And I thought you were going to be contriversial. Well, then, consider the virtue of killing children. That is to say, let us consider the sort of cultures where killing children is considered virtuous.

In times past, the Philistians were known to offer thier children to the gods Baal and Moloch. Archeologists have uncovered graveyards filled with small blackened bones.

How do you respond to a culture that kills its children because they love them? Can we even then say that love and hate are separate in such a culture? How could you separate those that hated thier children to the utmost and those that loved thier children to the utmost? It must be said that from the frame of the observer, hate and love were the same thing. If the man who rages at his child and the man who loves his child do the same thing, can we even say whether love as we know it exists in this culture?

What if the children are not there as human shields? What if they are human sacrifices? Then whether we are hard hearted or not, the enemy will still act in the same fashion.

There is also another sort. Lions kill lion cubs whenever they encounter them. They do not do it to impose thier will upon other lions. They do it to ensure that other lions will be unable to breed. You suggest that if you did not care for your children, the enemy would have no especial cause to target them. You are making a really big assumption about the nature of your enemy there. It's entirely possible that your enemy thinks it is virtuous to dash the skulls of children on the ground, not because he wants you to suffer, or to fear him, but because he wants you not to exist.

The human is a very diverse and adaptable creature. It would be a serious mistake to imagine that what is common sense to you is common sense to anyone else.

"In times past, the Philistians were known to offer thier children to the gods Baal and Moloch."

Hmmm. Maybe the Philistines are the ancestors of the Palestinians after all.

"How do you respond to a culture that kills its children because it loves them?" you ask?

Simple.

Number One: since they want to kill their own children, get the hell out of their countries and let them do it.

Number Two: enforce the laws that secure our borders and prevent them from getting inside our own country.

And finally, to all you sofa warrior numbnut pundits who preach World War III while keeping America's borders wide open for invasion, you are either liars, traitors or utterly insane.

Me, I prefer "liar". Even an idiot would see the utter stupidity of letting 3500 illegals wander over the Mexican border each and every day of the year if there really is a World War in progress. Me, I love MY children and that's why I want the border closed. Why do you want MY children to die?

And finally, to all you sofa warrior

numbnut

pundits

who preach World War III

while keeping America's borders wide open for invasion

you are either liars, traitors or utterly insane.

Not only lions but men do that, celebrim.

I don't doubt some of our enemies feel that way about at least some of us -- the Jews, for example, are in constant threat of extermination in Israel, and Iran has made some noises about chasing the rest of the Jews to the ends of the earth (and indeed has bombed them in Brazil).

For the purposes of the current discussion, however, it is not in their power. For now we are fighting terrorists, who use terror because they have few other weapons. They strike where it will hurt most because their power is limited. That power is growing, though, which is why we may not be able to contain ourselves within old limits. Thus this piece, examining those limits and the assumptions that underlie them.

If you mean to suggest by your other comments that you think they are in the grip of some demon, which has falsely presented itself as a god, I must say that the evidence would seem to agree with you. For that part of Islam that has decided to willingly hunt children and use children as shields, it is a convincing argument. At least, it is if you believe that demons are real, which I have begun to do.

Yes, Socrates (or was it Plato) lives!!! A logic debate right out of classical Athens; the world needs more of this type of dialog.

Hrm... thus, if Hamas and Nasrallah are their new gods, is it pleasing to H and N to send children off to die packed in canister-shot vests because that is right and good... or is it right and good to send children to die b/c this pleases H and N, which are gods?

The consensus of the dark gods, expressed so well by the Dukes of Chen, is that "if you can do what others find repugnant, this too is an advantage." The consensus of the humanitarian west (as opposed to that not only do our morals distinguish us by making us seem to be moral cowards and weaklings... but that this seeming is wrong, and is actually a consistent key to victory.

At whose temple to light the fire, if you're one of the weak caught in the middle, in danger on all sides?

Sorry celebrim.

I don't see the Islamic jihadists interested in sacrificing their own children. Seems to be too much anguish on the part of their parents when this happens. And one of the commenters on the Blackfive version of this has much more to say to that.

It is not what we are willing to give up. It is the anger, the horror, literally the complete pain we go through when children die in war. Ours or theirs. We try to save them, they don't care if they kill them - theirs or ours.

I have yet to see any philosophical excuses that will work for parents.

I'm not trying to be trite, but isn't everybody somebody's kid?

At what age are these children special? Do we mourn them because a human life is lost, or because they are cute?

#8 from tblubrd: "I have yet to see any philosophical excuses that will work for parents."

