[Newspoetry] War protests and Troop morale: causation? Just war and True morality.

[DL Emerick]

Posted: Dec 4 2005, 01:57 AM  -- Rapid City Journal Forum

I quite agree that troop morale is greatly affected when the following matters become clear, through news stories that spark both domestic dissent and deflate troop morale at the same time:

(1) The leadership's reasons for the war are proved to be suspect if not falsified, outright, as in the cases of alleged WMD and of alleged links to the broader anti-Terrorism campaign;

(2) The leadership appeared to have no viable plans for conduct of the war, including, most critically, any exit strategy;

(3) The leadership appears unable to identify accurately how the war or, more critically, its continuation truly serves America's strategic interests;

(4) The leadership appears to tolerate an extreme amount of corruption in war contracts, depriving troops of combat 
resources needed to accomplish their mission, and wasting, at the least, large amounts of American tax-payer dollars;

(5) The leadership seems to be duplicating every aspect of the Hussein regime: use of WMD against targets that contain large civilian populations, the operation of secret prisons, arrests without warrants, detentions without limits, tortures in the prisons, arbitrary shooting by security forces of suspects without trials, the use of public money to enrich, unjustly, politically connected (PC) cronies of the leaders;

(6) The leadership ignores the independent advice of well-
informed retired officers of the military who state that the war is unwinnable, echoing internal reports of the US military to the same conclusion.

Yes, dissent is linked to depressed troop morale. It occurs at the same time, because of the out break of truth. Unfortunately, in the public's mind, the occurrence of two things at the same time is often taken to mean one thing causes the other -- a physical impossibility. It is the occurrence of truth that causes them both. Truth will out, as long as we are a free nation, despite the many lies and deceptions, frauds and corruptions of this regime, one of the most incompetent and deceitful Administrations in American history, when it comes to just war.

*Extension of remarks

The principle of just war does not stop its critique of war once some war is started.  Indeed, the principle, then, if ever, must even more stringently applied, to ensure, in all ways, that the conduct of the war does not become unjust.  Unfortunately, in almost every text of the many that I have read on warcraft, the just war thesis has been restricted to questioning the grounds for the initiation of some war, to insure that war is more than adequetely justified, as a moral matter, even if it is alleged to be a strategic necessity. 

Always, there, in necessity is a calculation of gain and loss -- but in morality, by contrast, there is no calculation.  In morality one must be willing to accept unacceptable losses and to refuse unwarranted gains.  In short, in morality, proper (but not in its many corruptions), there are questions of infinite justice, eternal mercy, willing suffering, and glad patience.  Most importantly, there is in morality, the belief that good shall always and ever someday overcome evil if good remains faithful, most of all, to its principles.  For, good, believes, in the last analysis that it is better for one's own self to die, as if a martyr, than to defend one's self by violence against others.

On that most extreme idea of ultimate morality, it would seem, there might never be a war that could be just.  I leave that question somewhat open, because morality insists that one has foundational duties to all others.  One might not, then, be entitled to self-defense -- but one might, curiously, be justly entitled to defend some others from some others.  I acknowledge there is thus this aporia that opens in the duty to love others at least as much as you love yourself, and to love the good above all.