Tag: Fourth Geneva Convention

Rampages, drones, and moral insanity (Part 2)

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Dean Hammer, Psy.D.

Drones ready for launch. Image in public domain

The escalation of drone warfare by the Obama administration is 
not being scrutinized by the same moral compass as the rampage of Robert Bales.

Conservative estimations 
indicate that there have been minimally three to four hundred innocent 
civilians killed by drone assassinations.

The public is dealt the expected 
rationalizations. We are told that these military interventions are 
sanctioned as “acceptable risks” in the war against terror. The mounting 
civilian deaths are written off as “collateral damage” and “incidental 
killing.” Unlike Bales, who was acting with severe cognitive deficits, Obama appears to be an intelligent person with intact cognitive capacities.

So how do we understand the errant 
leadership of those justifying the drone killing fields?

 In 1835, physician James Cowles Prichard coined the term “moral 
insanity” to denote abnormal emotions and behavior in the apparent absence 
of intellectual impairments. He highlighted that this type of madness 
entailed morbid perversion of feelings, habits, and moral behavior.

The 
construct of moral insanity helps us to understand a dimension of the 
impaired leadership of our government.

 Faithful peace activists continue to challenge the 
drone assassinations (e.g., the ongoing resistance campaign at Hancock Air 
Base in Syracuse, NY). However, the steamrolling of our government’s war machine threatens to overshadow the protesters’ voice of sanity.

As electoral fever mounts, the electorate 
has a critical responsibility to raise questions regarding the immorality of drone warfare. Amidst the cacophony (the “droning,” if you will) of the debates between Obama and Romney, we need to put them to the test to see if either recognizes that drone warfare is unacceptable and insane behavior.

The Fourth Geneva Convention (adopted by the United Nations in 1949) grew out of the bloody wars of the 20th century. This body of international law mandates the protection of civilian populations in war zones. These codes of ethics are a critical safeguard against falling into the clutches of a collective form of moral insanity.

Reclaiming an ethical plumb line that includes the protection of innocent civilians is essential to any sense of true democracy and sanity.

Dean Hammer practices and teaches clinical psychology in Vermont and New Hampshire. He is a member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. 
Contact information: dhammer2@tds.net

Shattering my world (Liberate THIS, Part 3)

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note by Kathie Malley-Morrison:  Today we are pleased to publish the third in our ongoing series from Dr. Dahlia Wasfi‘s book, Liberate THIS.]

The missiles that trailed across the Arabian night sky that January of 1991 fractured the calm over Iraq, like the war itself shattered my world and my memories to pieces.

Marine fighter planes during Iraq war
Marine fighter planes during Iraq war (Image in public domain)

There was no question that the regime of Saddam Hussein was politically repressive. But now, Iraqis suffered under brutality from within and aerial bombardment from without.

Iraqi families were under attack.  My fellow students were celebrating.

Yet, even though I had insight that no one else could have, I said and did nothing for our victims.  At the time, assimilation was a higher priority for me than speaking the truth.  I reeked of selling out.

More than 100,000 Iraqis perished during the 42 days of Gulf War I, but I was lucky.  My blood relatives survived. The worst was yet to come, however, because our aerial assaults had purposely targeted Iraq’s electricity plants, telecommunication centers, and water treatment facilities.  These attacks were in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilians in war[1].

In a matter of days, life became desperate. There was no potable water, no electricity, and with economic sanctions in place, there soon would be no means of rebuilding.

Severe economic sanctions had been imposed on Iraq four days after Iraqi troops entered Kuwait, on August 6, 1990.  (In sad irony, that date was the forty-five year anniversary of another Western targeting of a civilian population, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.)  All of Iraq’s exports and imports were banned in order to induce Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.[2]

Though withdrawal was completed by the end of the 1991 Gulf War in April, those brutal sanctions remained in place for years.  Once stored resources were depleted, Iraqis began to starve.  It was a stringent medical, cultural, intellectual, and nutritional embargo that victimized the already-suffering Iraqi people.

I knew the direct correlation between my government’s actions and human suffering.  I did nothing.

Dahlia Wasfi

[1] http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO/380  Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

[2] Herring, Eric.  “Between Iraq and a Hard Place:  A Critique of the Case for UN Economic Sanctions” in Falk, Richard, Irene Gendzier, and Robert Jay Lifton, eds.  Crimes of War:  Iraq. Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.  New York, NY.  2006. p .223.