Op-Ed: The masquerade of justice

To begin this piece, I lift the words of two of history’s greats. The first is Victor Hugo, romantic author of "Les Misérables," a book which gave voice to the trodden-upon in the 19th century and earned for Hugo immortal dignity. On war, Hugo contemplates: “Civil war? What does this mean? Is there any foreign war? Is not every war between men war between brothers? War is modified only by its aim. There is neither foreign war nor civil war; there is only unjust war and just war.”

The second is Simón Bolívar, the Latin American revolutionary who led the fight for freedom against the Spanish Empire for most of his adult life. His words? “Doing the right thing costs so little and is worth so much.”

What do these words mean in today’s world, one wracked with as many troubles as the world of the 1800s? They mean the same as they did then. Here, I would like to apply them to the air war carried out by the United States in the Middle East. Though traditional aircraft are present in the skies over Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, many of the Hellfire missiles that rain from the sky are deployed from Predator Drones, a combat unit originally designed to “defeat Soviet tanks on the plains of Europe." It is war, they say. We were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and we are fighting back. It is total war. American civilians perished on that day. It was a vicious attack. And this is true. It is also wrong, and morally flimsy.

The Guardian reported less than a month ago that the drone war has become “increasingly indiscriminate.” Drones were employed as a weapon of terror and destruction by the Bush and Obama administrations, the actions of which have severely undermined any moral high ground America still retained internationally. In Donald Trump’s first year in office more than 10,000 coalition airstrikes have been carried out in battle zones across the Middle East. What is more, several nations previously excluded from our hellfire have now been added to the list of battle zones. Among these: Yemen and Somalia.

It is horrific that religious zealots bent on dealing a vicious blow to the pride, power and impenetrability of the United States attacked us. We must tread carefully when discussing American terror campaigns abroad, but in our ruthless, often inaccurate attacks across the region in response to 9/11, we have killed thousands of civilians. It is illegal to target civilians, so most civilian deaths are mistakes. Whatever the reason for their deaths, can America truly say to them that it is in their best interests to die for our cause, that it is a necessary piece to restoring peace? As an American, and as a person coming of age in a time of brutal conflict across the globe, I cannot accept this view. It is wrong to kill noncombatants. That is a fact. Nobody disagrees, until they blind themselves with the enigma of total war. We are all combatants in a global struggle. No. We are people. People should not kill people. People should especially not kill noncombatants. It is murder. It is “unjust war.”

So what do we do? We say to ourselves, “Doing the right thing costs so little and is worth so much.” We say to ourselves, we are Americans; we will take the higher road; we will rise above violence. I welcome challenge and disagreement, but in my commitment to the value of human life, I will remain firm.