Hi E@N,
I hope you enjoyed today’s talk.
Ambassador Eikenberry, drawing upon his own experiences in Afghanistan, talked about the tough ethical decisions that a military and diplomatic leader has to make.
I think there are at least two ethical questions that you might think about for this blog response. The first question is a very practical one, and one that was brought into sharp focus with Ambassador Eikenberry’s example of the platoon leader. In short, American forces were in a deadlock with Taliban forces, and a few meters away from the American position were two corpses of enemy soldiers. The 110 degree weather quickly started decaying the corpses. Nevermind the smell and the horrific view– the corpses became health hazards. The platoon leader thus decided to burn the corpses. There was a journalist who captured that in video, and suddenly, the video was all over the news. And indeed, Ambassador Eikenberry told us that the platoon leader clearly violated the rules. So there’s public outrage in the States, in Afghanistan, and around the world. As a leader, you certainly need to take that into account. But you also need to take the institution’s integrity into consideration, as well as your authority within the institution (indeed, you should remain an effective leader), and your personal moral judgment about the act. Taking that (and any other issues you think are relevant) into account, what do you do?
The second question is more theoretical– indeed, it might be viewed as a question about democracy at large. So it’s a hard question to answer in a blog response, but it is certainly worth thinking about. Start with the idea that central to democracy is open political discussion about the toughest of issues– issues about which, among other things, people have passionate disagreements. As a citizen of a democratic society, then, you are a participant in that nation-wide political discussion, both as a speaker and as a listener. What moral duties, if any, do you have as such a participant? As a speaker, do you have the right to say just about anything you want, as long as it is a genuine opinion of yours, and as long as it is political in nature? Are you, for example, allowed to say things that are terribly offensive and perhaps even uncivil? As a listener, do you have the obligation to listen to, or at least to allow, anything that is said? Or are you, in certain cases, warranted in silencing the opinions of others?
I look forward to reading your thoughts– I always read them. These issues are very controversial, though, so do remember to be civil.
Thanks!
Albert Pak
The story about the platoon leader who decided to burn the corpses of two decaying Taliban soldiers was certainly thought provoking. My feeling about what happened was that the platoon leader was fulfilling his obligation to protect his troops, and given the lack of good alternatives, he chose the one that would pose the less risk of harm to his own men. If this incident had not been reported and perhaps inflated by the media, the soldiers in involved in the Gumbad incident would not have had to endure criticism and reprimanding. Thus, instead of taking a look at the actions of the U.S. soldiers who burned the bodies, I would like to think about the media involvement in this case and consider the ethics of wartime reporting. Through some searching, I found out that there were two journalists who were present during the burning. One of the journalists at least tried to present the facts objectively—the U.S. soldiers burned the bodies for hygiene reasons—and the other journalist was an anti-war activist who fueled the idea that those U.S. soldiers had done something purposely and fundamentally wrong:
“At the top of the hills above the village the soldiers have taken the tactics of psychological warfare to a grotesque and disturbing extreme. US soldiers have set fire to the bodies of the two Taliban killed the night before. The burning of the corpses and the fact that they’ve been laid out facing Mecca is a deliberate desecration of Muslim beliefs” (“Burning Taliban”).
So what is the role of a journalist during war? I would think that it would be to objectively present the facts. Given how misinterpreted information can so easily be blown out of proportion in the media, I think that journalists should be especially careful about how they report what is going on. They should try their best to remove biases from their reporting. If they do not do this, they are ultimately engaging in deception, which to me, is ethically unacceptable.
“Burning Taliban.” Blogcritics.org. Technorati, Inc, 23 Oct. 2005. Web. 06 May 2012. .
I found Ambassador Eikenberry’s talk to be an interesting insight into the moral dilemmas that faced the United States army in Afghanistan. Clearly, the issue of precedence is of particular importance. While it might be more practical to take certain measures which might be a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Conduct, it is essential for the United States to retain a higher moral if it wishes to justify the war on terror. On the issue of the burning of rotting corpses, I do not believe that the US army was at fault for violating any sort of burial custom. When at war, we cannot expect to put our soldiers in danger for such trivial matters. Furthermore, I doubt the Taliban forces would have hesitated to shoot our soldiers even if they were trying to do bury the bodies. Clearly, in war there is a need to be practical. If anything, the reporters were immoral for twisting the truth in such a way that demonized the American army. I am not saying that the US Army does not make mistakes. As the Ambassador mentioned in one of his later anecdotes, the US Army was wrong in an instance even when the evidence seemed irrefutable. However, it is important to note that it does its best to find the truth and report it before too many false rumors are spread. Such is the policy of the US Army, and I agree with Ambassador Eikenberry in that it helps the US cause in Afghanistan.
