Israel Should Ignore the Protests to Fulfill Them

[fight4thefuture]

Julian,

I believe we are on the same page. Sorry if it seemed like I jumped down your throat. I was lambasting the words, not the person. Of course it would have been far better if I had asked if my understanding of your meaning was correct.

I did make a distinction above between pro-Israeli propaganda and pro-Israeli reporting. I imagined this was clear, but I could have been clearer.

As to my reasoning in itself, I stand by it.

EDIT: My post crossed with several here. I second Barbara's interest.

Michael

No worries.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As I watch the Israeli invasion of Gaza unfold, I feel Israel is doing it exactly right. Everything indicates Israel will do a very good job of taking Hamas out and I, for one, am here on the sidelines rooting for Israel.

Now I wonder if Israel will make at least a token gesture of maintaining the victory that is within sight. If the Nazi party can be outlawed, I see no reason that a political party within a controlled area that promotes the abolition of Israel cannot be outlawed.

I don't know if Hamas is outlawed in Israel, but the fact that it could be elected to power in a controlled territory, whether outlawed or not, bodes ill for the wisdom of Israeli politics. Israel needs to abolish Hamas and outlaw it. Let there be no doubt that this is what Hamas wishes for Israel. Much worse, actually.

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

"Thank god for small favors. Remind me again why this should bother anyone? Who granted whom unconditional self-rule in that territory, and who continued lobbing unprovked missiles at civilian targets.

Thank god for small favors. "

Ok I'll try to remind you why it should bother someone....25% of those 430 casulties are civilians about 107. These people aren't the same ones who launched the rockets into Israel. It is called being innocent of a crime and being killed.

Does that remind you?

War is Hell. The full responsibility for every death (Israeli soldiers are no less people than Palestinian children) lies squarely on the shoulders of Hamas, the popular government of Gaza. Only when the Gazans realize that their policy means death for themselves will they, perhaps, stop. So, since the Gazans began this, I find it quite proportionate and unlamentable that they bear all the suffering. As for the innocent children dying, I do not celebrate them, as innocent children, dying. But if that is a concern of yours, take it up with Hamas, not me.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The full responsibility for every death (Israeli soldiers are no less people than Palestinian children) lies squarely on the shoulders of Hamas, the popular government of Gaza.

Ted,

This is a position widely held and promoted by ARI. I don't buy it.

I don't think the deaths of innocents in war are the moral responsibility of anyone, unless a person purposefully kills innocents for the purpose of exterminating them. Innocents get killed in war because they get in the way of people intent on killing each other (armed forces). That's an unfortunate fact of reality, but no morality will stop that from happening. You get in the way, you get killed.

With morality, you can be reasonable and try to avoid unnecessary innocent deaths, but you cannot impede them. Nor should morality excuse them as if innocent life is at the moral disposal of others.

I also don't think "war" is one thing only with only one set of oversimplified rules. Once people opt for resolving an issue by violence, all morality is out the window and all hell breaks loose. The strongest one wins and that's that. You don't kill an enemy because it is moral to do so. You kill him to beat him and win a war.

There are all kinds of contexts that arise in war and killing innocents in one instance could be stark evil, while in another an unfortunate necessity. Instead of moral or immoral, the issue should be whether important military goals are advanced, or whether the killing is senseless and sadistic.

When two choices are horrible, trying to blame someone else does not make either choice less horrible, nor does it wipe from reality the fact that one person killed another. There is no moral right to kill innocents and the horribleness does not wash off with verbal tricks.

If I had to choose to kill innocents in war to take out an important military target who was using them as a shield, I would do so without hesitation once the choice becomes reasonably clear, but boy would I hate that target, much more than normal, for doing that and placing that choice before me. I would not feel total indifference toward the dead innocents I killed and say, "It's all his fault." I would feel bad. Real bad. I would kill them to get that target but I certainly would not feel moral about their deaths.

I use morality to choose values, i.e., gains, not choose losses. I especially do not use my morality to justify the death of innocent others.

Innocent deaths happen in war whether I want them to or not. They do not have to be moral to happen and all anyone can to is the best he can in the immoral situation before him at the time.

As Rand stated (albeit in a different context), "Morality ends where a gun begins."

