On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Gautam Mukunda wrote: > No, not really. That's why we have such things as laws of war, why there > are honorable and dishonorable ways of conducting a war - and of beginning > one, for that matter. In particular, in the case that you are describing, > the Hessians were foreign mercenaries suppressing a just rebellion against a > dictatorial government. They were, in other words, fighting an _unjust_ > war - as such, the bounds of what those fighting a just war could do to them > are considerably more expansive. The Arab countries were fighting an > _unjust_ war - they were launching an unprovoked attack on an innocent > state. In and of itself, that is immoral and attacking on Yom Kippur was an > aggravating factor.
Not surprisingly, I'm going to disagree on a couple of points. 1. The US rebellion wasn't a "just war" until we had won it. It wasn't an unjust war, either -- just a war. But rebellion is by definition illegal -- unless you win. Until we had won, everything Washington's army did was by the political standards of the time illegal, disloyal, and immoral. 2. Employing mercenaries was a common practice at the time, hardly against the "rules of war" then understood. Me: First - you're confusing legality and morality. The rebellion was a "just war" because of the ends for which it was fought. Whether it was legal or not is largely irrelevant in considering its moral position. Second - read the Declaration of Independence. One of the chief complaints of the authors was the use of mercenaries in this conflict, which they thought profoundly immoral. You might look at the speeches of a fair number of British Parliamentarians, too, for example (including Edmund Burke, I believe), as they harshly criticized the King for using mercenaries to fight the rebellion, something that was considered highly dubious by most European powers. More broadly, I don't understand why you feel (in the case of the handling of the prisoners in Guantanamo) that the requirements of morality exceed those of the law, while in this situation the law and morality are apparently synonymous to you. Pick one. Gautam
