Thinking About Atrocities
There's a lot to clarify and consider.
“We discuss atrocities in order to bring them to an end. Each of us works to increase domestic dissidence in our own state—eventually we want to get to a situation where there’s so much domestic dissidence in every state that no state at all is able to commit any atrocities.”
See my previous pieces on the war in Ukraine:
“Is US Policy Killing Ukrainians?” (17 March 2022)
“Where’s the Diplomacy?” (26 March 2022)
“Are We in a Propaganda Bubble?” (31 March 2022)
“What Can WE Affect?” (4 April 2022)
“‘To the Last Ukrainian’?” (11 April 2022)
The war in Ukraine has spurred lots of commentary about atrocities—I want to use this piece to discuss some points about how we should think about atrocities.
Getting Morality Straight
I have a piece that explains where I’m coming from on foreign policy:
“Is Our Morality Warped?” (15 April 2022)
I’m glad that the 15 April 2022 piece clarifies matters, since some people might read what I write and think: “This person criticizes Western foreign policy, so maybe this person is some kind of weird apologist for our enemies.”
I remember that I was so disgusted when Putin launched the invasion that my left-wing friend told me that he’d only talk to me about the invasion after I took some time to calm down first.
And I sometimes worry—when I write about the war in Ukraine—that I should regularly clarify my disgust and horror and anger about Putin’s invasion. But I keep that to myself for three reasons:
(1) I don’t want to tell readers about stuff that’s all over the news 24/7 and that everyone who follows the news already knows
(2) I don’t want to insult readers’ intelligence—readers should already know that I condemn enemy crimes and readers should already understand that criticism of Western foreign policy doesn’t somehow entail support for enemy crimes
(3) I don’t like the idea that I have to ritualistically and obediently announce X and Y and Z before I have permission to criticize Western foreign policy
Maybe there are good reasons to regularly clarify my disgust and horror and anger about things like Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—I’m happy to listen to those reasons and to see how strong they are.
Is It OK to Compare Atrocities?
We discuss atrocities in order to bring them to an end. Each of us works to increase domestic dissidence in our own state—eventually we want to get to a situation where there’s so much domestic dissidence in every state that no state at all is able to commit any atrocities.
And people are very attuned to how immoral enemy states’ atrocities are, so maybe comparing atrocities can:
make people look inward
make people see their own state’s atrocities differently
advance the philosophy of moral universalism
Of course, atrocities are very different from one another and history isn’t math—see Noam Chomsky’s 2002 comment on this:
CHOMSKY: Moral equivalence is a term of propaganda that was invented to try to prevent us from looking at the acts for which we are responsible.
QUESTION: You say there are plenty of bin Ladens on both sides.
CHOMSKY: There are bin Ladens all over the world.
QUESTION: That’s moral equivalence. That’s a polemic, isn’t it?
CHOMSKY: That’s not moral equivalence. There is no such notion. There are many different dimensions and criteria. For example, there’s no moral equivalence between the bombing of the World Trade Center and the destruction of Nicaragua or of El Salvador, of Guatemala. The latter were far worse, by any criterion. So there’s no moral equivalence. Furthermore, they were done for different reasons and they were done in different ways.
Every event has complexity to it—“dimensions” and “criteria” and “reasons” and “ways”. So the notion “moral equivalence” makes zero sense—Chomsky says the following two things in what I just quoted and neither of these things has anything to do with any sort of “equivalence”:
(A) every atrocity is very different
(B) certain atrocities that the US has committed in Central America are on a different scale from the bombing of the World Trade Center
And people might take offense at the idea of saying that one atrocity is on a different scale from another atrocity, but I don’t see why this should offend people—why would it be offensive to say that Operation Just Cause and the Iraq War are on different scales from each other? You could argue that that comment would be offensive to the victims of Operation Just Cause, but it just seems like the comment is obviously accurate. And why would it be offensive to say that the Vietnam War is on a different scale from Operation Infinite Reach? Once again, I don’t see any problem.
I think that anyone who’s honest and serious will recognize that some atrocities are simply on another scale from others.
And I worry that people who are responsible for very large-scale atrocities will discourage comparisons—it seems incredibly convenient to say “An atrocity is an atrocity!” if you’re responsible for very large-scale atrocities and your enemies are responsible for atrocities that aren’t as large-scale.
I should add that scholars will compare atrocities in order to analyze society—for example, someone who studies the media might want to look at how the French media covered two comparable atrocities.
Is It a Smart Idea to Compare Atrocities?
Westerners are expressing an extraordinary amount of moral outrage over the war in Ukraine right now. And in response, a critic of Western atrocities will naturally observe the following:
(1) it’s morally gross for Westerners to express an extraordinary amount of moral outrage over the war in Ukraine and at the same time be completely silent about ongoing atrocities—and past atrocities—that Westerners are responsible for
(2) the hypocrisy is even more striking when you observe that these ongoing atrocities—and past atrocities—that Westerners are responsible for are even worse than Putin’s atrocities
I don’t think that it should be at all controversial to say (1). But for the following reasons it might be strategically and rhetorically unwise to say (2):
it could start a big counterproductive controversy—you might regret having said (2) even if you do eventually win your audience over to the observation
saying (2) is a softball for propagandists, since they can immediately pretend that you’re somehow downplaying Putin’s atrocities
But a critic of Western atrocities might make the following points:
comparing atrocities can make Westerners look inward
comparing atrocities can make Westerners look in the mirror and say: “Why don’t I have the same moral standards for enemy states that I have for my own state? If X is wrong when they do it, why isn’t X also wrong when we do it?”
comparing atrocities emphasizes how serious Western atrocities are and can make Westerners say: “My own state is responsible for this thing that’s even more terrible than this other thing that I’m overflowing with moral outrage about, so shouldn’t I therefore take the thing that my own state is doing very seriously?”
the firestorms around these comparisons provide excellent educational opportunities to break through the Western propaganda bubble and reach open-minded people
it’s a good thing whenever you elicit tantrums from the establishment—you get an excellent opportunity to awaken minds
it’s true that not everybody will listen to the comparisons—some people will listen, and that’s how popular movements grow, and the issue is whether the benefits outweigh the costs
I’m not sure where I myself fall on this matter—I just wanted to put these points on the table.