Is it moral to go to war? Sure, depending on the context. You have to protect yourself and your values. Once war is underway, is it appropriate to apply civilized morality to battles? What morality? Those suckers are trying to kill us and we them. There is no morality anymore. You have to stop them and beat them. In that context, in terms of action, I am more aligned with Bob Kolker than anyone else, albeit not as bloodthirsty. I opt for incapacitating the enemy, then killing him if that didn't work, which I believe is the blessing bellic technology has given us.

But in terms of morality, if my own moral compass is at play with my own acts, I would feel I did a despicable thing if I killed innocents. I might understand that it was necessary to prevent something more despicable, but I would still feel that my killing of innocents was a terrible thing. I would never want to do that again.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The full responsibility for every death (Israeli soldiers are no less people than Palestinian children) lies squarely on the shoulders of Hamas, the popular government of Gaza.

Ted,

This is a position widely held and promoted by ARI. I don't buy it.

I don't think the deaths of innocents in war are the moral responsibility of anyone, unless a person purposefully kills innocents for the purpose of exterminating them. Innocents get killed in war because they get in the way of people intent on killing each other (armed forces). That's an unfortunate fact of reality, but no morality will stop that from happening. You get in the way, you get killed.

With morality, you can be reasonable and try to avoid unnecessary innocent deaths, but you cannot impede them. Nor should morality excuse them as if innocent life is at the moral disposal of others.

I also don't think "war" is one thing only with only one set of oversimplified rules. Once people opt for resolving an issue by violence, all morality is out the window and all hell breaks loose. The strongest one wins and that's that. You don't kill an enemy because it is moral to do so. You kill him to beat him and win a war.

There are all kinds of contexts that arise in war and killing innocents in one instance could be stark evil, while in another an unfortunate necessity. Instead of moral or immoral, the issue should be whether important military goals are advanced, or whether the killing is senseless and sadistic.

When two choices are horrible, trying to blame someone else does not make either choice less horrible, nor does it wipe from reality the fact that one person killed another. There is no moral right to kill innocents and the horribleness does not wash off with verbal tricks.

If I had to choose to kill innocents in war to take out an important military target who was using them as a shield, I would do so without hesitation once the choice becomes reasonably clear, but boy would I hate that target, much more than normal, for doing that and placing that choice before me. I would not feel total indifference toward the dead innocents I killed and say, "It's all his fault." I would feel bad. Real bad. I would kill them to get that target but I certainly would not feel moral about their deaths.

I use morality to choose values, i.e., gains, not choose losses. I especially do not use my morality to justify the death of innocent others.

Innocent deaths happen in war whether I want them to or not. They do not have to be moral to happen and all anyone can to is the best he can in the immoral situation before him at the time.

As Rand stated (albeit in a different context), "Morality ends where a gun begins."

Is it moral to go to war? Sure, depending on the context. You have to protect yourself and your values. Once war is underway, is it appropriate to apply civilized morality to battles? What morality? Those suckers are trying to kill us and we them. There is no morality anymore. You have to stop them and beat them. In that context, in terms of action, I am more aligned with Bob Kolker than anyone else, albeit not as bloodthirsty. I opt for incapacitating the enemy, then killing him if that didn't work, which I believe is the blessing bellic technology has given us.

But in terms of morality, if my own moral compass is at play with my own acts, I would feel I did a despicable thing if I killed innocents. I might understand that it was necessary to prevent something more despicable, but I would still feel that my killing of innocents was a terrible thing. I would never want to do that again.

Michael

This is a mismash. If you aren't on the right side of a war you are on the wrong side. That one thinks he is on the right side doesn't make it so. When AR said "Morality ends where a gun begins" she was referring to the gun on the wrong side, not the gun on the right side.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

One doesn't target innocents if one is moral, one targets the SOBs behind the innocents or next to them. When the SOBs realize that the innocents offer no protection they will stop using them for that unless they think it'll have propaganda value. If that in turn doesn't work that will make the innocents much safer in the context of the overall context of the war they are in. That is why one innocent killed today means 1000 won't be killed tomorrow. War is hell. You cannot refine it. (Sherman.) The real trick is to avoid the war in the first place.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

One must realize the vastly different contexts of war and peace.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's a thought I want to add in terms of personal responsibility.

I am so committed to my ownership of my own moral compass that I find it repugnant to say another person is the moral reason I must kill a third party.

No.

