Consider: Your part of the world suddenly becomes very hostile.
Men with rifles, or LEO, or Hajji, or Zombies have taken residence in your AO.
It is you & your family or Them.
Problem: The bad guys are mixed within the immediate population. You can get Them...but there will be enormous collateral damage.
Would you kill hundreds to save your family?
Thousands?
Millions?
Would you kill those same people if, for the sake of this discussion, only 50% of those you must kill would raise a hand against you?
Consider that set of circumstances for our coming troubles.
And consider this:
"They talk to us about the Jewish state, but I respond to them with a final answer: We shall not recognize a Jewish state," Abbas said...
...and this from a senior member of Hamas:
"Our Palestinian people do not beg for a state. ...States are not built upon UN resolutions. States liberate their land and establish their entities," Haniyeh said...
If you do not think the Enemies of Liberty among us are just as hostile to you and me as is Hamas to Israel, I can't help you.
Kerodin
III
States are not built upon UN resolutions. States liberate their land and establish their entities...
ReplyDeleteWell, I can't say that this statement -in and of itself- is untrue.
To what length I would go to protect my family is a matter I've discussed at my place.
I don't know that there is an end to the lengths I would go to protect them.
From all out war, to preemption, to arming my neighbor -who is mostly a Marxist-, or helping the local militia, which might just want to impose it's vision of "correct" government on me... when I say "any means necessary", I mean it. The lengths depend completely upon the threat that is present, and the quickest, most complete, or most available means to defeat it. Any means.
This statement though, Would you kill those same people if, for the sake of this discussion, only 50% of those you must kill would raise a hand against you? begs an answer -or at least a response- as it is the same logic and means employed by many under-powered people, such as jihadis and, more specifically, the 9-11 crew.
First must come the definition of "bad people". Then we must rid ourselves of the false concept of "collateral damage". There is no such thing. Each person killed is a real life lost, and will result in the creation of new enemies and threats. If someone killed my wife or kids, for any cause whatsoever, they will have earned an enemy for life.
Will the creation of the amount of enemies caused by killing -more accurately, intentionally murdering- the innocent 50% help or hurt my cause, my family's safety, my nation's survival, etc.? No death is impersonal, no person dies in a vacuum. Treating killings as completely statistical has the potential of blinding one to the long-term effects of one's actions. This is something the US in particular is amazingly adept at doing.
If we answer in the affirmative, then there is no more ground from which to attack and demonize jihadis, as they are, from their perspective, protecting their way of life in much the same indiscriminate and aggressive way posed in this question. They are not evil then, as many people would like to believe, just an enemy to be understood, respected, and fought. There is no more honor in killing innocents with high tech bombs than there is in doing it with stolen passenger jets. If anything, the return on investment is much higher for those who steal jets.
As I've said before, the only moral course of action in a fight worth fighting is the one that shortens the path to complete victory.
If one's actions do not shorten the path to victory, they are wasteful and likely not (in the long term) moral or correct. If the fight is not for survival, and is not worth an all-out effort and total effort in fighting, then again, one's actions are likely in vain, if not wrong.
Having said all that, predicting what an untested person will do in a crisis situation is tenuous at best. The loudest talkers are often the most likely to curl up in a corner, while the shy ones with no outward confidence turn into pillars of strength.
What would I do?
I pray the answer is never forced.
AP
Would you kill those same people if, for the sake of this discussion, only 50% of those you must kill would raise a hand against you?
ReplyDeleteConsidered from the Israeli perspective, this could mean turning Amman, Cairo, Damascus, et cetera, into glowing glass, while setting their Muslim & Arab enemies back 100 years and bringing the conflict to a stop...for now.
Considered from a SHTF perspective in America, it could mean shutting off the power grid to the mid-Atlantic for a year to starve the political stronghold...obviously, such a move would affect a great many people who would never choose to fight as basic services are denied and attrition begins. Cutting off OpFor supply lines will not only affect OpFor...
In either hypothetical, many "innocent" people (non-combatants, concientious objectors, fence-sitters, and everyone in-between) get caught in the middle while the two opposing sides strive for dominance.
Kerodin
III
Love your stuff AP, read it often and agree with most of what you write (no 2 people ever agree on everything), but, and I'm not necessarily advocating mega-deaths for the protection of the few, we are far better than the jihadis, et al.
ReplyDeleteWe fight to liberate, they fight to enslave.
Intent is important in deciding who's who and what's what, I think.
Quick is best, I agree, but callousness is not the trait of a human worth his salt.
Dan III
The parameters of the scenario relegate the reader to a "this or that" solution. On the one hand, implies the reader's family is under attack (defensive situation), and on the other, states the way to save the family is to (again implied) go on the offensive.
ReplyDeleteIn a defensive scenario where FREFOR is defending his or her family, all comers through the perimeter can be considered hostile and therefore legitimate targets. If the defense is mobile, ie, attempting to get out of the area, anyone trying to physically stop the family in question, including those pointing and yelling "there they are!" or similar type warnings, are, in fact, placing themselves in the combatant role and are legitimate targets. That said, the goal is to get the family in question out of the danger zone into a safe area, and FREFOR is most likely fighting a delaying action, trading space for time.
If, on the other hand, as the scenario suggests, "you can get them" (meaning you are going on the offensive), then the probability exists for surgical strikes that don't necessarily include 'collateral damage', which is actually code for the indiscriminant killing of non-combatants, which can also be called by another term, 'murder', which is a war crime.
Potential rebuttals centering on the premise that OPFOR is murdering the citizenry now or will murder the citizenry later do not stand up to or support our objective, which is to restore Constitutional government. As was stated in the movie, "Defiance" (albeit much better in the book), "Even though we are hunted like animals, we shall not become animals.
When it comes, we'll fight, and fight hard, make no mistake. But we won't murder (kill with malice aforethought or without due dilligence applied to avoid non-combatant casualties). That moral stand alone means FREFOR will most likely take more casualties than OPFOR at first. The reward for that kind of ROE will be realized as those 'fence sitters' or 'pollyannas' or 'constitutional converts' realize that FREFOR is not a bunch of murdering animals and actually does desire a return to liberty in this country.
As to possible arguments of "how will you get to them in their armored vehicles/compounds/fortresses, etc, Tito gave the best answer when asked about taking on tanks with just riflemen, he said, and I paraphrase here, "We'll follow them and wait. They will have to get out to piss sometime, and then we'll kill them."
In regards to the scenario of cutting off the power grid, intent is everything. If you are cuting it off to force an action or surrender or to reach an objective (much like a SWAT would cut off electricty to a residence or structure) peacefully, ie, without further bloodshed in that area, the tactic would be justified. If, on the other hand, the intent was to cause as much suffering as possible, as evidenced by the time frame of cutting the grid off for a year to starve, ie, torture the population within that area or to 'teach a lesson' to those you fight in that area, the tactic is not justifiable.
Cutting the grid would be viable only for the time necessary to achieve the objective: Restoration of constitutional government.
A side objective might also be to apprehend those who had given aid and comfort to the enemy or were suspected of other 'high crimes and misdemeaners'.
Thanks.