Abuse of ethical standards? Experts in support of war

By guest contributor Michael D. Knox, Ph.D.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has bombed more than 25 countries. In these 68 years, no other nation has killed and injured more people living outside its borders. We have more nuclear weapons, more chemical weapons, and more soldiers than all other nations combined.

Nazi physician Karl Brandt sentenced at International Military Tribunal.
Nazi physician Karl Brandt is sentenced at International Military Tribunal. Image in public domain, from Wikimedia Commons.

In 2014, the U.S. continues drone and missile attacks on residential neighborhoods in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. We use concentration camps, torture, assassination, threats of war, and spying on our own people.

The invasions, the killing of thousands of children, the suffering of the wounded, the torture, the environmental impact, and so on, occur only because of support provided by professionals, educators, and scientists whose ethical standards should preclude any involvement with war.

These specialized experts include university professors, scientists, healthcare providers, journalists, engineers, teachers, and the clergy. Modern U.S. wars could not be fought without the complicity of these respected groups. Such groups were also part of the German war machine.

If you are a member of a group with ethical standards, be aware of what contributions your colleagues may be making to the U.S. war efforts. Consider how ethical standards apply, hold violators accountable, and do what you can to get your profession out of the war business.

All Americans, regardless of occupation, should consider what they are doing to sustain war. Without citizen support there would be no U.S. warfare.  Please consider what you might do to show your opposition to the bloodshed. Examples of what other Americans have done are recorded in the US Peace Registry.

Michael D. Knox, Ph.D., is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and chair of the US Peace Memorial Foundation. He is also editor of the US Peace Registry. Dr. Knox’s work is now focused on recognizing Americans who have had the courage to publicly oppose one or more U.S. wars www.uspeacememorial.org/WorldPeace.htm.

New technologies, new moral questions (Drone warfare, Part 1)

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.

Drone missile launched from aircraft carrier
Drone missile launched from aircraft carrier. Image in public domain.

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

Women activists and International Women’s Day

Today, Thursday March 8, is International Women’s Day. It is a good day for us to be grateful to the women peace activists who contribute to this blog—for example, San’aa Sultan, Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, and Jean Gerard.International Women's Day 2012

It is also a good day to celebrate the fact that late in 2011 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three women peace activists: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

These are impressive women indeed. In 2005, Mrs. Sirleaf was the first African woman in modern times to be elected to lead an African state; she has used that office to bring peace to Liberia after 14 years of an extremely violent civil war.

Leymah Gbowee founded the Ghana-based Women, Peace, and Security Network Africa. In 2002, she organized a sex strike in Liberia, during which women withheld sex from their husbands until hostilities ended.

Ms. Karman, the youngest candidate ever awarded the Peace Prize and the first Arab woman to receive it,  has been called the “Mother of the Revolution.” She is the founder of Women Journalists Without Chains.

Here are some links that will allow you to see and hear these proponents of peace and justice:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C1mqLRKsJQ&feature=related

Leymah Gbowee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts6WptOD384

Tawakkul Karman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LFMWDFVx7E

Women of all ages, ethnicities, and religions have a long history of fighting for peace and increasingly their efforts and achievements are being recognized. Please share your own stories of efforts on behalf of peace.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Lawless technology available to all (Just war, Part 10)

By guest author Mike Corgan

One senses a barn door closing after the horses have gone out.

There are well-substantiated rumors that NATO convinced Slobodan Milosevic to abandon his war in Kosovo by demonstrating what we could to do to him with our computers beyond just our airstrikes.

Hellfire missile on predator drone
Hellfire missile on Predator drone, inscribed with "In memory of Honorable Ronald Reagan." Image in public domain.

Several years later, Russians, probably with government support, used computers to shut down Estonia for three days over a perceived slight to a statue honoring Russian liberation of Estonia.

Obama administration officials declined to use cyber war against Qaddafi for fear of the example it might set.

We’ve also taken the lead in using drones to strike targets anywhere in the world. What the Bush administration started, the Obama administration has just about perfected. Think of what goes on daily on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Recall the recent stir about killing two Americans by drone strikes in a remote area of Yemen.

Even the Administration realized that here, too, a line may have been crossed. And drones are a relatively cheap technology available to many countries.

The question for us is what rules or laws specific to this new technology are in force? Simple answer, there really aren’t any.

There have been no conferences, no updates of Geneva Conventions, no sustained discussion in public forums about any of these new ways of war that take us far beyond what troops, tanks and ship have always
done.

These weapons are equally effective no matter who uses them and they are available to all.

The capabilities are here. We need to bring out into the open a discourse about rules, laws and norms now.

Michael T. Corgan, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, International Relations, Boston University