There was also a comment made at the end of class that challenged the moral judgment of the United States in its involvement in Afghanistan. While such a challenge might be brought against the War in Iraq, I cannot agree that it can be applied in Afghanistan. It is true that not everyone in Afghanistan is a terrorist and not everyone in the Taliban has the same moral values. However, there is a clear sense of the fact that Afghanistan was promulgating terrorist activity and that it would lead to a safer world if such activity were repressed. It must be noted that terrorists have not only been the bane of western countries. Civilians in the Middle East as well as in many other countries in the world have become victims of bombings and targeted attacks. Even if the cause of the Taliban were justified, the ways it conducted itself in instigating change are, for lack of a better word, inhumane.
When it comes to discussing issues of such sensitivity, we do need to be careful to be civil and courteous. I worry, however, that often people like to exploit the fact it is a sensitive issue to get away with defending a view that is at best misguided and at worst downright irrational. We shouldn’t let the fact that the issue evokes certain strong emotions to prevent us from justly criticizing views which do not stand up to a test of logical validity.
I tend to take the view that no one ever has the right to not be offended. The fact that some action offends your sensibilities or even your deepest held spiritual beliefs is not an adequate justification for society to proscribe that action.
A couple objections are usually given to this. First, people argue that certain actions or words can be incredibly offensive to someone’s entire culture. Moreover, they argue, these words are not necessarily protected under freedom of speech, since the words often have no political value whatsoever – in fact, the words are often said precisely because it is offensive and therefore is said for the sole purpose of offending. Surely such speech as this is not the type of speech we have in mind when we want to protect the right to free speech. An example might be the burning of Korans, which was planned by Terry Jones, a bigoted pastor from Florida. This action was done purely to offend, people will say, and therefore should not be afforded protection from the state. The problem with this argument is that it requires a purportedly objective evaluation of what is and what is not offensive. Moreover, it seems to allow anyone to claim that any action whatsoever can be offensive to them in some particular way, which seems to open to door to a situation which “invites every man to become a law unto himself”, to quote Justice Brandeis. If we are the prevent people from expressing their opinions, however hateful they are, the burden is on those who wish to suppress them that these opinions pose a real, material danger to society. That burden is not met by someone’s claim that they feel offended.
The second objection to unbridled free speech goes as follows: even if we don’t care about people getting offended per se, we should care if those that get offended become incredibly violent because of that offense, since this actually could create a real threat to society, which I mentioned was the burden I laid out above. This objection was most likely brought up in connection with the burning of the Taliban bodies by the US platoon. This event will anger the Taliban and other extremist groups, and could, therefore, incite more violence against innocent civilians. This objection I really do resent utterly, and I think it is a loathsome and cowardly argument. People seem to make it quite regularly, though, without taking much criticism for their views. Let us understand what they are saying though: they are basically arguing that we should be held hostage by those that profess hateful and vicious ideas; there is an insinuation in that argument that it is somehow the fault (or at least partly the fault) of the one who offended those that kill innocent civilians, that innocent civilians died. It is an argument whose sister is the one given by the Toronto police officer, who told women that they ought to avoid dressing like sluts in order to mitigate their chances of getting raped. It is an odious argument because it essentially blames the victim.
I agree entirely that we do not have the right not to be offended, because that would proscribe a duty on other people not to offend. Clearly we don’t have obligations to never offend people.
This whole free speech argument goes back to Hobbes’ war of all against all. If each individual member of the government were angels, I don’t think freedom would be a concept worth holding. I think that we recognize quite clearly that government leaders, police, soldiers, etc. are NOT angels, however. If we could have a perfect moral judge that would assure everyone was better off all the time, then of course it makes no sense to allow people to do whatever they want (freedom). We think freedom is in general a good idea because we are aware of the harm that can come about when governments are allowed to undermine or stop people from expressing their opinions. The consequence is that we accept certain bad uses of freedom (Westboro Baptist Church’s “protests” and misleading opportunistic journalists, for instance) because we think the alternative is too horrible (arbitrary sanctions imposed by people in government).
I suppose one way to prevent these kinds of moral dilemmas is for the “good guys” to have overwhelming military strength to the point where there are absolutely minimal risks.
As for the moral implications of allowing the Taliban to dictate other people’s actions with their threats, I have no clear answer. The argument can be made that giving in to their demands would make everyone worse off in the long run because it would embolden the Taliban.
I’m not sure that the State’s duty to prevent harm to people is somehow voided by the intentions of the victim. Simply because the victim intended to offend his physical aggressor, doesn’t make his protection less compelling.