Saddam Hussein's subsidies to the families of suicide bombers worked great though. When it is profitable to grow and harvest kids as a cash crop, with bomb belts as harvesters, this happens.

"Sorry celebrim."

By all means, argue. So long as you pursue answers with honest intellectual couriousity, and so long as you offer something like a rational argument I'll not be offended. In fact, if you think I'm an idiot, I'll not be offended if you say so. You can start your argument with, "Celebrim, you are an idiot, and here is why..." And I'll probably chuckle so long as you actually give something like a logical reason for thinking I'm an idiot. Heck, you might even convince me I'm being an idiot.

Before going further, I should say that I wasn't trying to describe any culture in particular. I was criticizing Grim's Socratic dialogue for its incompleteness. It skipped over possibilities which for the sake of completeness of its proof, it ought not to skip over. I was presenting a few that seemed obvious to me, and was not trying to describe any particular situation completely.

"I don't see the Islamic jihadists interested in sacrificing their own children."

That's just demonstratably not true. The majority of suicide bombers seem to come from families in which the family expressed a great deal of joy and pride in the fact that there child died. There may be some of these cases in which the family is lying for some reason or another, but its hard to imagine that they are all lying and based on the culture its also pretty difficult to convince yourself that they are lying.

That's one of the reasons I wanted to make a critique of grim's work. At least in some of the cases, though certainly not all, the Jihadists are very much interested in sacrificing thier own children. Even the AP, Reuters, and the rest are unable to hide this completely. When you start digging into the Arab media, the evidence gets even more overwhelming.

Not only should this not be hard to accept, this ought not to be surprising. If it is hard to accept and is surprising, then may I gently suggest that you take the last of your cultual blinders off. There are strong cultural reasons why parents might rejoice at the death of thier children.

Daniel:

Neither only because a human life is lost, nor because they are cute. We mourn them especially because they are innocent.

It is hard enough when war touches people who have not fought, but whose life's work has supported a state or organization -- or who are guilty because they simply refused to resist one -- that has brought war to us. The children are not like this. They cannot have served yet, nor can they be blamed for not resisting. They bear no responsibility. Nothing can explain the harm that befalls them.

We have always wanted to believe that pain in this world is a punishment for sin. Perhaps it is, if you believe in original sin -- otherwise, it cannot be. The deaths of children, innocent and happy, who have harmed none and served none, is a particular problem. It is a special pain.

In the West, which was once called Christendom, this understanding was usually explained by Matthew 19:14: "But Jesus said, 'Suffer little childre, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for such is the kingdom of heaven.'" In the children we see something special, the kind of people we might have been in a better world. As others -- celebrim, Chesterton -- have noticed, the demons have a special and mystical hate for the idea of children. It is for the same reason that they hate them, that we love them.

Grim. Thanks. That was excellent. I read your article over on your blog, and I thought that not only was the article good, the comments were outstanding as well.

I understand what you are saying and I honestly wasn't trying to be snarky. It's just when I see anything on TV I always wonder "how are they trying to manipulate me emotionally?" The same goes for these discussions. It almost used to be a joke: no matter what your cause if you could somehow tie it into children you were deemed above criticism. "Think of the children!" has become a tagline.

I guess I don't think of war in those graduated terms. If I have to pick up a rifle and convince you to come to terms, I'm not going to be taking a rule book with me. I hate war. If we civilize it too much we start thinking of dead kids as some sort of anomaly. They aren't.

Good article.

#9 from Daniel Markham: "I'm not trying to be trite, but isn't everybody somebody's kid?

At what age are these children special? Do we mourn them because a human life is lost, or because they are cute?"

It's because they ware cute, like baby seals, and not because they are human; or else you would not see the very same people who think that they are morally better than a Palestinian mother who raises her children as bomb belt fodder themselves killing perfectly innocent and defenseless human beings with abortion.

When it is profitable for Western women to carry babies for harvest by abortion, this happens.

Women Paid to Carry Baby to 12 Weeks before "Harvesting" for Beauty Treatments. (link)

Abortion Encouraged in Ukraine as Unborn Babies Used for Russian Beauty Treatments. (link)

Muslims are not some different species from us, we are not innately good while they are innately wicked. All are tempted to succumb to absolute evil, that is to slaughtering the innocent because it is profitable in some sense, and many succumb. Many.

And how furiously angry they get, Muslim or infidel, when you try to get them to behave in a way worthy of decent human beings!

Westerners get angry if you object to lethal stem cell research when the same money could be used effectively on harmless adult stem cell research, because they look to a desired social outcome from the killing and they won't settle for any lesser sacrifice.

