The Morality of Retaliation

Imagine someone from a building goes across town to a quiet neighbourhood and throws a grenade into a house, killing three people inside. The survivors in the house and their neighbours then set off with guns and bombs and head towards the building where the culprit is known to live.  They are told that a few people there might be friends of the killer, but the vast majority of the building’s residents have nothing to do with him. Nonetheless, consumed by the desire for vengeance, the now heavily armed group launch an all-out attack on the building, killing hundreds of defenceless people – children amongst the innocent victims. They insist that they just want to make sure the original murderer does not escape, and they cannot be blamed for the deaths they cause.

No government in the world, or any sane person for that matter, would for one moment accept what the killing mob have done as a legitimate response to what had previously happened, or tolerate it, let alone help them commit such atrocities.

Imagine now some terrorists have taken control of a county in the UK or the US. They declare themselves the administrator for that county, and one day they launch missiles at X, a foreign country, killing thousands of people there because they hate X.  The government of X announces its retaliation plan which involves shooting, bombing, starving, hundreds of thousands of people in the terrorist-run county.  The vast majority of those who are to be killed as a result do not support the terrorists, they do not support the launching of the missiles at X, they just want to live in peace. But in the name of hunting down the terrorists, the government of X keeps escalating their military actions even as dead bodies of innocent victim keep piling up.

What should be done?  The terrorists who launched deadly missiles should be brought to justice, certainly. What about the vengeance-seekers who order the mass killing of innocent people in that unfortunate county? Should they be aided with more guns and weapons? Or should they be stopped from taking even more lives?  

If we were residents of X ourselves, we might be caught up in the shock and anger, and if someone says with the press of a button, the terrorists responsible would be erased from the face of the earth, we might be all for pressing it. But what if that would cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people as well – would we still want that button pressed?

Think now of being stuck in the cursed county. The people in control make all kinds of outrageous decisions. There’s nothing we can do. Nobody outside is going to help us. Instead, when the murderous people in charge set about killing people in another land, we get caught up in the retaliation and face being shot and bombed because there is nowhere else we can go.

Sometimes it is difficult to determine if an act is morally wrong or not.  Then there are times when it is the easiest thing in the world to recognise that killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people is unforgivably evil.