during WW2, or even the fight against genocide in the former Yugoslavia, the waging of war itself tends toward moral breakdown. The discussion of pacifism vs. militarism is really a debate between means vs. ends.
Before declaring himself emperor, Napoleon, after all, was fighting for democracy. He, and many others, Beethoven included, thought of his sweep across Europe as a fight for liberation from an abusive and outmoded monarchy. But he, too, committed atrocities in his campaign in Spain, perfectly and grotesquely memorialized in the drawings of Francisco de Goya. The ostensibly moral task of ridding the world of Nazism resulted in the firebombing of Dresden, enduringly memorialized in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel Slaughterhouse Five, and ushered in the age of nuclear weapons. The use of those weapons on Japan was done ostensibly to save the larger number of lives that would have been lost in a direct invasion.
We like to think that bombing Dresden or nuking Japan is more moral than the Nazi concentration camps or the Bataan death march. We killed fewer than they did – and quicker too. But is it really better to burn to death than to starve? Is it really more humane to wipe people out in a radioactive flash than to gas them to death? All of these killings, on both sides, were done deliberately and with careful planning. They were all conducted in cold blood, all premeditated murders.
My point isn’t to dispute that we were more justified or had better reasons. I’m still reasonable enough to say that we probably were and that we probably did. However, if we look at war strictly in terms of some kind of weird utilitarianism where there are a million fine gradations of evil, figuring out right from wrong gets pretty absurd pretty fast. Soon you’re forced to place relative values on people’s lives. Is the life of, say, an American president really worth more than that of an Afghan farmer?
If we want our soldiers to start acting better in war, if we want our enemies to stop treating our citizens as livestock fit only for the slaughter, perhaps we should start to think a little harder, more frequently, and more creatively about why and when and where we wage war in the first place.
“A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hille and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?”
—Thoreau referring to the Spanish-American war
“Principle is okay up to a point, but principle doesn’t do you any good if you lose.” – Dick Cheney, White House chief of staff, campaign advice to associaties, 1976, quoted in Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, p. 178.