Those who run the Muslim social regimes that amount to suicide bomb factories also look to a social good, they also won't tolerate any lesser sacrifice than blood and soulds - it has to be the maximum! - and their wrath is fierce against any interference.

Of course scientific knowledge is good, if only it was attained by decent means, where as jihad is all about evil means to evil ends. We are better than our enemies, and the difference is worth fighting hard over.

Our system, our Western culture, our heritage, is superior to that of our enemies, and that is also worth fighting over. Western freedom and individualism are no small goods, to be given up out of fear, for example if someone convincingly threatens to kill you if you make a joke or publish a cartoon.

But we are not so superior, and our system is not so superior, that we should think that Muslims are lesser creatures, or that when they kill innocent, defenseless human beings because it suits their purposes its terrible, but when we do it it's all right.

We do not have any moral magic that makes cash for killing kids OK for us and not OK for them. Money for innocent blood is money for innocent blood. "Feedom" is as empty a word as "piety" when it excuses this.

Now with the context established, back to the nub of the argument. We may see a military good in killing kids, but so do the jihadis - they have proven over and over the profit in innocent blood is there ito be harvested.

As for the notion that it's different because they don't love kids, and we do (earnestly, because they are innocent and defenceless human beings and we love and respect them in their humanity, and not just in the sense that every sentimental twit "loves" baby seals), I laugh.

From the conversation:

She replies: "... Should we not choose peace instead?"

What better picture of denial could there be? Sorry, sister, but peace simply isn't on offer today. Come back next generation, maybe...

Should we not choose peace instead?

Do we mourn them because a human life is lost, or because they are cute?

For that very reason, the death of a child is easily exploited for the most obscene purposes, often by the cruelest people. Oscar Wilde said that anyone who reads about the death of Little Nell (in Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop) without laughing has a heart of stone.

This debate, IMO, cannot be undertaken without also considering the possibility of civilian casualties in war; i.e., adult civilians who, unlike children, are not always innocent.

OK, having established I hope my general context (which is that we are hip-deep in horror too, and can't excuse killing kids on the ground that we do love them despite our harsh actions but our enemies don't), and my general answer (no killing kids, even though the enemy eagerly kills and exploits their own), to more military aspects of the issue.

We should be taking our opponents for pirates or the equivalent (lawless combatants) and granting them no rights that Roman armies in full ugly mode would not have granted equally villainous opponents. These jihadists are giving us fits, but we had ancestors who knew how to deal with these problems, and we should revert to the wisdom of our formidable ancestors.

However, we can't do that, because our taboos (and I am all in favor of taboos in general) and social divisions and our courts won't allow it. So the question is not what we should do about children deliberately put in harm's way and exploited militarily in the context of the right general policy, the question is when courts and politics grant expanding rights to our adult jihadist opponents, can we be less than proportionally solicitous of their children? I think the answer is no.

If we continue to respect the immunity of children beyond the point where it makes military sense, doesn't that mean unnecessary casualties, maybe quite a lot of unnecessary casualties and even in some cases defeats? And, against jihad enemies, without any reward in chivalry and potential goodwill from the enemy in return for our restraint?

Yes, that's what it means. And I say we should accept that price, just as I agree that we can save lives with torture, but we should not do it anyway. We have taboos that are very important to keep as intact as we can. Taboos are irrational. There will be a price to be paid for acting irrationally. We should pay that price.

Do we in effect tell Barry and Buddy they have to die for the infant children of Abu and Ali, who are actively trying to get their kids killed in order to exploit them for the propaganda value? Yes, we do.

Yes, the pirate model is exactly the right one.

If we're as hampered by very specific and exploitable taboos as I advocate that we continue to be, and against an enemy that is entirely malign and punishes those taboos as much as possible, how can we avoid not only needless casualties and occasional tactical defeats but strategic and grand strategic defeats? (Which I agree are unacceptable.)

We - and specifically the Russians - need to go Roman on these guys. (Which unfortunately would require a lot of things that we don't have, like viable demographics. The Roman Empire was not built with an imploding Latin population, it was only lost with one.)

But if we can't do that, we need to go medieval on them, that is to fight the dogma that motivates Abu and Achmed to kill their kids and our, and that they use to get their kids to become human bombs and in other ways unavoidable casualties. We need to say that when an area is Islamiciszed, it's lost to us, and that if it's de-Islamicized this is good, just as if we had de-Nazified an area, or gotten rid of Communism in that area.

