Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
When did I say this? I never said this. It is Ok to kill insurgents to stop them from killing our soliders and innocent poeple. It would be better to arrest them, but if we can't arrest them, or we can't arrest them without allied casualties we should kill them. Is there anyone on this board that think it is not morally OK to kill insurgents?
It would be a moral imperative to kill an insurgent if you had a gun and you saw an insurgent running towards a school strapped to the nines with bombs. If you didn't shoot to stop him that would be immoral.
Why do you find those concepts so heinous. Why are my moral positions so offensive. You say you are a moral relativst - well then. What is wrong with the terrorist attacks on 9-11? If Al Queada thought they were moral, then who are you to critisize them for what they did.
I believe the intentional killing of innocents that serves no purpose other than to instill terror is a universal moral wrong. As a relativist you can't say that. I have a moral compass and you don't.
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You're putting the cart before the horse here. You say it's okay to kill insurgents in order to keep them from killing our troops. If we didn't have troops there, then we wouldn't need to kill the insurgents to protect the troops.
You also say that it's okay to kill insurgents to keep them from killing innocent people. But the insurgents are killing people because we attacked them. They didn't invade the US.
I agree that it's wrong to kill innocents. Especially when the killing is for no other purpose than to instill terror. But the insurgents aren't killing just to instill terror. They are killing because people are trying to kill them. That's what a war is. Both sides have to fight, otherwise it's just a massacre.
The question for me is, if they are prepared to fight until the last man standing, is it morally right to stay there until we kill them all? If it is, then how does that differ from a massacre, other than their getting a few good licks in before they die? If it isn't morally right to kill them all, then at what point do we say "enough?"
And by the way, how does what you have said in this post differ from "it's okay to kill them because they don't look at the situation the same way I do?" You can't say you're killing in self-defense, because we're the aggressors. You can't say that we're killing in defense of others, because we toppled Saddam and created the Iraqi Army and Police force that is trying to kill the insurgents, so, again, that killing is the result of our aggression.
Like you said, morality isn't simple. That's why you have to allow free debate.