If I killed an innocent person to get a military target, I chose to do it according to my own judgment at the time, which would have been military, not moral. It certainly would not have happened because of any sanctimonious attitude that the life of the person I killed belonged to another person (the enemy target) and I took it from that person (the enemy target), not from the innocent person I killed. I took the innocent person's life from him and I chose to do it. Nobody else made that choice for me.

I want the right to say I chose to do something terrible on purpose for the reasons I chose at the time.

I want the right to say that I did something despicable to eradicate something even more despicable.

I want the right to condemn what I did qua act and dream of a society where despicable acts are not considered proper for human life.

I will not give any blanket moral power over my life to another person or group. I am not a puppet. "I was only following orders" when I killed innocents is for Nazis. The line from here to "the moral responsibility for the deaths of all innocents in war belongs to the enemy" is a very fine one.

"I was capturing and/or killing an enemy at war and those innocents got in the way" is what I would want to say to myself.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Here's a thought I want to add in terms of personal responsibility.

I am so committed to my ownership of my own moral compass that I find it repugnant to say another person is the moral reason I must kill a third party.

No.

If I killed an innocent person to get a military target, I chose to do it according to my own judgment at the time, which would have been military, not moral. It certainly would not have happened because of any sanctimonious attitude that the life of the person I killed belonged to another person (the enemy target) and I took it from that person (the enemy target), not from the innocent person I killed. I took the innocent person's life from him and I chose to do it. Nobody else made that choice for me.

I want the right to say I chose to do something terrible on purpose for the reasons I chose at the time.

I want the right to say that I did something despicable to eradicate something even more despicable.

I want the right to condemn what I did qua act and dream of a society where despicable acts are not considered proper for human life.

I will not give any blanket moral power over my life to another person or group. I am not a puppet. "I was only following orders" when I killed innocents is for Nazis. The line from here to "the moral responsibility for the deaths of all innocents in war belongs to the enemy" is a very fine one.

"I was capturing and/or killing an enemy at war and those innocents got in the way" is what I would want to say to myself.

Michael

This bifurcation of "military" and "moral" is uncalled for. You are saying the atomic bomb was not dropped on Hiroshima for moral reasons. Then you must be saying that Hitler wasn't immoral for warring against the Jews and killing them.

[Barbara Branden]

Michael, your post is very confusing, and I'm not at all certain of your meaning. One question is: does a nation at war have the moral right to kill innocents when to do so is an unavoidable result of protecting itself? Another is: if innocents are killed in such a context, is that not the moral responsibility of those who started the war and thereby placed innocent lives in danger? My answer to each of these questions is "Yes" -- but you seem to saying both yes and to each.

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

Here's a thought I want to add in terms of personal responsibility.

I am so committed to my ownership of my own moral compass that I find it repugnant to say another person is the moral reason I must kill a third party.

No.

If I killed an innocent person to get a military target, I chose to do it according to my own judgment at the time, which would have been military, not moral. It certainly would not have happened because of any sanctimonious attitude that the life of the person I killed belonged to another person (the enemy target) and I took it from that person (the enemy target), not from the innocent person I killed. I took the innocent person's life from him and I chose to do it. Nobody else made that choice for me.

I want the right to say I chose to do something terrible on purpose for the reasons I chose at the time.

I want the right to say that I did something despicable to eradicate something even more despicable.

I want the right to condemn what I did qua act and dream of a society where despicable acts are not considered proper for human life.

I will not give any blanket moral power over my life to another person or group. I am not a puppet. "I was only following orders" when I killed innocents is for Nazis. The line from here to "the moral responsibility for the deaths of all innocents in war belongs to the enemy" is a very fine one.

"I was capturing and/or killing an enemy at war and those innocents got in the way" is what I would want to say to myself.

Michael

Just a minute. You are saying it wasn't moral to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. I could have done that. You are saying it wasn't immoral to kill civilians at My Lai. I couldn't have done that. You are saying morality is not objectifiable. If the enemy marches forward to your doom protected by innocent hostages you do not do something "despicable" when you kill the hostages to kill that enemy.