But if we can't do that either, and I think that we can't, then we need to push people away and create cleared areas - like from Israel to the Litani River - where nobody lives. 28 Days Later (2002) time: no infected cross that cleared zone, because if they do, we can't cure them and we can't stop them spreading their rage.

But if we can't fight properly against what I've called elsewhere the "paper program" that's fighting us, and if we can't treat this deadly ideology as a disease either and insist on curing it, and if we also can't push the infected away, then to quote Pris from Blade Runner (1982): "Then we're stupid and we'll die."

That's a very possible outcome. Mere superiority in the technology of arms, but without any leadership to direct that it be used properly, or even nearly properly, won't save Israel or us. (Or to put it another way, us including Israel.)

But if that's the case, then killing some kids or not killing some kids while we are on our way into the maw of Islam is a free choice, so we might as well choose morally.

(And no I haven't forgotten Iran and nukes. If we let things go on as the Iranians want them to go on, it will come to trading cities, with our will buckling first. But at that point, specifically killing kids or not killing kids specifically will not be an issue.)

#18 from Grim: "Yes, the pirate model is exactly the right one."

Woo hoo, a point of agreement! :)

Of course, the pirate model is only the best that is available, and therefore the one we should go with.

It is not exact. From the point of our Islamist enemies they are not lawless, they are as law-bound as possible, and they are fighting to establish the only true law, that is Allah's law as revealed by Muhammed (pbuh).

However, this is like saying someone is only a bloody lunatic by our standards. It doesn't do us any good if he's sane and his actions are lawful by his standard.

In the long run we can't accept that we are bound by laws of war that do not grant us reciprocity, and we can't accept we are bound by laws of war that do not in practice inhibit our opponents from violating our norms of minimal acceptable practice.

And that means we are down to the pirate model.

David (#20): Don't get too excited, I suspect Grim, like myself, agrees with the "pirates" bit but disagrees with everything else you have to say in these posts. I mostly see the cognitive dissonance. For example, if we did try to create an unhabited zone in southern Lebanon, wouldn't Hez and their ilk simply lead with their children? Wouldn't they be smart to do so, if your advice were taken by us?

#21 from Kirk Parker: David (#20): Don't get too excited, I suspect Grim, like myself, agrees with the "pirates" bit but disagrees with everything else you have to say in these posts.

Well then, I shall take care to be just excited enough to suit the rare occasion of a bit of agreement, but not too excited.

#21 from Kirk Parker: I mostly see the cognitive dissonance. For example, if we did try to create an unhabited zone in southern Lebanon, wouldn't Hez and their ilk simply lead with their children? Wouldn't they be smart to do so, if your advice were taken by us?

This is moot, because Ehud Olmert seems to be defeating or to have already defeated the Israeli Defence force in the 2006 Lebanon war.

Still, yes, if we stick to our moral taboos as I recommend, whether this is the project or in any other substantial active operation, it will continue to be an effective tactic for jihad forces to lead with their children.

But, whatever we do, jihad forces are going to engage in atrocities, It's their nature. If their children weren't enough to inhibit us, they'd just use all Christian children - there are plenty available. And if that wasn't enough, they'd think of something else. They have escalation dominance in horror, because they love it, and we don't.

So I guess if women must wage a war against poverty and discrimination and lack of health care, they should wage that war out of love and unabashedly, proudly, with 'courage' and conviction, abort their fetuses until conditions improve.

After all, we have a very high infant mortality rate in the US. We obviously don't really care about babies, but if we're going to pretend we care and 'act out of the love that is deep in our hearts" we should not want children born into this awfully unstable world. We don't want to have to deal with the children of the poor eighteen years from now, nor do we want our daughters and sons to have to deal with these poor souls, who will no doubt have to turn to heathen ways to survive.

So abort those fetuses with full abandon, so that you can rescue your own children.

Get my point yet?

This is what Hezbollah killing children means right now in practical terms.

Riehl World View: Did Hezbollah Do The Unthinkable? (link)

This article is and these pictures are my case that the issues I have raise may be linked in the most practical and immediate way.

Yes it is one big issue - pro-life, anti-terror, and, when militarily feasible, for moral restraint.

You can call this "euthanasia" or "martyrdom" but the distinction is ultimately meaningless. What matters is that it is wrong to kill innocent and defenceless human beings.

We mustn't let go of that axiom of moral sanity.

Argh! OK, I hope this (link) will work.

Montana:

I really don't get your point, no. :)

You're not the first to see an analogy between warfighting and abortion, of course. I recall from my studies in comparative religion that they've been commonly done, particularly by Catholic thinkers, because the question of abortion -- in the respect that it involves killing a person -- is similar to the question of war.

