The morality of war

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

OK, so what's your solution?

I'm tempted to answer, somewhat flippantly that my solution would be not to get bogged down in unwinnable wars in faraway lands and morally dubious, decade long occupations of other countries. As a starting point. Lots of armies in the world regrettably use child soldiers, but they tend not to be flown about as invasion forces. Aside from some of the particularly messy African conflicts and civil wars, children almost exclusively act on the side of the invaded or occupied.

But given that we are where we are, not where I'd like us to be: I don't have a solution. I just wanted to think about some of the moral and ethical questions the situation raises.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by DanaC

But given that we are where we are, not where I'd like us to be: I don't have a solution. I just wanted to think about some of the moral and ethical questions the situation raises.

I know you are just addressing the question Dana, but in my view, expecting moral principles to be followed through in a insurgency vs. counter-insurgency war is similar to expecting boxing rules to be used to a back alley knife fight. It is life or death for both sides so I really don't think they care what some non-soliders (myself included) think about the morality of war when their lives are on the line.

Saying that, I do believe the US and UN should follow moral standards in Afghanistan because of (1) morality (duh!) and (2) it is good PR. The war in Afghanistan was not inherently lost, but lost when we showed the Afghan people we didn't care about them. However, we must be realistic with our policies and they must be reflective of what is happening on the battlefield. If the Taliban start using children to kill American and UN soldiers, we must react accordingly. If that means accepting the idea that we may suspect certain children of being (child) soldiers, so be it. This just means we aren't giving Afghan children preferred status anymore, not shooting random children in the street (that would be bad).