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The Moral Component of american Wars

by alan Caruba

June 10, 2004

It took me awhile, but I finally realized that all the hand wringing and outcry about the abuse at the Iraqi jail was about something much greater in the minds of americans. It was about the moral component of the way we wage war.

a clear juxtaposition to this was the way news of the decapitation of Nick Berg, an american citizen, was greeted with horror, but also the unspoken recognition that the enemy operates without any moral standards at all.

actually, those who killed Berg and, earlier, Daniel Pearl, in this fashion were acting with complete consistency in terms of Islam. Decapitating one’s enemy has a long history in Islam going all the way back to its founder, Muhammad, who had six hundred adult males in a single tribe killed in this fashion.

all kinds of barbaric acts are described in the Koran. Islam, a religion which essentially says, "You are either a Muslim or you don’t have a right to live…except under Muslim rule" is not, as some say, displaying its "fundamentalist" side. There is no fundamentalist aspect to Islam. Like other religions, Muslims worship with more or less intensity, but for the true believers, what you see is what you get.

and, yes, the Old Testament has accounts of warfare and the New Testament has the beheading of John the Baptist and the crucifixion of Jesus, but Christianity has stopped fielding armies, while Islam is now actively into its Third Great Jihad. This is why it is killing people around the world, soldier, and civilian alike.

americans supported the war against Iraq because it was a war against Saddam Hussein. Having captured him, too many americans think that the war is "over" and american troops should come home. This is such an astonishingly stupid idea that it is easy to understand why, when candidate John Kerry blithely accuses the Bush administration of having failed in its Iraq mission or says he would change the mission in some fashion, he betrays his own failure to get, as they say, "the Big Picture."

The Big Picture is that, yes, we wanted Saddam and his cronies out of power. Yes, we wanted to liberate the Iraqis. and, yes, we want to turn over the governance of Iraq to Iraqis as quickly as possible.

But! We also invaded Iraq as a platform to bring about change, either militarily or diplomatically, to the entire Middle East and other Muslim nations. Libya’s dictator, Muamar Quadaffi, is no dummy. He took one look at the transformation of Iraq and immediately abandoned his weapons of mass destruction programs and sued for peace. Indeed, he did what, sooner or later, every one of the other pestilent nations such as Iran, Syria and even Saudi arabia will have to do in some fashion or other.

america invaded Iraq with the moral component and moral imperative of requiring the Middle East to accept what all other emerging nations, hopeful for prosperity, have done. They have looked at the wealthiest nations of the world and seen that, if they want to share that wealth, they have to accept the rule set of globalization. Even Red China has understood that, for the sake of economic growth, it must cooperate with the most capitalistic of all nations, the United States of america. and it does!

That is why, when news broke of the activities of a very small group of soldiers in that Iraqi jail, the utter lack of morality revealed appalled americans. and a lot of other people around the world. It is understood that americans conduct themselves, even in war, with a moral code that is endemic to our society and our view of a civil society.

This is the factor most frightening and missing in the conduct of our enemy. We must not forget his predilection for suicide bombings or attacks such as those in Spain, Bali, Turkey, Morocco, and elsewhere, directed not against a military force, but against innocent victims. and we must give them no quarter. They are not acting morally by any definition. We are.

We are now in Iraq and afghanistan, staying on for the hardest part of any conflict, the securing of peace. To that end, we have asked the most skilled warriors the world has ever seen to act as policemen, as providers of humanitarian services, and to protect the construction needed to rebuild decrepit water and electricity systems.

What, in truth, we really need are two forms of military services. One to do the hard fighting and one to do the follow-up necessary to securing the ultimate civil victory, a democratic nation to replace the despotism that oppresses its citizens.

This latter function, as important as the initial combat, reflects the moral component of the way americans wage war. It is why we hold our military to a higher standard than any other on earth.