Can the direct targeting of civilians ever be morally justified - Essay Example

? Can the direct targeting of civilians ever be morally justified, if so in what circumstances? Introduction Why must civilians suffer the war consequences caused due to national power conflicts or differing views perceived by the national leaders? Is it, by any means, moral to make the civilians of the enemy nation suffer the tragic effects of military wars being treated as the direct victims? These questions have long been in the minds of humanitarians, socialists and even amid the common people who are the ultimate sufferers of such warfare strategies. The best example would be the Second World War where the percentage of damage faced by the civilians was accounted at a larger extent. Apart from the holocaust homicide, the most devastating effects on the civilians were caused due to the bombing warfare strategies taken by Britain and Germany. In this context, during the Second World War, Britain came up with the idea of area bombing in its enemy nations. However, rather than attacking the combat forces, the civilian were made target for the area bombing campaigns in some of the cities of Germany. As a consequence, more than half a million civilians were killed with many more severely injured and a large section of some of the cities destroyed in Germany. Steadily the trend of warfare applied by Britain began expanding over other nations during the Second World War. As warfare strategies, these actions imposed significant threat to the enemy military, raising civil protests to discontinue wars, but when considered from a humanitarian approach, these strategies can hardly be justified as moral (History, 2013; Rollings, 2011). Emphasising on these aspects, the paper will aim at assessing the situational factors during the Second World War, which played a pivotal role in deciding upon the area bombing campaigns targeting the civilians. Based on the assessment, the paper will attempt to provide a justification on whether the bombing attacks on civilians can ever be justified morally. Inception of the Idea of Area Bombing Campaign in Second World War and its Impact on the Civilians The Second World War caused numerous consequences to different nations owing to its magnitude and scale involving a vast geographic proportion of the world economies. It has been noted in this regard that the Second World War had been commenced with the participation of the then topmost nations of the world, which apparently signified the polarized world of the 20th century, where one side was apparently stronger and powerful than the other side. Comparing the casualties caused due to the First and the Second World War, especially those suffered by the civil societies around the world excluding the military property losses, historians revealed that area bombing campaign in the latter had a more devastating result. To be noted, the concept of area bombing was first developed by the British military during the war, where they had planned to attack certain specific areas of Germany as a part of their war strategy. The decision of Britain to attack German civil areas through the bombing strategy was mainly with the intention to deindustrialize the conditions of Germany and to make the nation weak from within. To be precise, with the civilians being affected due to the warfare, it was quite likely to increase threats for domestic social as well as political unrests. Also, with the destruction of such a huge proportion of civilians, Germany would eventually become weak to afford the continuously rising need for soldiers to fight its enemies. This further meant that Germany will not be able to attack or pose a threat to any other nation during the Second World War. Therefore, it can be apparently observed that the intention behind area bombings by British on German civilians was to make the country vulnerable both economically as well as socially, with the expectation that it would eventually drive the nation away from participating in the wars. Apparently, this area bombing approach taken by the British military against Germany, resulted in an almost irrecoverable blow to the German military. It is worth mentioning in this context that the approach taken by the British had potentially been the biggest contributor towards the commencement of era of bombing war (Rollings, 2011; Siebert, 2011). The bombing campaign of Britain was commenced in the year 1943, with its strategic mission named ‘Operation Gomorrah’. According to the planned operations, the British bombers attacked the German city of Hamburg initially, by dropping small bombs filled with highly flammable chemicals. The purpose of the attack was to completely demolish Hamburg, a major city of the then Germany and have the first blow to the German military. As intended by the British military force, the result of the attack was devastating which caused severe consequences in every corner of the city. The number of people died in the attack, further could not be specified. However, as per the estimations the number of casualties reached over 45,000 civilians. This particular incident was ultimately the noted as the evolution of the bombing war era (Wainstock, 2011). Influenced by the British strategy, the United Nations also began rendering emphasis