American Ethics And American War

The Geek wrote this post last August.  Somehow it never got published.  Admittedly there is a reference in the next paragraph which is dated but the overall subject is still timely considering the accusations which have been made regarding the infliction of civilian casualties during Operation Odyssey Dawn.  The agenda driven and the poorly informed as well as the opportunistic and gullible always either peddle or buy the line holding Americans are as kill crazy as a ferret in the chicken house.

Frankly the accusations by Amnesty International to the effect that the US has violated international law and the ethics of warfare by its actions in Yemen (see immediately preceding post) rankle the Geek no end. This short take is a personal note to the tender hearted, high minded, lofty thinking, and historically ignorant lawyerly types at Amnesty International as well as other, similarly inclined NGOs and their sympathizers at the UN.

Just over sixty-five years ago President Franklin Roosevelt was briefed on the planned invasion of Iwo Jima. He was told the island was heavily defended by a large, well dug in defensive force with orders to hold until the last man. The goal of the defenders was to inflict a maximum number of casualties on the American forces with the larger intent of weakening American political will so as to allow an end to the war on terms very favorable to the Japanese.

The president was also told that there were no people on the island other than members of the Imperial Japanese armed forces. No civilians. No dragooned Korean laborers. No "comfort women." It was a pure military target with only soldiers, sailors, and airmen present. Killing them was well within the laws of warfare.

Finally, the president was advised that American fatalities would be very high. Higher even than the hectatombs of Tarawa or Peleliu. The US military high command unanimously held that the best means of attack would be standing off and drenching the island with chemical munitions, particularly the most potent one we had in our arsenal, mustard agent. There was no danger of retaliation. The Japanese had no means and the Germans were effectively defeated at this point.

FDR was told bluntly that using chemical weapons would save thousands of American lives and would not cost one Japanese life more than would be the case with a conventional invasion.

Faced with this stark choice the president said, "No." He would not cross the ethical Rubicon of being the first to use chemical weapons in WW II. (This despite the well documented use of both chemical and biological munitions by the Japanese in China.)

The ethically (or morally) based decision of FDR condemned more than six thousand US Marines to death.

The invasion of Iwo Jima constituted a tribute to human courage and endurance which will reflect glory on the Marines and the country which produced them for generations to come as well as the most famed photograph of World War II for Americans. But, there is no doubt that the men who died as well as their families, friends, indeed, the nation as a whole, would have cheerfully exchanged glory for the lives of those who were killed in the black sands of Iwo Jima.

Mr Roosevelt preserved his moral purity. He, perhaps, protected the ethical integrity of the US. To the president and many others later, during peacetime, with the luxury of considering both ethics and their cost in human lives, the decision was the correct one. And, arguably it was; it did establish a limit during the closing days of a war in which all previous limits had been not only transcended but obliterated.

The Geek has seen no signs that later presidents became any less conscious of ethics as a limiting factor in war. Presidents have made grave mistakes in deciding where and against whom and with what means war must be waged. However, the mistakes have been far more often than not on the side of caution, conservatism, on the side of limiting both the scope of war and the lethality of the means employed.

Get a grip on this, Amnesty: The US is not given to using disproportionate means. It is not given to employing weapons with undue breadth of effect. It is not in the habit of using too much. It is far more common to use too little.

Even though those of Amnesty International love to hate America. Even though they are all members of the Blame America First club, the historical realty, the ground truth, is the US attempts (often without success to be sure) to fight with the least force possible, to kill as few as feasible, to take all due, and many undue precautions to exempt civilians and non-combatants from harm.

Hey, AI, you all may not like it, but that is the nature of history. Get over your chronic inability to see affairs as they actually have been and are.