I am worried that the moralistic fallacy is at play here in the rape example, however. Simply because the argument is unpleasant doesn’t mean it is false. The Toronto police officer was speaking at a crime prevention and safety talk and offered an excellent way to reduce the risk of rape – not dressing in a certain way (I am aware that the officer used the term slut).Evil men use violence to get what they want, regardless of the harm they cause: they ransom children, shoot liquor store cashiers for trivial amounts of money, and “kill strangers for their brand name athletic footwear.” This combined with the simple fact that many men desire to have sex with women who do not want to have sex with them results in the obvious implication that evil men will use violence to get sex. I agree that this is a horrible fact to behold, and while it is “odious” to think that a woman’s decision to wear what she wants would be undermined by this fact, it doesn’t follow that it is not good advice for reducing a woman’s risk of harm. This is not at all a mitigating factor for rapists. If I leave my window open and I am burglarized, it does not follow that the burglar had the right to burglarize me. But obviously in order to minimize my chance of being burglarized, I should take precautions to not be burglarized.
In response to the rotting corpse dilemma, I agree that a leader has responsibility to uphold the integrity of the situation of which he/she is a part of. However, this responsibility takes an abstract form since an institution is not tangible, nor does it reacts or reciprocates the leader’s actions. Yet a leader also has responsibility for the people he/she regulates; this interaction, in contrast, is person and direct. As Ambassador Eikenberry discussed, sometimes it is necessary for the leader to take the blame for the team. In the rotting corpse situation, for example, the biproducts of decomposition of human flesh poses immediate health risks for the soldiers and undermines the moral of the team. This case is a conflict of responsibility for the abstract institution and responsibility for the direct individual. If I were the leader, I would have done the same thing as what he did – although it is not idealistic to burn the corpse, not burning it would result in greater damage in terms of lost health, morale, and trust that are necessary for a group.
Another case form the talk that I found interesting was about the civilians moving in an organized line. It’s true that the leader should have done more investigation before ordering shooting, and he should have started the investigation without the assumption that an organized line necessarily is a Taliban group. However, under extreme stress and obligation to his troop, I can also see why he made the decision that he did. This case could also be viewed from an optimistic perspective – not all decisions stem from a morally challenging group as the case with the rotting corpse. This case of civilians moving in a line could have been easily avoided were the troops to do more research in the surrounding landscape beforehand. If they knew that only one narrow path exists, maybe they wouldn’t have jumped to conclusion so fast and shot the civilians down.
Regarding the question of what moral obligations one has as a participant of political discussion in a democratic society, I think as speakers, they have the duty to communicate their opinions in an constructive way; while as listeners, they the duty to truly listen to what has been said.
My impression of what caused problems is when speakers express their opinions in ways sole to provoke and offend their audience. This is an unfortunate fact we have to live with, but I would argue that the spirit of democracy is such that all opinions are to be heard, whether they are offensive to others or not, so that we may build a society that is representative of the populace. I think that there is a reason why offensive comments exist – it traces back to histories of conflicts and misunderstandings – and allowing that to be heard is one way to spot problems that are to be solved in the society. However, I do not support long-term unconstructive offensive comments. I think, rather, it is important to educate everyone participating in a discussion that they need to express their opinions in ways that are constructive to the betterment of the society. Instead of accusing the others, one would instead name the emotions one feels when something is done to them. This is constructive for the others because they would know what exactly can they work one in order to stop hurting the ones who feel mistreated. This is also where truly listening to all opinions and treating them with respect is important. It is usually far too easy for the victimizer to write off the opinions of the victims due to the, oftentimes, power imbalance. If we can get everyone participating in political discussions to be listening to the other and try to stand in the others’ shoes, I feel our society would have a lot more harmony and a lot less misunderstanding. That’s said, it is very hard to do and the trust is way too easy to be broken when just one person in the group doesn’t play nice and start hurting others.
While it seems that democracy is only true to its principles when everyone speaks and listens with respect – as there doesn’t seem to be a point in expressing one’s opinions if no one is really listening – it is not an easy matter to ensure the obligation of speaking and listening with respect is fulfilled. As mentioned, how do we as a society decide what is offensive for all the cases? And what is there to detect whether someone is actually listening?
What I was left with from the discussion was that Ambassador Eikenberry, in describing the ethical considerations of war time commander, was also describing the incentives of a war time commander in dealing with misconduct. He mentioned that a leader had to consider their own personal judgment of the misconduct, the mitigating circumstances, their judgment of the character and integrity of the people involved, and many others. The idea was that there were times when a leader had to protect soldiers under his command from punishment for misconduct due to some of these other considerations. He mentioned that by doing this, he was able to solidify the morale of the unit, establish trust that if soldiers were doing their best under difficult circumstances they would not be punished, and other such positive reinforcements.
It seemed clear that a commander has a duty to those under his lead, and it also seemed that a commander had a duty to the reputation of the institution he represented, and that it was through this duty to uphold the honor of the institution that the secondary duties to the civilians and enemy forces were expressed. It seemed like this was the central tension that a commander had to navigate. If they could get away with keeping misconduct out of the media, then there didn’t seem to be a need for severe punishment of misconduct. Or if there was a need for punishment, it was so that the soldiers understood that such action could harm the reputation of the institution in the future, and deter such actions. Even when the misconduct was widely known, sometimes Eikenberry seemed to see more benefit in protecting his soldiers from punishment in order to maintain interior group solidarity.
