The purpose of the following, which will come in parts, is to discuss critically bin Laden’s “Letter to America” and other terrorist sources, and the US (and its allies) response to terrorism. It argues in part that a proper response to terrorism includes Americans' reflecting critically on all the specific circumstances that seem to motivate terrorism, which includes thinking critically about US foreign policy and US actions that have impacts on Muslims. It is important for all Americans to address and think critically about these issues so that we can understand, stop, and reverse those policies and actions (and the consequences of those policies and actions) that are unjustified and that motivate violent retaliation against us in the form of terrorism.
Can there be no justification or excuse for the intentional killing of innocent civilians? One often hears that there can be no justification or excuse for it. Right after the terrorist bombings in London one could hear in the news a community leader or government official saying that there is no justification or excuse for targeting innocent civilians. But no one ever hears an argument for this claim. It is taken as given, assumed uncritically as something that is obviously true. One can sense that it would be an outrage even to bring up the issue for public discussion. But the real outrage would be to silence debate about this crucial issue. The reality is that it is not obviously true. Reasonable and thoughtful people can disagree on this issue. Given the evidence and history of recent warfare, one could even say that many western nations, especially Americans and the US government, have never embraced the idea that there can be no justification or excuse for the intentional killing of civilians.
Many Americans including those in the US government have held that the intentional targeting of innocent civilians can be justified, that there can be an excuse for it, and that there has been justification for it in the past. For instance, consider that central to the development of the concept of strategic bombing in the 20th century was the inclusion of the idea of intentionally targeting and killing civilians. This was an important result of the idea of total war. Such strategic bombing aims in part to kill civilians and civilian infrastructure in an effort to destroy a nation’s ability and will to wage war. It has been argued that the targeting of civilians developed from two distinct theories. The first theory was that if enough civilians were killed, factories could not function. The second theory was that if civilians were killed, the country would be so demoralized that it would have no ability to wage further war.
In both World War II and the Vietnam War the US military used strategic bombing and intentionally targeted civilians. The US was very successful at killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in both of those wars. Those who supported the US bombing of Japan, South Vietnam, and Cambodia thought that the intentional targeting of civilians was justified, that there was an excuse for it. In WWII, Japan lost many hundreds of thousands of civilians, and most of those were casualties of US firebombing. Set aside the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. The US pursued a long campaign of strategic firebombing in which aircraft dropped incendiary bombs on over 60 cities in Japan. (There is an interesting documentary dealing in part with this called “The Fog of War” with Robert McNamara.) Tokyo was one of the first cities to be firebombed, and it has been estimated that 100,000 civilians died in one night as a result of one of those early firebombing raids. But Tokyo was just one in over 60 cities that the US firebombed with the intention, in part, to kill innocent civilians. There are other examples. In 1969, the US began secret (and illegal) B-52 carpet bombing operations in neutral Cambodia. By 1972, some estimate that 50,000 tons of bombs per month were being dropped on the countryside (with the unstated intention of targeting innocent civilians), which probably left about 4 million people homeless and perhaps up to 500,000 civilians were killed. Unfortunately, no one knows the true numbers, but the civilian deaths were enormous. The bombing of South Vietnam is another case. Of course, we can always refer to the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which intentionally targeted innocent civilians and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese, including children and women.
So the US has intentionally targeted and killed at least hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and many believe that these killings were justified. It seems far from obvious that there can never be a justification or excuse for the targeting of innocent civilians. In fact, this seems like a controversial view that requires an argument. Ultimately, it would be best to give up this sort of absolute view. It would be better to look critically at the specifics of each particular situation that comes along and determine on the basis of those specific circumstances whether the targeting of innocent civilians is justified or not. It may be that in practice we never find a justification for targeting innocent civilians, but we should admit that we have to look first and critically evaluate each situation as it comes along. In taking this course, we also have to admit that circumstances may arise where the targeting of innocent civilians is justified.
