“Just War” and Targeted Assassinations (Part Two)

In my previous post I wrote about the U.S. program of targeted assassinations against terrorists and the “just war” tradition.  I focused on jus ad bellum.  These are the conditions that must be met before a country has a moral case to declare war.  In this post, I’ll discuss jus in bello – moral restraints on the way war is fought.

First, a war must not be fought in such a way that it is a greater evil than the evil it is intended to remedy.  (Remember that a “just war” is one that is fought in order to promote good or avoid evil.)  So the harm inflicted by military operations must be both necessary and proportionate to the ends sought.  There is a moral difference between targeting a daycare centre and targeting a munitions factory.  It would be difficult to make a case that demolishing a daycare centre was necessary for victory in war, while demolishing a munitions factory might well help bring a quicker end to an armed conflict.

Second, non-combatants should not be intentionally attacked.

One complication arises right away:  How to draw the line between “combatant” and “non-combatant”?  According to a New York Times article about the U.S. targeted assassination program, when calculating civilian deaths caused by the program, all military-age males in a strike zone are counted as “combatants.” The reasoning is that, “people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good.”

There is a further complication:  If  non-combatants are harmed as a foreseeable but unavoidable “side effect” of some proportionate and necessary military action, then, according to the “just war” tradition, the harm is morally permissible.  Philosophers in the “just war” tradition call this the “doctrine of double effect.”

For example, a leader decides that bombing a munitions factory is both a necessary and proportionate step towards military victory.  However the munitions factory is next to a daycare centre, and there is a risk that the bombs will strike the daycare centre as well as (or instead of) the factory.  The leader does not intend to harm anyone at the daycare centre, yet he forsees that this might be a possibility.  Although the leader must try to minimize the risk of harm to non-combatants (say, by bombing the factory at night when the daycare centre is likely to be empty), he is not morally obligated to spare the factory because of the risk to the daycare centre.

The “doctrine of double effect” is controversial.  Philosophers have argued whether the distinction between “intended” and “unintended, but foreseeable” actions really makes much sense.

The “just war” tradition does not provide a “formula” for getting clear answers on the morality of armed conflict.  It is best approached as a set of considerations for thinking through the morality of particular decisions and strategies.  Again, I leave it to readers to decide whether the U.S. program of targeted assassinations meets the criteria for “just war,” and even whether the criteria are themselves morally defensible.