However, the problem for the line of thinking you advance in the argument is that all such theories with which I am familiar are against abortion categorically, or almost so.

They follow this line:

1) Murder is the intentional killing of the innocent.

2) Murder is always wrong.

3) Abortion is killing.

4) The killer is acting intentionally.

5) That which is being killed is innocent.

6) Thus, insofar as the analogy is valid, abortion is always wrong.

What is being advocated in the main piece isn't the intentional killing of children, but the acceptance that some accidental killing of children (by us), and some intentional killing of children by the enemy, is inevitable. Because the enemy shelters among children, and targets children, sometimes they will succeed in killing children.

There is no analogy to murder, and therefore not to abortion, because any killing of innocents by us is unintentional, and thus fails point 4 of the above explanation.

I have no problem with blowing lots of stuff up, even though you know that civilian, including children, are bound to die as a result, because this is war and we have to win.

Example: the Operation Cobra breakout in World War II. That was harsh, but ethical. And if that isn't going too far, you can go a long way without crossing a hard no-go ethical line.

Ethically, I think it's a potential problem if we're too easily deterred from doing what it takes to win. Because in war, you should be convinced it's important to win, or you shouldn't be fighting in the first place. If we are easy to deter from doing what we think it may take to win, we may make ourselves more secure against a charge that the war is being fought in an unjust manner but at the cost of raising a question as to whether the war itself is just.

On war and abortion - I don't think that works smoothly, because in reasonable military actions the killing of innocent and helpless human beings is an unintentional and unintended though perhaps secondary effect of a legitimate action.

(We are trying to kill people we should be killing. As far as I am concerned, given the character of what we are up against, killing jihadists is a legitimate reason to make war all by itself.)

I would compare a reasonable use of military force with an unpleasant amount of collateral damage to using high dosages of drugs to relieve severe pain, even though the result may be to hasten the death of the patient. It's OK as long as the death is an unintended secondary effect (even though it may be a very likely secondary effect) of the primary, legitimate action.

Suppose the patient did not die of the first shot of the drug or the children did not die in the bomb attack. If you say "great, we got away with it!" and act to preserve life now that the primary purpose of your attack is achieved, you're OK. If you say "hit 'em again!" because, with whatever excuse, you really dod want that person or those people dead, then you have crossed the ethical no-go line.

If we refuse to be deterred from attacking actions we thing are necessary to win, that's fine, even though as an unintended and unwanted side-effect of our attack children may die.

But if what we really want in this action is to prove to the jihadists that we are prepared to kill children, then their deaths are no longer unwanted and unintentional (hough perhaps very likely) side effects of our primary purposeful action, and in my opinion that is where the ethical line is crossed. That is the idea I condemn.

When American President William Jefferson Clinton raised the idea of strikes against Saddam Hussin (and a question was, where should Australia stand in that case?) I was all against it. Had he been in favor of much bloodier actions, but with the aim of removing the tyrant, I would have said: we should support that. because that's a good enough reason for a lot of people to die. Saddam Hussein was killing a lot of people anyway. However, President Clinton said he wanted to use military strikes "to send a message". I was an am against using military force like that. Human life is not so cheap.

If all you want is to send a message, use Federal Express. You know?

If we can't do something worthwhile, like killing lots of jihadists, without the death of children being a likely though unwanted side effect. But let's not try to alter jihadist behavior by "sending them a message" with dead children. Those individual lives are too precious. And even though you might argue - "we may save more lives in the long run if we do it that way and the jihadists react the way we want them to" I do not thing that argument, which amounts to saying "let us do evil that good may come of it" is good enough. Simply, the individual lives sacrificed are too precious to be used like that.

Aargh! Many typos! Preview is my friend...

Anyway, I hope my general line of reasoning is clear.

I hope it's clear not only that I do have a permissive attitude to extreme violence in war, but why I have it.

I think it's a serious moral problem and not just a practical problem that we have been far too easy to deter in the Long War from doing things we think may be necessary to achieve the results that we want and that were part of our justification for fighting. If we can be gotten not to take Fallujah on the first attempt, or if we can be gotten not to kill (or at least imprison) Moqtada al-Sadr by cry-baby tactics - then what about the people who died or were maimed (first of all our own, but also civilians injured or killed as collateral damage) ... for results we were not seriously intent on? Human life should not be so cheap.

But let's not kill anyone - especially not children - to send messages. That is how our enemies act - and that is part of why I think they should be gotten rid of, just like poisoning weeds.