towards the concept of bombing area campaigns on a larger scale. Gradually, the significance of such warfare strategies, directly targeting the civilians, started expanding. Consequently, in the last stage of the war i.e. in 1945, the United States attacked two cities of Japan which comprised of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the first and the only incident till date, where nuclear weapons were used to demolish the enemy nation. However, it was certainly not the military combatants who were attacked in the bombing; it was rather targeted to the civilians in both the cities of Japan. The consequences of the bombing in both the cities were considered to be among the most devastating events ever recorded in the history of human civilization. This aspect can be further justified with reference to the fact that thousands of people lost their lives, while many had to suffer severe injuries, leaving a long-term devastating effect on the population. Half the entire population in these two cities, died immediately after the bombing incident, while other died owing to poisonous gas released by the atomic bomb in course of time which continued for a long term affecting the health of the people who survived the bombing. The consequences of the nuclear bombing were such drastic that genetic deformations became common among the people who resided in the bombing areas. The instances took place on a larger scale where millions of innocent people died. However, the concept of area bombings targeting civilians, did exist in small magnitude even before the British attacked the German city, Hamburg; but, owing to the amount of destruction caused by both these instances, i.e. British bombing on Germany and U.S attack on Japan, the Second World War was considered as the inception point for the concept of area bombing (Rollings, 2011; Siebert, 2011; Wainstock, 2011). As was affirmed, the notion of the area bombing campaigns, where civilians became the direct victims to warfare between two or more nations, had long been in the rudiments of human society, but at a smaller magnitude. For instance, the attack of Luftwaffe on Dutch in the year 1940, German bombing on London in 1949 and Luftwaffe attack on Coventry, were some of the major bombing events that took place before the bombing attacks of British military on Germany and US’ attack on Japan. Owing to the fact that the number of people killed in these instances was less as compared to the aforementioned two most vital events of the Second World War, the prior attacks on civilians during war, were not highlighted as the inception point of the notion to have civilians substitute military deaths. In all the instances mentioned above, millions of civilians, who were not even related or had any role to play as the reason for the war, were killed or injured or became homeless owing to the bombardment by the military forces of the enemy nation (Rollings, 2011; Wainstock, 2011; Schaffer, 1985). Laws of War and Justification of Targeting of Civilians during War As stated in Grayling (2011), commanders in a military force tend to go to various extents with the intention to protect the lives of as many as possible soldiers during war, even if they are always placed in danger. Under such circumstances, military forces often tend to use civilians as a shield to protect them from the direct harm of the war. In the words of Grayling (2011: 249), “saving military lives by substituting civilian deaths for them is no different morally from a soldier on the battle field using a civilian as a shield”. However, it is worth mentioning that civilians are not trained or even armed to face the battle field. Under such circumstances, placing civilians in the position of direct victims put the innocent and often unwilling or unaware civilians into grave danger of death, which cannot be justified morally. In order to obtain a better understanding to the moral justification to the issue in concern, reference from the laws of war can be considered. To counteract war or put a limit to severity, several laws of war have been developed since ages, which principally comprises of ‘Jus in Bello’ (the conduct of war) and ‘Jus Ad Bellum’ (justice of war). The first law i.e. ‘Jus in Bello’ (the conduct of war) is quite strict, a must to be followed criteria, in war situations. According to this law, under any condition, during war, the participants or the nations involved in the war are prohibited to kill or attack innocent civilians. Furthermore, it instructs that war should only be limited to direct battle with each other’s armed forces; it should not target the innocent and unarmed citizens of the countries involved in the war. Furthermore, the law also depicts the aspect that the war between two nations should not be fought with the aim of destruction; instead, it should focus on achieving something good. The law also demands proportionality between the military forces of nations involved in war, where either of the forces is restricted from using weapons or any other destructive materials that could cause maximum harm to the civilians and civil property (Best, 1983). Another set of law related to war, is ‘Jus Ad Bellum’ (justice of war). According to this law, a just authority can only participate in war of any kind with the intention to