I am not trying to comment on whether the particular case of burning bodies was something that should have been punished, but simply questioning the framework of considerations. It seems like if the two major considerations are the REPUTATION of the institution (which is different than the actual behavior of the institution) and the duty of fairness to the troops under your command, that in general a commander is looking to do what’s right for their own, either at an institutional level or an individual level. Even maintaining the reputation of institution seemed to be framed as an issue of soldier safety as much as anything else, because misconduct could lead to increased violence against soldiers.
If the duty to people outside of the military is not seen as a primary duty, but only a secondary duty involved in the primary duty to the military, it seems difficult for duty to the occupied country (civilians and enemy combatants) not to get short changed. I just wondered if the framework, as I understood it, captured the full duties of a commander when it came to dealing with misconduct. Do you not also have a duty to the enemy combatants and civilians, even if in fulfilling it mars your institution’s reputation and/or is detrimental to your soldiers and interior solidarity and effectiveness?
One thing I missed from the presentation was the complete justification regarding the burning of the dead rotting corpses; Eikenberry mentioned that the American forces tried to reason a deal with the Afghan army to extract the bodies and have them buried elsewhere. When that deal was offered, it implied the bodies were indeed removable, which leads me to question why the United States could not have buried the bodies themselves when the Afghan Army refused. It would have certainly been less convenient, but a more appropriate way of removing the imminent health problem I can only guess the platoon leader expected.
The fact is this: during war, one fighting side is not to desecrate the remains of enemy troops, whether it be by burning, mutilating, etc. Although it has been argued above that in this particular situation, the bodies posed a direct threat to the American troops, I question whether the platoon leader did everything possible to uphold the established standards of appropriate wartime behavior. The United States holds great respect in the honorable manner our troops are expected to behave, which I believe is a great thing for the nation. So inherently, the platoon leader’s action was debated, which I believe it was not only appropriate, but necessary; if these types of things are often and easily pardoned, the forgiveness of inappropriate actions has the potential of becoming a very slippery slope, which could snowball into a whole range of acceptance of wartime atrocities.
Additionally, an interesting comment was made by Eikenberry that I deeply question. He mentioned something along these lines: the biggest mistake that the platoon leader made was burning the bodies while in the presence of a reporter , and that normally no one would think twice about that particular action. This is a dangerous road to go down, and is precisely why I wish there were more reporters to photograph the truths of war. No matter if a body is burned while captured by film for the world to see, or is burned in front of private eyes, it is still wrong to burn bodies. Period. Again, I understand that exigent circumstances exist in which it is pardonable to bend the rules, which is why if the platoon leader’s judgment was justifiable, he will not be punished for his behavior.
I’d like to start off by responding to a view points Marcia asserted. First off, I believe Karl Eikenberry commented that the position of the Afghani bodies were in the line of direct fire between the two opposing positions. To take the bodies, clearly a respectable and ethical decision, would have been optimal, but not at the potential danger exposed to American troops, which seems to have been the case. This also brings up a point that I found interesting, that at which point does one have a bigger obligation to one’s country and countrymen than to ethical actions? Karl Eikenberry talked a lot about the weighing of decisions and how the choice to sweep house (or an individual leader who acted dishonorably) might have greater ramifications than dealing with the issue internally. The point was made in an earlier post that an institution is not tangible nor does it act as a cohesive unit, and I would then interject, respectively, that I slightly disagree. I believe that as individuals as a part of an institution have an obligation to uphold the ethical standards that make it stand as a whole. The people in this organization need to be held accountable, however, human nature is flawed in nature and cannot always be expected to act in accordance with perfect ethical behavior. We can, however, respond to these situations on a case by case basis and help set standards that not only leaders can uphold, but the people that work under them, to help keep the institution solid.
In a perfect world, we would all act ethically and humanely, but this isn’t the case and so we react in ways to maximize our ethical implications. I really liked how Karl Eikenberry summed up three opposing questions to ask when looking at ethical issues in war crises: What are your obligations to your subordinates/team? What is the precedent you are setting by making exceptions? How are you impacting the reputation of the organization? I completely adhere to the first two questions, but I can’t seem to agree with the last. When does the reputation of the organization (and eventually, yourself as a leader), overwhelm the duty to act ethically and responsive to every situation. Protecting the integrity of the organization can sometimes come with the price, and that’s ironically integrity itself. I’m not sure where we can draw the line, but I don’t believe that the reputation of an organization can often outweigh the duty to yourself, your country, and to others to act honestly and equitably.