Moral Choices in Iraq

By George Packard

The small Cessna plane turned on its wingtip and perpendicular to the ground, as we corkscrewed down over the footprint of the Baghdad airport. The maneuver was meant to foil a rocket attack. “It's a little scary, but perfectly safe and 99.9% effective,” announced our Australian pilot, thinking he was delivering reassuring news. As the Episcopal Bishop for Chaplaincies, I was on board in early March of this year hoping to visit our ten chaplains already in Iraq.

It makes you wonder about the actual play of warfare versus its armchair philosophy. It was one thing to write about it in the resolutions of General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the summer of 2003, summarizing the latest thinkers like Jean Bethke Elshtain . She had been a curiosity to me, since her position seemed to be an exception to the Just War theory first posited by Augustine and then reframed by Thomas Aquinas. The twentieth century had codified this thinking as warfare became progressively more lethal by establishing acceptable guidelines in the use of force.

Dr. Elshtain maintained that it was an erroneous reading of Aquinas to defer the use of force and wait to be attacked. A credible threat was as good as an assault, she said. Her support of a pre-emptive attack on Iraq was timely reading in those preparatory days. Additionally, in an interview she prophetically said that the ground soldier would be in charge of many of the moral decisions Aquinas had contemplated, such as the proportional use of force and the discrimination of combatants and non-combatants. Back at the General Convention, however, we sided with the majority – that the whole enterprise of Iraqi Freedom was tainted and ignored the inviolate Just War premise of national sovereignty and sacrosanct borders. In the practical terms needed for an on-the-ground battle I felt we didn't say enough. I still do.

The likelihood was high that any rocket sent our way would come from the hands of someone who might have been listed at one time as a non-combatant. One of the evasive exercises of this war has been the assessment of the combatant/non-combatant category as it relates to enemy casualties.

All that was coming home to roost as I looked out at a spinning horizon in this evasive, spiraling, aerial maneuver. The likelihood was high that any rocket sent our way would come from the hands of someone who might have been listed at one time as a non-combatant. One of the evasive exercises of this war has been the assessment of the combatant/non-combatant category as it relates to enemy casualties. Who do you count and when do you begin to count them? If a partisan picks up a rifle any time during the conflict, for any reason, is he/she a combatant?

Moreover, becoming a disgruntled Iraqi patriot was an easy thing to do. During one neighborhood sweep, I witnessed a young Marine urging family members to line up against a building. To emphasize his instructions he touched the shoulder of a young woman. The men of the household went nuts; it was not much to visualize a vengeful, improvised explosive device set in ambush from their anger.

We disembarked from our solitary plane on the tarmac and squeezed into waiting vehicles arranged by the British consulate. As we were whisked past deserted access roads toward the highway for Baghdad, we inadvertently trailed behind a reinforced Humvee with a soldier riding on top. He and his 50-caliber machine gun turned to face us. During the 30-minute ride, as we changed lanes the muzzle of his weapon followed and remained trained on us. This was a visual demonstration of the lasting predicament we will have in Iraq even after a changeover. The current possession of force has an accompanying, implicit assignment to do something with it. That has to change.

In the asymmetrical wars we have fought (conflicts in which opponents are disproportionately matched, e.g., Vietnam, Iraq) there has been an underestimation of what our own force can do and the resolve of the opposing national will we were facing. On the one hand there are not enough men and matériel on the ground to do an adequate job of follow-up in Iraq, and on the other we have too much “force” on the ground with the accompanying potential to use it. And if that weren't enough, the strategic thinking that got us through the Cold War – of intolerable stockpiles threatening annihilation if employed, and the Powell Doctrine of convening overwhelming strength to guarantee quick victory thereby sparing civilian casualties – is wasted in the ambiguity of a reconstructive phase filled with opportunistic terrorism.

In our zeal to protect our soldiers (and why shouldn't we?) we have armed each warrior and his unit to such a degree that one wonders if we haven't exceeded any ability to keep it in check. . . The changeover at the end of June will place this challenge momentarily in the background, but not for long.

In our zeal to protect our soldiers (and why shouldn't we?) we have armed each warrior and his unit to such a degree that one wonders if we haven't exceeded any ability to keep it in check. Retired Navy Atlantic Fleet Chaplain Jay Magness has regularly worried that our technology in the military and the command structures employed for their regulation were perilously inadequate. The changeover at the end of June will place this challenge momentarily in the background, but not for long. With the first test of – by whom and of what is an acceptable response to any hostility bent on breaking the peace – it will be prominent for all to see.

I am not optimistic about the results unless we do some serious re-assessments. The acquisition of this much firepower only concludes with the most lethal of results and places us far outside the parameters of what is understood as Just War. When I was a platoon leader in Vietnam we received limiting parameters just by being on patrol. Still far afield from the proportionality or legitimacy of a Just War, the circumstances physically required choice and at least the illusion of a scale down to an approximate match with the enemy. I remember thinking – as we waddled from the landing zone with overstuffed pants pockets full of claymore mines – that we were bringing the American response to this trail junction. Truth be told, there were any number of auxiliary backups of firepower but generally the situation was set apart, isolated, and despite the glaring lapses of such places as My Lai, it was not difficult to discern moral choices.

Things have changed and now there is a standing requirement that young fighters be the personification of the “adept” soldier. He/she must be confident, informed, flexible, responsive yet, reflective. Most of all he/she must be able to choose and distinguish among an array of options. The darksome use of nerve and biological agents and other sinister conditions of war have significantly increased the pressure to use force in a character that is appropriate. It asks a lot from this generation of soldiers who by a curious coincidence list their spirituality to be of greater importance than their religion. By whatever means and measure it will be their character based on a confession of what is of ultimate truth in their lives that will see us through these days.

The Rt. Rev. George E. Packard is Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies for the Episcopal Church, USA. He served as an Army infantry officer during the Vietnam War, and after his ordination in 1974, he became a chaplain in the Army Reserves. George may be reached by email at gpackard@episcopalchurch.org .