Is the Killing of Children Justified in War?

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This topic came out of a previous thread and seemed worthy of further discussion. We were talking about the use of children in the Vietnam War (specifically the My Lai incident) -- and I found some interesting links, not only of the incident itself, but of the use of children as soldiers historically.

Specifically, one Marine recounts :

"Hot, tired, smelly and uncomfortable, you hear a voice. "Cold soda, Marine?" You smile a "yes!"

She flips off the soda top and pours the fluid into a paper cup full of chipped ice. You gulp down a large mouthful of the cold, sweet fluid. Small chips of ice slide down your throat along with the soda. Then you realize, too late, that slivers of glass are cutting your stomach . . . from the inside, out. The games people play in Vietnam are deadly."

And this:

"United States in Vietnam

During Vietnam War, American soldiers reported (and US military sources documented) a number of incidents where Vietnamese children were given hand grenades and/or explosives and used as weapons against American troops. In one variation, a young child is instructed to throw a hand grenade (with or without pulling the pin to activate it first, depending on whether direct or psychological casualties are intended.) In another variation, children had explosives strapped to their bodies and were encouraged to mingle with American soldiers, with detonation either by a mechanical device or by remote control. Incidents such as these were cited by the military to justify use of deadly force against children, much to the disgust of peace activists. The frequency of such incidents, and whether deadly force was necessary as often as it was actually used, is hotly disputed."...taken from here

And since we were discussing My Lai, here's a full account of the incident and a possible mindset of the soldiers at that time.

I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts as to whether or not a child can be viewed as a threat to a life. Do these countries use children because we perceive them to be innocent?.....in fact, banking on it? At what point do we see them as soldiers and not children?

 

When a child has is shooting with a AK-47 or other firearms we are talking about children on which deadly force might be necessary since it's quite unreasonable to ask soldiers to just sit down and die while the child soldier shoots them. But other than that, they are children, killing them is unacceptable under any circumstances period. If they are giving soldiers deadly candy or soda that might have been given to them by someone else to distribute, they might have also done it by themselves but then they have probably been given a demonized picture of their enemy by their parents or someone else they trust. Children are by default not fully responsible for their actions, I'm sure even the American law recognizes that and war is no exception.

EDIT: The issue of hand grenades is slightly more complex, if a soldier shoots a children who actually had a rock in his hand and not a hand grenade then well that's not exactly murder but it's manslaughter. I won't accept any pre-emptive strikes against children. If a child actually throws a hand grenade and it blows up, and is preparing to throw a second one, then it is probably necessary to shoot the child to avoid further casualties.

 

From a strategic point of view, they should be killed at the first (maybe second) sign of aggression. Towing the line between identifyable threats and killing enough to make the entire populace revolt. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to vomit from even typing that.

From a less bloodthirsty point of view, I agree with Morgoroth completely. As the future of their society, children should be given every benefit of the doubt. Look for them pulling the pin or whatever you have to to make sure that they pose a threat to life or limb. But if you make that determination, the choice becomes a little more clear.

Unfortunately, some tactics (the unwitting bomb, for example) don't allow you to react, but such is the price for the moral higher ground, and one I would gladly pay.

 

If an enemy has no qualms about using children as soldiers and weapons, then a soldier has a responsibility to treat them as enemy combatants.

"Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. - Patton as played by George C. Scott.

 

The problem comes when the soldiers start treating all children as enemy combatants. Where the draw the line is the tricky part. Deadly force is should be authorized for the child with a weapon. Deadly force should not be authorized for the child with the ice (since the child may not know about the glass). Soldiers must be educated about the tactics of using children and, at the same time, understand the children may be unknowing instruments of war. It takes real scum to use children as instruments of war -- that scum needs to be the primary target.

 

Felinoid, what do you do if you are in a crowded market in Sadr City and a kid walks up to you with a grenade? If you wait for the pin to be pulled then people are going to die. But if you shoot before the pin is pulled, then only the kid might die. I wouldn't find it to be a hard decision.

 

And what if the kid had found the grenade and was trying to give it to a soldier (simply because the kid didn't know what else to do with the thing)?

Here is case where, in reality, the child posed no threat but certainly looked like he/she did. There were cases in Vietnam where children had grenades in dolls and would pull the pin as they gave the doll to the GI -- no threat was seen but it was certainly there.

This is such a gray area that there are no simple answers. I would aid the enemies of any force that indiscriminately killed my child -- especially in cases where the death was clearly not necessary and the forces were just being overly cautious.

 

From a strategic point of view killing children (and/or adults) OK. Military people should keep in mind that every civilian can be a potential foe. I know that it's sick but this is how's the wart created.
And from moral point of view war is never a right solution.

