[the first part of this series of blog entries is here]

As you can probably imagine, I'm opposed to many of the arguments tendered in the German response. I'd briefly summarize the 3 letters as:

• Letter 2 -- Moral equivalence between US actions in Afghanistan and the terrorists in NYC/DC + some justification for what the terrorists did in light of US policies
• Letter 3 -- US response asking for a pointed attack / definition of the original principle of "just war" from the Germans
• Letter 4 -- German response saying that, in modern times, there is no such thing as "just war" + my responses to the arguments tendered by the Germans

LETTER 2 -- GERMAN RESPONSE TO US

The German respondents come from a post-modern, Euro-Liberal perspective, and expectedly, employ many of the classic debate tactics.

Tactic #1 - Moral Equivalence.    The first goal is to equate the "mass murder" of 9/11 with the "mass murder" of war.   And by equating the 2, they attempt to systematically exclude any analysis of the underlying imperatives of either action -- e.g. "Killing to Save Lives" is just as bad as "Killing to, uh, Kill."   In this world, Actions and Reason are fundamentally disconnected.

But it is precisely these moral values, which are universally valid in our eyes, that cause us to reject the war that your government and its allies (us included) in the "alliance against terror" are waging in Afghanistan - and which has cost the lives of more than 4,000 innocent bystanders to date, including many women and children - with the same rigorousness with which we condemn the mass murder of innocent bystanders by the terrorist attack. There are no universally valid values that allow one to justify one mass murder by another. The war of the "alliance against terror" in Afghanistan is no "just war" - an ill-starred historical concept that we do not accept - on the contrary, it flagrantly violates even the condition you cite, "to protect the innocent from certain harm".

...We cannot understand why you do not devote a single word of your appeal to the mass murder of the Afghan civilian population resulting from the bombing campaign conducted with the most modern weapon systems.

A particularly insidious type of moral equivalence cited by the Germans:

Many of us feel that the growing influence of fundamentalist forces in the United States on the political elite of your country, which clearly extends all the way to the White House, is cause for concern.

The use of the word "fundamentalist" is utterly deliberate here.  And, while they object to "fundamentalism" in the US, there is NO concern expressed about fundamentalism in the Middle East.   They express a similar concern towards the free press in the US in the wake of 9/11 with no complementary concern for presses in the Middle East.

Tactic #2 - They argue that the Real Solution is World Government.  I've blogged at length about why I think this is misguided argument. 

Democratic states possess sufficiently developed means under the rule of law to combat crime within their sphere of influence, and to call the guilty to account. What we need to do is to extend these proven means globally, in close cooperation with other states.

The remainder of the letter is a mishmash of grievances towards US policies, economic power, calls for global disarmament, "no war for Oil", Globalization, the "unipolar world order", etc.  This is actually another form of the Moral Equivalence argument but carries the tone of "who are YOU to tell OTHERS about immorality?   You're just as immoral"

LETTER 3 -- US RESPONSE TO GERMANY

Our A-Team, is having none of this and deliver to the Germans what might best be termed a Fisking  ;-).    This is probably the most fun read in the series.   I highly recommend reading it directly, it's short and acerbic.   Consequently, I'll minimize my quotes from it here.

With respect to War, the Americans contend that the Germans vacillate between a pure pacifist stance (all war bad) and a moralist one (who are you to talk about morals?) and ask them to chose:

So which is it for you? Is the use of force ever morally justified?  If not, why not? If so, what are the proper moral criteria for the use of force? And how would these criteria, as you understand them, apply to the current crisis?  Simply denouncing the United States for nearly everything that it has done in the world since 1945, while certainly your prerogative, does not relieve you from the responsibility of taking a clear position on these questions. We await your response.

LETTER 4 -- GERMANY REBUTTAL TO US

The Germans respond with the argument that could be summarized as "war can't be just because it can escalate infinitely"

...The question that concerns us all is how to react appropriately to this special threat, or to such an event.

...Due to its potential for overkill, for mass destruction, modern warfare with its mighty weaponry has become totally irrational, because it can no longer resolve the conflicts that it is supposed to resolve. And it will never be able to resolve them-given an equal respect to all mankind-but will even preserve them in aggravated form into the future, due to the hatred of many innocent persons who have come to harm... Given the almost unlimited escalation of violence made possible by modern technology, neither an ideology of 'just war' nor pacifism is therefore needed to oppose all wars today, but merely pragmatic, appraising reason.

So here lies a primary example of the 2 sides almost "talking past each other".  The Americans subscribe to the very Romantic perspective that morality and ethics are timeless and invariant in the face of technology.   The Germans are arguing "modern weaponry is so devastating that we don't have the luxury of morality."  

However, this is PRECISELY what the "preemptive attack" in the first letter from the Americans was designed to counteract.   The Americans have already argued that the German position isn't a transcendence of morality but is, in and of itself, a moral position that "rejects the possibility of reason, accepts normlessness in international affairs, and capitulates to cynicism." 

This cynicism can be seen in the prominence of the word "modern" in the German responses.   It's bad enough that Afghan civilians are dying in a bombing campaign, it furthers the German world view that the bombing is being carried out by "the most modern weapon systems".  

The Germans also continue to employ moral equivalence by stating that all combatants in any sphere see their cause as leading to a "Just War", including Hamas, Al Qaeda, and for that matter, the Nazi's.   The Germans are, in essence, arguing that "you can't use morality to discuss force because everyone has a morality."  The Americans are saying "here's our moral system and the concluding basis for force."  Sure, the Nazi's saw their cause as "just", BUT, what the original letter attempted to lay out was a set of criteria for evaluating different claims of "justness".    This criteria of course, were the earlier specified "universal" values of freedom on speech, religion, etc.

There are many other elements exhaustively discussed in the German letter.   However, for me, the defining statement is the following, where they demonstrate their adherence to moral equivalence quite directly:

Can one really-as you imply in your letter-give less moral weight to "unintentionally" killed civilians in Afghanistan than to intentionally killed civilians in the U.S.A.?

For me, the answer is emphatically YES -- it is obviously far worse to kill intentionally than to kill unintentionally.    Further, most "lay" people probably find the whole premise of the question odd.   This is one of the most fundamental disconnects between the Ivory Tower and the reality faced by normal people every day.

Actions and Reason can be and are intertwined in my world view (and arguably the world views of most Americans).   By contrast, the German / Euro-Liberal world view is punctuated by a belief in the futility of action directed by Reason to create a better tomorrow.   Thus, they exclude Reason, rationales, and motivations from their evaluation and pass their judgement on the most sterile, physical manifestion of today's Actions alone.  

[Back to US Letter]
[To Saudi Response]