--Brant

Edited January 7, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Brant Gaede]

It's sad, disgusting and interesting that when I didn't know the correct spelling of "My Lai" in the previous post of mine I looked up "Vietnam atrocity" and the first 20 hits were American atrocities. The atrocities of the communists in South Vietnam were much, much worse and more numerous than the American and South Vietnamese. The Israelis are right now getting the same essential treatment.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

My position is that once war starts, there are no moral rights anymore. Why pretend there is morality when no choice is possible, or the choice is between kill or be killed, or kill innocents to get the killers?

There is humanitarian concern for the innocents and that might be akin to morality. But to answer your questions, I think it stretches morality to the breaking point to justify killing innocents as a blanket righteous act.

The best I can say after a great deal of reflection is that it is not immoral to kill innocents and that killing innocents is contextual. Morality has very little to do with what I have read so far about the innocents killed in wars. Usually either they were in the way between fighting sides or a soldier snapped and went berserk.

Does that enraged soldier have a moral right to kill them? Or is it moral to condemn him? What if he just came off a battlefield and saw enough to make his mind snap?

Or the innocents in the way? How is a social construction where one set of people have moral rights, another set have moral faults, and another set have not rights or faults, but serve both sides by giving up their lives? In my view, morality is out the window there. Human life has become a non-value.

I think a war has to be won by moral people against bullies so morality can exist in society, but the state of war is not a moral state. It is a state of acting by force. Morality does not exist so that wars can be fought. Socially it exists to lay the foundation for freedom and individual rights.

You stand up to bullies because they give you no choice. You do not stand up to them because it is the good life to go about looking for them so you can do so.

(EDIT: This post crossed with Brant's.)

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You are saying it wasn't moral to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. I could have done that.

Brant,

To be clear, I am not saying it was moral or immoral. It helped win the war with the lowest loss of life, resources and time. So it was the best among some terrible choices.

I could have done that, too. And I would have had I been in the service and on the mission. But I would have felt terrible afterward.

The world has tried to avoid that horror ever since. Now that has been one of mankind's better moral choices.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

I have further thoughts.

One question is: does a nation at war have the moral right to kill innocents when to do so is an unavoidable result of protecting itself?

When you open this line of thinking in terms of morality, you also invite the enemy to do so. I could say that such morality applies to all innocents in war, so long they were the innocents of the enemy side. I don't think the enemy would agree. But if he adopted that kind of thinking and flipped it over, our innocents morally become fair game to him.

I'll stay with the present mentality in the world that killing innocents needs to be avoided where possible and needless slaughter of innocents is seen as a war crime.

Another is: if innocents are killed in such a context, is that not the moral responsibility of those who started the war and thereby placed innocent lives in danger?

I have addressed what I think about the moral responsibility above, but there is something here I do want to address. The "who started it" standard.

Starting hostilities is only one element. Continuing and/or escalating hostilities, or even joining in later, is the other part. I don't think it matters so much who starts it. What matters is whether one side wants to enslave the other and conquer it by force and won't stop.

These people are bullies whether they started it or not. Once they are fighting, they need to be put down. Even if it involves killing innocents. To me, that is not exercising morality. It is fighting so morality can exist. (Morality being a code of values to guide man's choices.) I don't see morality (in this context, meaning a rational morality) having a chance on earth while they are bullying.

So I do not like the idea of using "who started it" as a moral license to kill innocent people. Killing innocents is an unavoidable necessity during war. But it is not a moral right. I can't honestly believe otherwise.

Killing an innocent person is not a value and does not belong to any rational code of values I know of.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

You are saying it wasn't moral to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. I could have done that.

Brant,

To be clear, I am not saying it was moral or immoral. It helped win the war with the lowest loss of life, resources and time. So it was the best among some terrible choices.

I could have done that, too. And I would have had I been in the service and on the mission. But I would have felt terrible afterward.

The world has tried to avoid that horror ever since. Now that has been one of mankind's better moral choices.