I’m strategically and rhetorically conservative when it comes to comparisons—I always worry that saying anything too fiery will distract from the arguments that I’m trying to present.
Aggression
It’s crucial to recognize that aggression is a special crime that isn’t like any other crime—see the following must-read piece about aggression:
“The Poisoned Chalice” (2007)
Look at this absolutely incredible quote from the Nuremberg trials:
The charges in the Indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world.
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
Suppose that X commits a murder—imagine that the murder victim’s relative becomes mentally unwell as a result and does something awful. X wouldn’t be legally responsible for the awful thing that the relative did—X would be legally responsible only for the murder.
But murder isn’t the “supreme international crime”—the “supreme international crime” actually “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”.
So regarding the US aggression against Iraq, that “accumulated evil” includes the following:
sectarian violence
death squads
millions fleeing
millions being displaced
many more things
It’s chilling to look back on this 23 July 1945 comment from Justice Jackson:
If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.
And it’s also chilling to look back on this 21 November 1945 comment from Justice Jackson:
We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.
And the “accumulated evil” is still accumulating when it comes to Iraq—it’s not over. Iraq is apparently one of the most miserable places on the planet and apparently can’t recover from the aggression. The tragedy is right now—the accumulation continues.
Many people think that the Iraq War is somehow “in the past”—this is an incredibly offensive and incredibly uninformed view to take.
I’m working on a piece right now that will take a look at what happened regarding the Iraq War. It’s amazing how little information Westerners—including myself—actually have about the Iraq War.
Putin’s aggression against Ukraine is also the “supreme international crime” and also “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”. It’s not like the issue of the “accumulated evil of the whole” only applies to the West—it also applies to our enemies when they commit aggression.
Regarding Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, take a look at this striking example of how the “accumulated evil” can include things that you wouldn’t necessarily think of:
Our actions matter regarding the war in Ukraine—we shouldn’t passively await the outcome.
It’s striking to consider that the people who are sincerely extremely concerned about the horrors in Ukraine might be acting to impose unnecessary bloodshed and destruction on Ukrainians—it’s possible for good and sincere and well-meaning people to not think things through and then end up doing harm.
So hopefully we can think things through and not impose unnecessary bloodshed and destruction on Ukrainians:
“‘To the Last Ukrainian’?” (11 April 2022)
And regarding the war in Ukraine, I’m curious what the “accumulated evil of the whole” encompasses. Suppose that nuclear war occurs—would that make Putin’s aggression against Ukraine the worst crime in human history, given what nuclear war means? And Putin’s aggression against Ukraine has already done enormous damage to the efforts to save us all from global heating—does that make this war of aggression already the worst crime in human history, given what global heating means?
Our Sick Culture
The other day I saw one of the strangest sentences that I’ve ever seen:
Trump, Le Pen and Orban don’t come anywhere near the depravity and violence of Putin, who is perpetrating atrocities in Ukraine on a scale not seen since at least the Bosnian war and probably since World War II.
I wonder if enough people will find this sentence offensive that CNN will publish an apology. I couldn’t believe it when I read it—I thought that it was a typo and that they meant to put “in Europe”, but it still hasn’t been corrected.
The first issue is that the sentence appeared. And the second issue is that there wasn’t any reaction.
It seems like we live in a really sick intellectual culture—and a really sick moral culture—where there’s lots of moral outrage as long as:
it’s not our own past crimes
it’s not our own ongoing crimes
That might sound like a harsh judgment, but I don’t know how else to interpret some of the commentary and coverage regarding the war in Ukraine—it’s actually shocking to witness this whole spectacle.
Look at the following pieces and put yourself in the position of someone in the Global South and imagine what this whole spectacle looks like from the outside:
“How coverage of the Ukraine-Russia conflict highlights a racist double standard” (3 March 2022)
“How the Ukraine war exposed Western media bias” (4 March 2022)
“Black and brown refugees are once again being turned away in Europe amid Ukraine migrant crisis” (3 March 2022)
“Op-Ed: A glaring double standard—one for Ukrainian refugees, one for Central Americans” (20 March 2022)
“‘Just Pay Attention to What Our Own Government Is Doing in Yemen’” (25 March 2022)
This is an interesting excerpt from the 25 March 2022 article:
I don’t blame the average person for feeling a certain way about Ukraine and not having that same empathy for Yemen, because, like you said, the media really manipulates the way we understand issues, and it decontextualizes so much of this stuff. And so somebody might be looking at this and not understanding that we are Putin in this case—we are, the Saudis are, like Putin, we are the aggressor, the US is the aggressor in this case, we are the people who are causing the starvation—because it’s so decontextualized. But we can walk and chew gum at the same time; we can pay attention to what’s going on in Ukraine and also not stall on our action toward Yemen, especially because, in this case, it’s not about different people fighting a war that we’re not involved in. We are central to the war, like we’ve discussed.
So the horrors in Ukraine have brought out just how sick our intellectual culture is and just how sick our moral culture is.
The hope lies with popular movements—popular movements have civilized the West in the past and can do that more. There’s endless hope if we choose to take action.