Ethical Challenges of the War in Afghanistan

Introduction

After ten years of fighting in Afghanistan, military leaders still face significant ethical challenges. Because of the difficulties associated with waging an unconventional war, military practices and preparations have not evolved to provide sufficient ethical training for personnel deployed in Afghanistan. This essay explores ethical questions that remain unresolved even after a war prosecuted for more than a decade.

Unresolved Ethical Issues

Many ethical issues related to warfare, conventional and otherwise, have never been fully resolved. For example, there is a widely held belief that all people have a basic, prima facie right not to be killed. Even so — and this belief is by no means universally held — that right may be forfeited when someone willfully threatens the lives of innocent people. Put another way, soldiers and police are empowered to kill those who threaten innocent lives. It logically follows that when such killing can be justified, nations and societies may proactively train and equip professional warriors prepared to defend them with force. These assumptions create the basis for Just War theory (Perry, 2004), a doctrine of military ethics that has been used to analyze the war in Afghanistan.

However just a war may be judged, there are moral risks inherent in training officers and soldiers "to be effective killers" (Perry, 2004) that create a genuine moral dilemma. It is accepted that discipline in obeying orders is required to develop soldiers effective in pursuit of military objectives; but what if soldiers are ordered to do something immoral, such as shoot prisoners? Commanders also face a dilemma when it is necessary to invoke soldiers' rage to heighten their motivation to fight in circumstances that would normally inspire overwhelming fear. That same rage which keeps them alive in combat also makes them unlikely to show mercy to civilians or to enemy soldiers who may wish to surrender. Perry argues that soldiers need not be encouraged to hate the enemy in order to be effective in combat, and further argues that soldiers must be "allowed and encouraged to disobey immoral orders" (Perry, 2004).

With respect to police actions, the question arises as to how serious a government's abuse of its citizens' human rights must be before other countries are justified in intervening militarily. Another ethical issue concerns the treatment of suspected Al Qaeda members known to kill noncombatants indiscriminately: should they be treated as criminal suspects, as prisoners of war, or as something else entirely? Under what circumstances does rigorous interrogation of suspected terrorists equate to torture? Is torturing suspected terrorists morally justified to prevent mass murder? In theory, the answer may be yes, because a known terrorist has arguably forfeited his right not to be tortured. In reality, however, this practice risks the torture of innocent people given that the interrogator may lack sufficient evidence to confirm a suspect's guilt. A closely related issue arises if the United States, as a nation, trains or authorizes soldiers to torture — for then it cannot be morally distinguished from the terrorists it opposes. Likewise, if the United States sends prisoners to other countries known for their use of torture, culpability for what happens to those prisoners cannot be denied. All such practices contribute to "undermining respect around the world for conventions against torture" (Perry, 2004).

Determining the number of civilian deaths that have occurred during the war in Afghanistan presents yet another moral dilemma. Too often, U.S. leaders have been quick to blame insurgents or the Taliban, thereby failing to establish an accurate count that might reflect badly on the war effort. A further ethical dilemma arises from the question of how much risk soldiers should expose themselves to in order to minimize harm to civilians living near combat zones or being used as human shields. These are just a sampling of the questions provoked by the war in Afghanistan for which there are no clear-cut answers, even after a decade of conflict.

The Moral Challenges of Unconventional War

In June 2005, four SEAL team members on a reconnaissance mission were discovered by two Afghan men and a 14-year-old boy herding goats. The SEAL team was reluctant to kill three civilians to protect their cover, so they released them and changed positions. Nevertheless, they were soon attacked by nearly 100 Taliban fighters. Three of the four SEALs were killed, along with 16 Special Forces volunteers who died when their helicopter was shot down during a rescue attempt. The lone survivor blamed himself for all of the losses as a result of his unit's decision to protect noncombatants. Whether they were correct to enforce the rule protecting noncombatants is still hotly debated (Lucas, 2008).

This incident highlights the moral dilemma that military personnel face without adequate preparation for the decisions required in unconventional warfare. Today's military forces are deployed by their governments to "undertake internationally sanctioned missions…fighting wholly unconventional wars to interdict terrorists, halt humanitarian atrocities, or restore stability, peace and the rule of law in failed states" (Lucas, 2009, p. 337). According to George R. Lucas, such issues must be confronted and discussed openly in order to adequately prepare military personnel for the responsibilities they must face.

Lucas argues that in the decades of disillusionment following the Vietnam War, the topic of ethics was sorely neglected by the military profession and by academics in civilian universities. This neglect stems from the fact that unconventional wars do not employ the usual strategy and tactics. In fact, they are not wars in the traditional sense at all, but rather police actions, marked by the kind of legal and moral ambiguity that cannot be informed by "the conventional rules of war or by the provisions of the classical Just War Tradition" (Lucas, 2009, p. 340) or any of its arguments.

It is entirely likely that, for the foreseeable future, unconventional war will be the predominant form of armed conflict. Present and future warriors must therefore be prepared in advance to face the moral dilemmas and ethical challenges such wars entail. The United States must confront the moral responsibility of educating the men and women charged with keeping the peace, "protect[ing] the human rights of vulnerable peoples throughout the world, and defend[ing] the rule of law" (Lucas, 2008, p. 342).

Conclusion

This essay explored the ethics of war and raised a number of questions that military leaders and ethicists have yet to sufficiently address. The complexities of fighting an unconventional war, as well as the increasing use of military robots, pose additional ethical challenges that extend beyond established frameworks. Given the nature of the conflicts being fought and the technology involved, these ethical questions can only become more complex over time.

Works Cited

Lucas, G. R. (2008). 'This is not your father's war': Confronting the moral challenges of 'unconventional war.' Journal of National Security Law & Policy, 3(33), 331–342.

Perry, D. L. (2004). Ethical issues in recent U.S. military engagements. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from http://home.earthlink.net/~davidlperry/recent.htm

Singer, P. W. (2009). Military robots and the laws of war. The New Atlantis, 23(Winter), 27–47. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/military-robots-and-the-laws-of-war