Posted on 02/05/2013 9:09:58 AM PST by EveningStar
Last week, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by a Marine captain titled, "I Killed People in Afghanistan. Was I Right or Wrong?"
The column by Timothy Kudo, who is now a graduate student at New York University, is a fine example of the moral confusion leftism has wrought over the last half century. Captain Kudo's moral confusion may predate his graduate studies, but if so, it has surely been reinforced and strengthened at NYU.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
moral confusion leftism is the same as questioning the morality of something?
He may be confused and utterly unable to think logically or express himself clearly, but it’s not as if there is no possible moral dilemma for soldiers of the Afghan war. I should think, however, that he’d have wanted to work everything out morally before he signed up. We still have volunteer armed forces, right?
The most common translation of Ex. 20:13 is “You shall not commit murder.” Nothing in there about killing in self-defense or combat.
The Marine in question is confused. If he had any moral qualms about killing an enemy combatant, perhaps he should have remained a civilian.
From what I read of the article they don’t criticize him for questioning period but for apparantly questioning stupidly. The main dilemma is between killing being always wrong but in war necessary. The article has it that he’s confused because killing isn’t always wrong, duh.
Combat killing could easily be murder. It wasn’t for a long time after the decalogue that Just War Theory was developed. I agree, this person shouldn’t have signed up if he truly believes all killing is wrong.
The only thing about combat, is that the individuals that are in combat are not the one’s that decide there will be combat. If you leader is evil, does that make your combat ok?
You are absolutely correct. In addition, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have no moral dilemma with hiding behind and killing innocent women and children and killing American civilians that they capture—and theey would have had no moral compunctions about killing him if they had captured him.
Nothings worse that stupid confusion I guess. Collateral damage is ok, buyt it kills innocent women and children.
I wouldn’t go there if I were you. The U.S. has killed more innocent civilians than Al Quesa could ever dream of, and though we shy away from killing captives, most of the time we send robots or Seal Teams to assassinate people instead of capturing them, American citizens included. You must seek elsewhere to justify our side.
Something we really need to clarify in our minds is that “collateral damage” is often a completely inappropriate term. We kill civilians on purpose, for the same reason terrorists do: to scare people into doing what we want. What do you think “shock and awe” was, a fireworks display? Another thing, not all of us are sp cavalier about damage that truly is collateral. For instance, the FBI and ATF wanted to break into the Waco compound so bad that they were willing to torch innocent women and children to end the standoff. I don’t agree it was worth it.
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“I held two seemingly contradictory beliefs: Killing is always wrong, but in war, it is necessary. How could something be both immoral and necessary?”
We will soon find the left has no problem with killing when it comes to those who disagree with them. They are against killing the enemies of America because it is their friends that are being killed. Given the opportunity to kill Conservatives they would do it by the train load.
If your Commander in Chief is an EVIL so and so...
Whatever you are called on to do serves an evil purpose..
Course this idiot probably voted for the evil SOB..
There are no “innocent civilians” among islamists.
I agree, not all killing is wrong...it’s actually relative in my view.
That’s just exactly the mindset motivating terrorists to commit mass murder.
If your “moral” understanding is that killing is ALWAYS wrong, then I think you already have a busted compass.
Having been in combat, there are moral questions which cross everyone’s mind, but if you don’t have a moral-underpinning based on your right to survival, then the rest of the questions and answers are already jaded.
More importantly, when you join the military, they USED to ask if you have a moral issue with shooting someone, etc... Do they not ask this anymore? Do officers not get asked this question?
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