achieve justice for the nation. Any dictatorship or unauthorised military actions are accordingly to be considered as violations of the law. Furthermore, the law also demands a morally strong and justified cause, which can support the occurrence of the war. Moreover the intention of war should also be strong and morally sound, i.e. it should intend to win or achieve something good for the nations involved instead of destroying each other. Hence, it can be apparently observed that the ‘Jus Ad Bellum’ law also demands morality from the war participants or nations. As per the law, nations involved in war should further restrict themselves from incorporating unethical means or ideas to win over the enemy nation. Nevertheless, the laws discussed above, with respect to wars, have been developed in order to ensure limited number of wars between nations, to protect people and property from getting destroyed due to the war and facilitating the restoration of peace among others (Best, 1983). It has observed from historical evidences that during the Second World War, not only Britain, but there were many nations who attacked each other’s citizens with ferocity, showing no signs of mercy. In the initial stages of the Second World War, Japanese military attacked the Chinese city Nanking with the intention to capture the same which slaughtered almost half a million of civilians within one month. This warfare approach taken by the Japanese was criticised, owing to the fact that the Japanese militants directly attacked the civilians despite the restrictions imposed through war laws. Hence, the Japanese approach to capture the city could not be considered as a valid or just cause, which further signifies their attack on the civilians to be strongly immoral. Again, during the Second World War, when the British attacked a particular city of Germany principally in order to destroy its infrastructure and power to bring threat to its neighbouring nations. However, the result of this approach suggests that millions of innocent people were killed and many became homeless. In this regard, it can be stated that neither the approach nor the cause of British to attack Germany through bombing, could be justified on moral grounds, owing to the fact that millions of people were killed without any fruitful result. Furthermore, US bombing on Japan can also be regarded as another aspect that clearly violated the laws of war. It will be considered immoral firstly owing to the fact that it directly attacked the unarmed and innocent citizens of Japan, instead of their military base, which is against the laws of war. Moreover, the US was also not aware of the power of the atomic bomb as it was being implemented for the first time. With regard to this aspect, it is mentioned in the laws of war that any weapon which might cause maximum damage to civil lives and property should be restrained from being implemented during any kind of war. In this regard too, the approach of the U.S could not be justified as moral. However, it has been noted that initially, it was Japan which attacked pearl harbour and killed a large amount of civilians, which provoked the US to attack Japan as a reply to the opponent. In this context, the approach of US can be partially justified, but the scale and consequences of the attack of US, where millions of lives were simply destroyed, could never be morally justified on the basis of any ground (Fotion & Elfstrom, 1986). Conclusion From the overall analysis of the paper, it can be summarised that wars lead to massive destruction of human race. Correspondingly, this particular aspect can be directly related to the emergence of the area bombing concept, during the Second World War, which was capable of destroying a particular area within a couple of hours. With such severity, attacking civilians through area bombing campaigns can never be justified on moral grounds, as it tends to affect or rather destroy civilisations comprising innocent people who are not only unaware and unarmed to face any combat military forces, but are also nowhere related as a cause to the war occurrences which would make them directly accountable for war. Under such conditions, using civilians to safeguard military forces, who themselves are contradictorily liable to protect civilians from war damages, is certainly immoral and unjustifiable. References Best, G. (1983). Humanity in warfare: the modern history of the international laws of armed conflicts. London: Routledge. Fotion, N., & Elfstrom, G. (1986). Military ethics: guidelines for peace and war. Boston: Routledge. Grayling, A. C. (2011). Among the Dead Cities: Is the Targeting of Civilians in War Ever Justified? London: Bloomsbury Publishing. History. (2013). Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. Retrieved from http://www.history.co.uk/explore-history/ww2/atomic-bomb.html Rollings, C. (2011). Prisoner of war: voices from behind the wire in the Second World War. United States: Random House. Schaffer, R. (1985). Wings of judgment: American bombing in World War II. New York: Oxford University Press. Siebert, D. (2011). British bombing strategy in world war two. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/area_bombing_01.shtml Wainstock, D. D. (2011). The decision to drop the atomic bomb. New York: Enigma Books. Read More