 

I would think that from a strategic point of view (i.e., long range, big picture thinking) killing children would be taboo. It only creats additional hostility. However, it may be necessary from a tactical point of view.

 

Strategy is what you plan (with all possible and impossible ways), tactic is how you put strategy to life.

 

Take the average soldier -- Billy Bob Jones from Arkansas. He's on patrol in Vietnam, and out from the bushes runs a little kid with a backpack toward his sargeant(sic) who is about 40 feet away. The Sarge turns and says "hey buddy, how's it hanging?" in Vietnamese to the little kid, and drops to one knee, rummaging in his pocket for a Snickers bar to give the little tyke and maybe generate some good will in this area. As he opens the Snickers bar, the kid comes within 2 feet of the Sarge and . . . EXPLODES! No more kid, no more Sarge. Corporal Tommy Tucker, munitions expert, comes up from behind the lines and determines that yes, the kid had a 5 pound bomb on him and had detonated it with a little hand trigger.

Two days later, Billy Bob is on patrol again, complete with a new Sargent. As they walk down the road, strung out a little, of course, so as not to be an easy clumped target, a little kid comes running out of the bushes with a backpack on. He's heading straight for Billy Bob -- he'll be within 5 feet in about 10 seconds. Billy Bob says "Stop!" very clearly in Vietnamese, as do the rest of the soldiers, but the little fellow keeps coming.

Any sanctimonious twit who is going to tell me that Billy Bob shouldn't shoot that kid down is, in my humble opinion, and with all due respect to the fact that we all have divergent opinions, a complete and utter moron. It's not right, it's not pleasant, it sucks, but soldiers are allowed to defend themselves from being killed.

Now, as for just killing kids for fun, that is of course wrong, but you cannot expect, in a war situation, for soldiers to "make absolutely, 100% sure" that the target is hostile before defending themselves -- it's a life or death situation, with no reset or reload button. Be realistic.

 

Is killing kids ok ? no.
Is killing kids in a war ok ? yes.
Is war ok ? no.
War is killing others for your own survival. War is never ok, it can only be necessary.

War includes killing people to win. Children are people and therefore get killed. Dead children are an inherent part of war. Or a heightend number of orphans.

There is no war without dead children.

And what difference does it make ? How many children are made orphans in a war, while the infrastructure around them is breaking down and they'd be reliant on their parents like never before for survival. With the parents gone, who'd be putting food on their table ?

Or if the parents were still alive, but the war lead to a restrictied famine, be it because transportation broke down or food-storages were destroyed.

Indirectly, there are a lot of children dying anyway.

 

Does the kid shoot or aim at you with a real firearm? Yes.

Otherwise? No, no way.

 

Rutkowski, the point I was making was that in the time it takes to make that determination you are already dead -- if you have seen another soldier killed in such a fashion, you'd be an absolute fool to let the same thing happen to you. As I also mentioned in the example (and I believe that similar things were done in Vietnam and elsewhere) there was no gun, just a concealed bomb that makes you just as dead.

On the same note, dropping any bomb at any time carries the possibility of killing children. That's horrible and wrong and all that stuff, true enough, but both the Allies and the Axis lobbed bombs at each other and thousands of children were killed. It happens, and sometimes there's not way around it under the prevailing circumstances.

 

Well spellbound if you read about My Lai, the villagers waved white flags to the Americans as they thought they were being saved from the big bad communists, but unfortunately for them they were very wrong. Rape, murder and torture was their reward, but I am sure those poor soldiers were stressed out so what choice did they have?

Nice attitude there...

BTW I don't see anywhere in that article that backs your claim children from the village 'attacked' anyone. And if you want to read about what sort of person Calley was, then go to crimelibrary.com. It would seem that Vietnam simply gave him an excuse to do such terrible things.

Now to get straight to the point, and to answer your question from a few days ago, yes I did serve in the military - I was based in N.Ireland, while not a war zone, is still a very dangerous place for soldiers, especially the 'peace lines' separating the Catholics and Protestants areas. Every house you pass would be the home of a terrorist, and a sniper could be behind any window. When you are 'parterned up' you take one side of the street, while the other takes the other side, to look out for potential danger. Of course if the army used 'US tactics' we would bulldoze every house and kill everyone to 'get rid of the bad guys'. Its also common here to see children being used by their parents to stir up situations, eg having children point plastic guns at soldiers, and in the worst cases, having teens throwing petrol bombs at police/army. Of course you are probably thinking that I am a 'British occupier' of N.Ireland, but infact I was raised in a republican area, went to a catholic school, am fluent in gaelic and am as much a nationalist as Gerry Adams. My reason for joining the British army? To balance things out.

