The Ethics of Letting Civilians Die in Afghanistan: The False Dichotomy between Hobbesian and Kantian Rescue Paradigms
Recommended Citation
Samuel V. Jones, Th e Ethics of Letting Civilians Die in Afghanistan: Th e False Dichotomy between Hobbesian and Kantian Rescue Paradigms
The E thics of Letting Civilians Die in Afghanistan: The F alse Dichotomy between Hobbesian and Kantian Rescue Paradigms
Samuel Vincent Jones 0
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Samuel Vincent Jones*
THE AFGHAN FARMER DILEMMA
In Kabul, Afghanistan, Taliban elements are using a virtually
impenetrable transmission cryptogram to activate improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) that are targeted at U.S. combatants.' Mahmud, an
Afghan civilian, discovers the Taliban's encryption codes and informs
the U.S. military. The information permits U.S. officials to reduce
U.S. casualties by fifty percent in less than a month. U.S. intelligence
operatives discover that the Taliban suspect that Mahmud
sympathizes with U.S. forces, so they plan to assassinate Khan, a lone
Afghan farmer, whom the Taliban mistakenly believe to be Mahmud.
The United States has no relationship with Khan. U.S. intelligence
reports indicate that Khan is innocent of any wrongdoing and lives a
secluded life. The report also indicates that if the United States
rescues Khan from his farm, the Taliban will assume that Khan is under
U.S. protection and change their encryption codes before the U.S.
military has deciphered the Taliban's encryption technology. As a
result, the U.S. military would lose its intelligence advantage and
IEDrelated casualties would likely double. Intelligence reports also
indicate that if the Taliban assassinates Khan, the probability of the
Taliban discovering its identification error is extremely low.
* Associate Professor of Law, The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois. The author
is a former scout/rifleman (Sergeant, USMC) and judge advocate (Major, USAR (Ret.)). The
author sincerely thanks Professors R. Kent Greenawalt and Jonathan Bush of Columbia Law
School; Professor Terry Smith of DePaul University College of Law; and Professors Walter
Kendall, Kevin Hopkins, and Justin Schwartz of the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago for
their helpful remarks on earlier drafts of this Article. The author thanks his research assistant,
Amanda Morgenstern, and extends a special thanks to his family for their unwavering
kindheartedness and support. The views expressed in this Article are those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the views or positions of any branch or agency of the United States
government.
1. This hypothetical is based on one offered by C.E. Harris, Jr. in his discussion regarding the
ethics of self-interest, which I have substantially revised and expanded for purposes of
illustrating the circumstances as they relate to counterinsurgency operations in present-day Afghanistan.
See C.E. HARRIS, JR., APPLYING MORAL THEORIES 93-94 (2d ed. 1992).
The aforementioned hypothetical, which I term the "Afghan farmer
dilemma," requires a U.S. military commander to weigh the
fundamental military imperative of reducing the risk to U.S. combatants
stemming from IEDs and the serious harm attendant upon the
undertaking of a rescue mission, against the humanitarian imperative to
rescue an Afghan civilian from imminent danger.2 What should the
commander do? The hypothetical epitomizes the type of moral
dilemma that arises pursuant to rescue operations that U.S. military
commanders encounter because of the nature of combat operations in
Afghanistan.
This Article explains existing antinomies between Hobbesian and
Kantian orientations for deciding the rectitude of rescue operations
and questions whether they are truly antithetical. It demonstrates that
although Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant held diametrically
conflicting values regarding human dignity and self-interest, their
frameworks for deciding rescue obligations during armed conflict can
produce equivalent outcomes in rescue cases involving competing
moral rules. It asserts that U.S. combatants have a duty to rescue
endangered Afghan civilians by virtue of the special relationship
between Afghan civilians and U.S. combatants. This Article attempts to
take a first step in fashioning a decision-making paradigm for
resolving rescue dilemmas that incorporates the moral imperative to respect
human dignity without compromising the undeniable empiricism of
necessity and self-preservation.
I. INTRODUCTION
Between March 2003 and July 2006, violence stemming from
combat operations in Iraq caused the death of approximately 650,000 Iraqi
civilians. 3 An estimated 4,000,000 Iraqis sought refuge in Jordan and
Syria or were internally displaced. 4 As U.S. combat operations in
Afghanistan intensify and expand, a legitimate concern is whether the
calamity of war will reach levels similar to those experienced in Iraq. (...truncated)