One can sympathize with the difficulty these well-intentioned people have in really "understanding the Ten Commandments controversy." Having no central teaching authority, they are left to their own fallible, and often misinformed, ability to form opinions. In this case, these were, unfortunately, based on misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights and powerful emotional responses to what they perceived was an attack on their God and their right to worship Him.

The article reminded me of similarly unfortunate public remarks I have read by some the clergy of my own religion, including some bishops, regarding the military and military service, and more particularly the military activities of the United States in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. These preachers of the Gospel are similarly well-intentioned and under the influence of strong emotion. However, we Catholics have a central authority to which they can refer. In addition, our priests and bishops all have the equivalent education of advanced degrees in moral theology and ethics, and many have much more. Moreover, they are required by the religion they represent to give both exterior and interior assent to the official teachings of their faith, regardless of their own personal feelings. One who presents himself as an official teacher of Catholic doctrine has a sacred obligation to teach that doctrine. When one considers the damage likely to be caused by not doing so, given the horror of modern war, the evil is grave indeed if he deviates from it.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that warfare of any kind is repugnant to preachers of peace, and they have a deep-seated aversion to it. As a result, there are few competent military ethicists. Military ethics is very much like forensic astronomy; it is difficult to reconcile the two disciplines or find common ground in both. But military operations, and the political decisions which create them, are well within the activities of human beings about which it is the function of religion and its spokesmen to guide their flocks, especially members of the military. Unfortunately, too many clergymen of my acquaitance teach about them poorly, falsely, or not at all.

I submit that very few Catholic writers of articles or publishers of position papers on the moral implications of war, however well they may be educated, have served in public life or the military, have had personal responsibility for the survival of thousands or millions of people, or have been required to make decisions in the heat of battle. Even military chaplains, in the United States at least, are prohibited by law from assuming command, which leaves them with no effective military command experience. While one might find a trained, competent ethicist who also has been a successful military commander or public authority, they are few and far between. As a graduate of both the Army and Air Force staff colleges, who served 16 years on active duty, including 27 months in combat, I know a thing or two about tactical operations. I also know a little about chaplains, since I had a number of chaplain friends and was required to function as one in Vietnam because the military didn't have enough Catholic chaplains to go around. I believe the my religion can and must do better. I have unsubscribewd to my diocese newpaper because of offensive, uninformed and blatantly anti-military articles written in it by Catholic clergymen and approved by Catholic editors. I am frequently impressed by how much more effective a preacher of the Gospel author might be if he knew what he was talking about.

An additional problem is that ethicists deal in abstract ideas, whereas military people deal in hard, cold facts. The ethicist, sitting in his warm, carved walnut study, surrounded by stained glass windows, books on spirituality, pictures of Jesus and statues of the saints, may find it difficult to understand (or, for that matter, to be understood by) a hungry, exhausted warrior in a freezing foxhole being shelled by an enemy mortar.

On the other hand, I find many more military people in church than I find churchmen in the military. I wonder about the reasons for this dichotomy. The function of the United States military is to impose the will of the United States, using such force as necessary, on people and nations who would not comply with it otherwise. My understanding of the functions of the Christian clergy is that at least one of them is to promote peace and harmony among nations and peoples so that the military won't have to do that the hard way. I leave it to the reader to decide who is doing a better job.

To begin with, the following points are specifically the teaching of the Catholic Church. Click on the bullet if you want to take the (long!) time to download the Catechism of the Catholic Church and read the exact reference.

Given the teaching of the Church that a citizen is obliged to defend his country, and to cooperate with civil authorities, it is difficult to see how a Catholic can be a conscientious objector unless somehow he has become absolutely convinced that his personal service in the military would constitute unjust aggression against an innocent foe. Even if he is so convinced, such a conviction could be morally reached only after an examination of all available evidence, to the best of his ability. Catholics are not free to take any position that seems good to them or which they can defend by quoting Scripture. They have an obligation to form right consciences based on facts and the teaching of the Church. The Church does not teach that one should not join or serve in a nation's military. It didn't even teach that in Germany or Japan during World War II.

Military reservists and national guardsmen (and women) are most definitely military personnel, in law as well as in fact. Anyone who believes that service in the Reserves or National Guard insulates him from serving in combat or for an indefinite period is, at the very best, mistaken.

The evils resulting from modern war are almost certain to outweigh the injustices associated with insulting the President or calling the king a fink. Nevertheless, the arguments for and against war seem to be most applicable to a condition in which lethal force is used to achieve a political objective, and it is this working definition which will be used in the following discussion.

Both of these principles are recognized within the military by what are known as "rules of engagement" which specify what targets may legitimately be attacked, by which weapons, and under what circumstances. These are arrived at ahead of time with the advice of all interested parties, ethicists (if they are willing with good faith to participate) included. At the national command authority level (President, Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Congress) these principles are examined with a view to determining whether war is permissible in the first place, and, if so, what objectives should be assigned to the military commander to limit it and let him know when he is finished.

The ethicist is not elucidating any great hidden truth by discovering that war is not healthy for children or other living things. War in its widest sense is an extension of diplomacy, another means of politics by which a nation or other political entity attempts to impose its will on those who would otherwise not comply. This attempt arises out the perception of injustice which it is hoped such action will assuage or rectify. This imposition of will need not be violent. It can be political, economic, social, emotional or psychological. Because it seeks to limit human freedom (of the enemy), any kind of war is in need of moral justification. As the potential for suffering and other evils escalates, greater justification is needed, and the means to limit those evils must be given more attention. The clergy in a country involved in any kind of war abdicates its responsibility to support its leaders and fellow citizens as well as to preach the Gospel if its response to armed conflict is simply that it isn't nice and we should all pray for it to stop.