So where is this little background info on me leading to? Well I have shot no children, nor have I raped or tortured anyone, unlike some 'war heroes'. Its never okay to kill children (you can protect yourself though), especially if you are occupying their country. Its only the cowards that shoot first, and worse are the people that support them.

The Royal Irish Rangers are stationed in Iraq, and they have many years of dealing with terrorism in Ulster. There have been no cases of 'abuse' so far. Not bad from people that have been under pressure.

 

Cu --

If this is the comment you're referring to:

I was being facetious -- I never said that these children attacked THOSE particular soldiers. The point I was trying to make is that attacks by children was a fairly typical occurrence in Vietnam (hence my closing statement about "the next village over").....and could have most definitely led to the reason for some of their behaviors.

There's some great arguments in this thread...and some fairly thoughtful comments. It's a hard topic to discuss, in that it's not so black and white -- not when you're talking about survival anyways.

 

Warfare is never "okay" or "justified" - it is, at best, excusable. The same goes for killing in warfare; self-defence is an excuse, and a reasonable one at that, but not a justification. To illustrate my point, here's a link about a purposeful slaughter of children as an act of war from 20 years ago.

The sad fact is that in such a situation, you cannot adhere completely to the standards of civil society. You have to act on reasonable suspicion, because if you wait for proof, you're going to end up dead very, very soon. You need to have a reason to support your actions because otherwise you're an indiscriminate killer.

People die in wars. Most of them don't deserve to. If anyone's familiar with Bob Dylan's "Masters Of War", they'll be well acquainted with my sentiments about the architects of conflict.

If someone, even a kid, points something that even resembles a firearm, then I can understand the rationale for shooting them. That isn't to say I'd necessarily support it, just that the person's danger response has been triggered, and that they have done what they reasonably believed was necessary to survive. Of course, when the battle lines are so blurred and it's difficult to define an enemy combatant until they open fire, I imagine that's a hell of a lot harder to do and am exceptionally glad to have never been in that position.

A child can be a threat to life. I don't doubt that they were specifically used because they're supposed to be innocent and harmless, to be protected rather than shot. The psychological impact alone is horrendous. I would argue that soldiers should be taking every reasonable step to stay away from children if there's any indication or possibility of hostility. You can't take the risk, either way; if you've clearly stated your requirements and issued a warning, and they aren't doing what you've said, you've got maybe two seconds to act. Neither resolution is desirable, but I know which one I'd choose. I'd know I'd made the right choice, but I'd still feel terrible about it and I don't know if I'd ever recover from doing it.

That said, the sort of person who'd use a child to incite a situation or to kill people is worthy only of disgust and contempt, IMO.

[ November 20, 2005, 23:03: Message edited by: NonSequitur ]

 

The nature and circumstance of a conflict also has a bearing upon the morality of the actions of the participating soldiers. When one nation invades and violates another nation's sovereignty on the grounds of humanitarianism, liberty, or democracy, then that same nation's army will be judged by those very same principles. A soldier cannot simply state “There's a war on. Bad things happen” when the crux of his mission is prevent such “Bad things” from ever taking place. Like Jallianwallah Bagh, Guernica, Halabja and Srebrenica, My Lai is a place name that has become a symbol of unconscionable brutality. Such shameful behavior by serving soldiers, wherever proven, makes a mockery of a mission to implant the rule of law and in the case of My Lai, it rendered the ideas of intervention in Vietnam as tainted.

[ November 17, 2005, 02:57: Message edited by: SatansBedFellow ]

 

Supposing you have a family to feed, are attacked by a kid with fire arms and it's either you or he, what's more moral? Put the attacker down, no matter how young, or get yourself killed and abandon your family, your squad, your mission?

What if only a quick headshot will prevent the kid from bringing a couple of deaths? Regretful as it were to kill a child, saving the other people would be a good act. On the other hand, pulling trigger for fun is never good, no matter the age or gender of the target, anyway, but with civilians, women and children, it's especially evil. What I'm trying to say is that war doesn't justify any killing whatsoever which is not in defence or in battle.

What is never okay is violence for its own sake, for fun. Or sexual violence, such as raping wives and children and making husbands and fathers watch. It may be okay to kill a child (self defence) but it's never okay to abuse a child, execute him to show your resolve to his father and so on.

 

If they are part of an attack on the army in questin, then they are enemy soldiers, and no longer simply children. Their death is on the head of the ones who sent them to fight.

If they have no desire or intention to fight, then they are not acceptable targets.

Colateral damage is unfortunate, but has been known to occur...