Regarding Terrorists

Regarding Terrorists

 

If you are going to do something awful, go big. It seems that, ethically speaking, it is okay to do things on a national level that you would never do on a personal level. Who could justify blowing up the house of someone who killed your child, while peripherally killing three of his children and a neighbor or two. On a national level we excuse this regularly.

This leads me to the confusion and anger around deciding what is terrorism in the Gaza crisis. Deciding who are the real victims and who are the real terrorists is not as hard as pundits are making it. Deciding who to feel sorry for, and who to blame, is not difficult. Citizens, noncombatants, are the victims and armed men are the terrorists. Israeli citizens and Palestinian citizens are terrorized by people with guns and bombs. I know who to pity in both of these situations, regardless of my political leanings.

Hamas, and many Palestinians, want to punish the Israeli government for its policies, policies that have been deadly at times. When armed men enter Israel to kill and kidnap Israeli citizens, they are terrorizing civilians. The Israeli government, and many Israelis, want to find the men who did this and punish them. They want to stop it from happening again. When the Israeli military are blowing up buildings with Palestinian citizens in them, they are terrorizing citizens. Being an American citizen, with memories of Afghanistan and Iraq in my mind, I know the drill. The murderers and kidnappers are using children and unarmed citizens as a shield. What can we do? I don’t know. I do know what we cannot do. We cannot knowingly kill the “shields”, because the shields are not soldiers; they are often children. Look at my scenario from the first paragraph. What if the revenge seeker said that he could not get to the killer of his child because he was hiding behind his children and neighbors. Would that change your mind about his methods?

It is easy to be callus when seeking vengeance. That is why we don’t allow vigilantes or lynch mobs to serve justice in civilized countries. Innocent people are always in danger when an angry person, or persons, decide to dole out justice. Governments have to be above the justified anger of citizens who have lost loved ones to armed thugs, terrorists. This “being above” the anger of its citizens will make citizens angry at their government. There is nothing that can be done about this. If you cannot stand the anger of your citizens, while you follow laws, while you follow basic ethical doctrines, then don’t be part of the government. Get yourself a podcast, or job at a news network, and talk about how sorry you are that “shields”, and other innocent civilians, have to die to achieve justice; yell that the terrorists must be punished, our people must be made safe. Yell that the ends justify the means.

If you can handle the justified anger, of those who have been wronged, while you ethically pursue the offenders, then you should be in charge. The means to an end will be of the utmost importance. The worthy end being that no more innocent lives are lost in capturing or killing the terrorists.   

It is a crime to kill someone unless it is self-defense. It should be a war crime to knowingly kill innocent civilians. The ethical answers are very simple, unless you do not want to hear the answers. Then it is best to make the questions more difficult. Make the questions more emotional and convoluted. I know that what is wrong on a personal level is wrong on a national level. I know that my pity does not go to the state of Israel or Hamas. It goes to the Israeli and Palestinian people who die, who are maimed, who are terrorized by a conflict that they have no control over. If you are not armed, you are not a combatant. If you knowingly kill a non-combatant, you cannot justify it.