It will be helpful to distinguish two positions. First, one could hold the Absolute Claim that there can never be a justification or excuse for the intentional killing of innocent civilians, no matter what the circumstances. In other words, the Absolute Claim says that there are no possible circumstances that can ever justify the intentional targeting and killing of innocent civilians. Second, one could hold the Conditional Claim that there are possible circumstances when it may be justified to intentionally target and kill innocent civilians. The Absolute Claim is going to be difficult to maintain because it seems that one can easily undermine it with counterexamples, especially those that emphasize the idea that targeting innocent civilians can be justified if it is necessary to prevent the unjustified killing of other innocent civilians. Anyone maintaining the Absolute Claim would have to consider such counterexamples, and one can maintain the Absolute Claim only if one’s considered and accepted intuitions about such counterexamples do not imply that the Absolute Claim is false. So, for example, imagine that the only hope for stopping a nation (let’s say, Germany) from conquering the world and subjecting your country (let’s say, England) to decades of tyranny and death camps (that may kill millions of innocent English civilians) would be to strategically bomb Germany’s innocent civilians and its civilian infrastructure. Assuming the specifics of this scenario (or some other scenario like it), probably the intuitions of most people would lead them to say that the targeting of innocent civilians would be justified (in this case, to save the lives of innocent civilians). Those who agree would have to reject the Absolute Claim.
Those holding the Absolute Claim face a dilemma. Either our considered intuitions about certain situations that lead us to reject the Absolute Claim are always wrong or irrelevant, or they are not. On one hand, if these intuitions are always wrong or irrelevant, then there has to be a plausible explanation for why they are always wrong or irrelevant. But it is difficult to produce such an explanation. One would have to guard against ad hoc explanations, which reject our intuitions for no other reason than to save the Absolute Claim. Perhaps one could give the following religious argument. God commands that we should not kill innocent people, so there can never be a justification or excuse for intentionally targeting and killing innocent civilians. The argument here is that we should follow God’s commands and His plan. But people have different religious views. Bin Laden, for instance, believes that God commands (as stated in the Quran) that Muslims have a right to defend themselves by doing to their attackers what the attackers do to them, and this leaves open the possibility that targeting innocent civilians can be consistent with God’s commands. If we assume freedom of religion, then it will be best not to appeal to specific religion-based arguments for the Absolute Claim.
On the other hand, if our intuitions about cases can be correct and relevant for deciding what to do, then one must reject the Absolute Claim. The reason is that one will have to admit that in specific circumstances the targeting of innocent civilians may fit our considered moral intuitions, and this may provide a justification for targeting innocent civilians in those circumstances. In short, if our intuitions about cases can be correct and relevant for deciding what to do, then we must abandon the Absolute Claim.
The discussion about terrorism that follows assumes that our intuitions about cases can be correct and relevant for deciding what to do, and that the Conditional Claim is the more plausible claim. The Conditional Claim opens the possibility of critically evaluating cases. It leads us to admit that we cannot know a priori that the targeting of innocent civilians will always be wrong. We will have to look at each case and critically evaluate each situation as it comes along. We will also have to admit that circumstances may arise in which the targeting of innocent civilians will be justified. We cannot exclude that possibility a priori.
Terrorists like bin Laden assume the Conditional Claim, although he argues that there are no “innocent” American civilians because they support the US policies and military that harm Muslims. One should be careful about this argument. When in the context of total war, Americans could justify the bombing of Japanese civilians in the same way. They could say that there really were no “innocent” Japanese civilians because they all contributed in some way to Japan’s ability to make war, and so it was justified to target civilians to destroy Japan’s ability to wage war. But this makes justifying the killing of civilians too easy. If one assumes this total-war view of civilians, then there are rarely ever any “innocent” civilians. For the purposes that follow, one can leave this total-war view of civilians aside for the moment and assume that terrorists are targeting civilians who are innocent in the morally relevant sense. (I might note here that it may be too restrictive to say “in the morally relevant sense” because civilians may not be causally innocent of the offending actions, and there may be cases when it is justified to kill those who are morally innocent but not causally innocent. So the issue of causal innocence or guilt may come up, but one could hold that the only causal guilt that is relevant is that which also undermines the moral innocence of the civilian.) If one rejects this total-war view of civilians, then one can first see whether bin Laden has a case for terrorism that targets innocent civilians. From now on, the term “civilian” stands for “innocent civilian,” or those civilians who are innocent in the morally relevant sense. In those cases when the difference needs to be maintained, there will be an explanation to alert the reader.
End of part I.