Michael

I'm saying it was moral. I would not have felt terrible afterward. Especially after Japan surrendered and that was that with the killing and destruction. I would not have felt good. It would have been a life-long burden. But I would have thought of all the soldiers and airmen who did not survive to feel "terrible" afterwards. I would have thought of all the Japanese, millions, who did not die because Japan did not surrender. When I joined the army I enlisted to go to photographers' school, but in basic training I was seduced into Special Forces. One and the basic reason: A soldier didn't count for much for me unless he was on the front lines and was willing to put his life on the line and kill or be killed. This was right before the Vietnam War. It was still the peacetime army, but SF was fighting, somewhere, and I was willing to fight, especially communists. And so I did. Was it immoral or non-moral to fight and kill Nazis? I don't know about you, but I could kill German Nazis in WWII all day and all night and morally too boot. It would have been immoral not to if a soldier given a chance. One does know why the Nazis were immoral (EVIL) and why the allies were moral (good and virtuous) does not one? Objectivism is not relativism. The fact that one is a Nazi and thinks he is moral and on the side of the angels doesn't make it so. One ends up shooting Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

--Brant

Edited January 7, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

It's probably more semantics than anything else, but when you say, "I would not have felt good. It would have been a life-long burden," I don't call that a result of morality proper. That's a result of surviving a horrible choice.

You even mentioned the trade-off of thinking about the people who might have been killed. But it's a mental trade-off to bear the burden, not a value to be pursued in your normal life. To me, morality comes after that.

Maybe a special category of morality for standing up to bullies (whether in war or otherwise) can be written up.

Speaking of Nazis, in your idea of the morality of killing them all day and night, does that extend to the large number of high ranking Nazis who put their lives on the line to try to kill Hitler? Say, Claus von Stauffenberg, just to cite an example currently popular because of the Cruise movie.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Michael, in my view of morality, there are few actions superior to destroying a dictatorship that has killed or enslaved untold numbers of innocent people and intends to kill or enslave still more. It was not a morally neutral act to stop and destroy Hitler, or to cause the fall of communism and the concomitant release from slavery of millions of East Europeans.

You wrote, about dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, "I am not saying it was moral or immoral. It helped win the war with the lowest loss of life, resources and time. So it was the best among some terrible choices."

I don't understand how-- in the context you yourself set up -- you can consider it morally neutral to help win the war with the lowest loss of life. Think about te alternative. Would you have thought Truman should not have been morally condemned if, convinced it would save hundreds of thousands of American lives, he had nevertheless refused to use the bomb? Yes, it was a terrible choice that he had to make, but is was the right -- the morally right -- choice.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

I agree with you about the morality of destroying bloody dictatorships. My problem lies with destroying innocents who are in the way and calling that a moral thing to do.

The day you become the end for someone else's means, you would protest. And rightly so. But the day you put the life of an innocent person on the table as the means to your own end, even if it is a just end like ending a bloody dictatorship, you cannot tell that person that his death is is the moral thing for you to do.

It is a tragic horrible act. Even if it is a necessary act to choose the least of two negatives. But not a moral act.

Maybe dropping the bomb on innocents is the moral thing to do for us to win a war or overcome a dictator (that being the value), but I doubt the innocents about to die would feel that way. Our morality is their death. That's why I say morality is out the window. And if you were one of those innocents, would you consider it moral to die for the cause of another, or would you prefer to see if there were some other alternative? Would you be comforted by the fact that your upcoming death at the hands of X really was the fault of Y?

I can't see that in any way but playing with words.

I say Truman's decision was the correct thing to do in the context he was in. I do not say that killing all those innocent people was a morally good thing to do.

That would makes the life of one innocent person morally inferior to the life of another, maybe because of numbers. You kill one innocent person to save 100 innocent persons. I don't know how to live with that standard and call that morality. At the present in Objectivist ethics, either the individual human life is the standard of morality or you get collectivism, where collective human lives are that standard. Sacrificing one life for the greater good of more lives, then blaming it on someone else, doesn't sit well on my ear as a moral standard.

Yaron Brook in his essay on just war went so far as to say being concerned with the enemy's innocent people is immoral because it makes the soldier pull his punches. That attitude trivializes individual life so much that I literally became sickened when I read it.

To me killing an innocent person in war a terrible choice and I cannot in good conscious condemn a man who makes a choice I would not make in that situation as immoral. I can call him an ineffective warrior or some other things, but not immoral.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Barbara,

I agree with you about the morality of destroying bloody dictatorships. My problem lies with destroying innocents who are in the way and calling that a moral thing to do.

Some degree of collateral bloodshed and "friendly fire" are unavoidable. The death of innocent folk is one of the infelicities of modern warfare. Since armies do not meet on battle fields located out of town and destroying civilian capacity that aids the enemy is a requirement of victory there will be collateral damage. Remember if the enemy started it , every death of an innocent is blood on -his- hands, not ours. If the enemy does not care about his own, why should we?

