By guest author Dr. Mike Corgan
Since the first attempts to develop moral or legal standards for warfare and the consequent killing and destroying of war, technological developments have invariably come along.
.jpg "Drone missile launched from aircraft carrier")
These technologies confound painstakingly agreed-upon attempts to limit and contain the lethality of an essentially lethal activity.
Anomalies abound. Why is tear gas a chemical weapon in the laws of war but napalm is not? Who, exactly, is a lawful target of warfare?
These questions have arisen most recently and most strikingly in regard to missile-carrying drone aircraft.
A debate of sorts is now underway about the morality of drone attacks, especially as used by the Obama administration. A New York Times July 15 op-ed piece cites the judgment of Bradley J. Strawser of the Naval Postgraduate School that there is a moral case for these kinds of attacks.
Essentially it is that the amount of collateral damage (to civilians) is far less than it has been for any other kind of attack. This principle conforms to both legal and moral norms of proportionality.
In a very long and detailed article in the August Esquire, “The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama,” Tom Junod argues that these attacks are definitely not moral, certainly not legal and have opened a Pandora’s box that invites havoc.
Junod accuses Obama and his aides of inventing moral distinctions rather than observing them in order to justify the attacks. These attacks:
- Take place in many countries with which we are not at war
- Kill American citizens without anything remotely resembling due process, and
- Do indeed kill the innocent.
Case in point: American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was targeted and killed while in Yemen on the sole authority of the President. In a later follow-on attack, his 16 year-old son was also among those killed.
This from a president Junod claims to have admired. What happens, he concludes, if a “cruel or bloodthirsty” president gets this capability? One might further ask, what happens when others bent on destruction acquire this capability, as they surely will?
Michael T. Corgan, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of International Relations, Boston University