If the U.S. had refrained from bombing enemy cities, WW2 would have gone on another two are three years. Our own troops would have been killed and maimed in greater numbers. If we had not nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki we would have had to invade Japan. Judging from the fanatical defense of Okinowah we would have suffer between a half million and million casualties of our own. Eventually we would have had to gas the Japanese and this would have lead to an additional ten million deaths on their side (not that it matters, mind you). So killing babies in their cribs actually led to smaller casualty counts. That is the way the world works. Fecum sunt. Evil is steady state and good happens every now and again.

Recall also that a war is an emergency and in an emergency the usual ethical and moral rules are casualties de guerre and hors de combat. As W.T. Sherman said -war is all hell-. There is nothing nice or good about it. Bad people make it necessary for good people to do dreadful things. Getting all tearful and sentimental over it will not save a single life nor will it bring victory.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Speaking of Nazis, in your idea of the morality of killing them all day and night, does that extend to the large number of high ranking Nazis who put their lives on the line to try to kill Hitler? Say, Claus von Stauffenberg, just to cite an example currently popular because of the Cruise movie.

I was only speaking of the Nazis between me (American soldiers) and Hitler (end of war) in Berlin. If one was Claus how would I know? This also applies to the non-Nazi German soldiers. This is not lining up prisoners of war and machine gunning them. Some bombing choices, especially toward the end of the war, were of dubious value and questionable morality such as Dresden. I am not bloodthirsty. In the context of a battlefield you are literally killing so you aren't killed.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Morally right is not necessarily the same as morally good. What Truman did was morally right, but not good. The results were good in that they ended the war. They were bad in that two cities and their populations were destroyed. Here "right" involves both concepts "good" and "bad."

One must of course know the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. In WWII the Americans were the good guys and the Germans the bad guys.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

I was only speaking of the Nazis between me (American soldiers) and Hitler (end of war) in Berlin. If one was Claus how would I know? This also applies to the non-Nazi German soldiers. This is not lining up prisoners of war and machine gunning them. Some bombing choices, especially toward the end of the war, were of dubious value and questionable morality such as Dresden. I am not bloodthirsty. In the context of a battlefield you are literally killing so you aren't killed.

--Brant

Dresden was a kosher military target. It was defended by anti-aircraft canon and it was a marshaling and manufacturing center for the Nazi war machine.

Unlike you, I am bloodthirsty. The same way W.T.Sherman was bloodthirsty. In a war, one fights to win by whatever means suffice. The end (victory) justifies any means that bring victory about.

Part of my youth was spent helping to make weapons of mass destruction as well as tactical weapons. I am not the least bit ashamed of the deaths my brainchildren caused. In fact I cherish each one with pride. They killed my enemies and yours.

If the Bad guys did not start wars, then Good Guys, like me and you, would not have to do dreadful things.

Here is what Wm. T. Sherman had to say:

" E.E. Rawson and S.C. Wells, representing City Council of Atlanta.

Gentleman: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the cause, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes in inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufacturers, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such things at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.

You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride. "

Learn from the Master. The man who invented Modern War.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Remember if the enemy started it , every death of an innocent is blood on -his- hands, not ours.

Bob,

I don't remember that. And I don't agree with it for the reasons I gave.

I find the trivialization of human life appalling.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Remember if the enemy started it , every death of an innocent is blood on -his- hands, not ours.

Bob,

I don't remember that. And I don't agree with it for the reasons I gave.

I find the trivialization of human life appalling.

I agree, but Bob's brain misses some necessary connections. For instance: "every death ... is on -his- hands" is true, but not necessarily "not ours." As a soldier on the good side I don't have the right to rape and murder. I might have to kill a civilian to get at the enemy but not break into a farmhouse, say, and bayonet a baby. That would be a war crime and I should be hung. Bob simply doesn't imagine any good guys doing that, I strongly suspect, so he makes his too broad a statement. In Vietnam I was constantly aware of the status of the civilians who surrounded me. Once in frustration after an exhausting slog of a patrol--hours walking through water almost up to my knees--I wanted to throw a grenade into a canal I was so angry. I even had the damn thing in my hand. Then I calmed myself down. Putt-putt-putt, a boat full of people went by.

--Brant