*The Japanese Second Army headquarters in Hiroshima and the Mitsubishi machine works in Nagasaki were legitimate military targets. While US public sentiment at the time favored insuring that the Japanese language would be spoken only in hell, the futile resistance and mass suicides of the Japanese in the battle of Okinawa indicated (correctly, as it turned out) that Japan would not stop fighting until the country was totally destroyed and a large proportion of her people had starved to death. The atomic bombs used by the United States served as much to save the Japanese people from their military leaders as they did to save the lives of US service personnel, for an estimated total of about 4,875,000 people! Secretary of State James Byrnes asked President Truman what his defense would be at his impeachment trial if he had this fearsome weapon that could have saved American lives and ended the war and failed to use it. Truman's response was to authorize the use of the weapon on June 1, 1945. As Major General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, stated, "People who talk of outlawing the atomic bomb are mistaken. What needs to be outlawed is war!"

USAF General Charles A. Horner, the senior Air Force officer in Desert Storm, enunciated a thought-provoking principle of modern tactics. Basically, he maintained that modern war is so horrible in its execution, and so terrible in its effects, that the most humane military tactic in modern warfare is to apply maximum violence to the enemy forces to end the conflict and stop the suffering as soon as possible. Under this consideration, the use of a large strategic nuclear weapon as the opening shot would be morally advisable (and, perhaps, necessary) to force an immediate end to the conflict, notwithstanding the fearsome destruction that would result.

It is estimated today, with the benefit of hindsight, that the use of nuclear weapons against Japan saved the lives of a quarter million American POWs, a million US military, a million Japanese military, and five million starving Japanese civilians. It also prompted the Emperor, the only effective authority left in Japan, to decide to intervene to end the war two days before Japan planned to contaminate San Francisco with its own radiological bomb. These facts suggest that one appropriate use of nuclear weapons would be to reduce suffering and death by bringing a quick end to a conflict, as suggested by the Horner Doctrine. For example, where hundreds or thousands of fanatics have sworn to continue fighting using "scorched earth" tactics until the last man has fallen, a nuclear weapon can bring peace by quickly bringing that about. Modern Catholic clergy (and those of other faiths) would do well to work out reasonable rules of engagement, in conjunction with military experts, to provide guidelines for future employment of nuclear weapons. Otherwise, such decisions are left exclusively to those whose expertise is oriented toward violence and destruction.

The legitimacy of any act of warfare can be judged by the Law of Absolute Right (LAR), decribed in a different context by Richard Wetherill in the 1920s. Basically, the philosophy is that right action gets right results, and wrong results arise from wrong actions. A particular act, or a group of them taken together, is either morally justifiable or it isn't, regardless of how that justification is arrived at. Said another way, an act cannot be good and praiseworthy and at the same time evil and despicable. If a particular political goal is morally defensible, those activities which actually achieve it are morally defensible as well. If a particular act is not morally defensible, either it will inhibit achievement of a moral goal, or the goal itself is immoral. Therefore, if the ethicist determines that a particular military act is evil and should be avoided, and the general determines that the same act is good and should be undertaken (or vice versa), one of them is wrong.

The task for both the ethicist and the general, (and the politician and the diplomat, etc.) is to determine what acts are appropriate and which ones are not, regardless of how they reason. If they disagree, they need to look at each other's arguments, and keep going until they find the flaw.

Consider: a soldier is in a house containing only a newborn baby in a crib. We seek to determine whether shooting the baby is morally justifiable as a legitimate act of war.

Even the average ethicist will probably immediately argue that shooting the baby would be morally wrong. He might argue that the baby is an innocent noncombatant, that it represents no threat to the soldier. He might quote Scripture. There are probably not very many moral arguments for shooting the baby, and they are all overwhelmed by the moral arguments against shooting him.

The average war protester would probably also argue that shooting the baby is wrong because shooting babies is wrong. Not very elegant, but reasonable.

From a military point of view, shooting the baby is not a good idea, either. While it might give the soldier an opportunity for target practice, it would not achieve any militarily significant goal. Furthermore, it would take time from his military mission, possibly alert nearby enemies of his presence, enrage the local populace, embarrass the US all the way to the President, provoke domestic outrage, create additional public sanitation problems, and waste ammunition.

The point here is that, however you look at it, the soldier should not shoot the baby. Whether or not one should perform a particular act does not depend upon who is examining it. It depends upon what the act is. Therefore, the job of the ethicist, to determine what the soldier should or should not do, is equally as valid as in any other human activity. But the ethicist has to do his homework. If his conclusion is "commanders should give this matter careful consideration," or words to that effect, he is simply stating the obvious. What we want to know, and what we are paying the ethicist his income to tell us, is whether we should or should not do a particular thing. If the ethicist can't make a decision because he doesn't understand the military, he is morally obliged to learn what he needs to know. The ethicist has no more justification for condemning the military for not being ethical than the military has for condemning ethics because it isn't military.

To be moral, an action must have a moral goal and use moral means. If either or both of these are immoral, the act itself is immoral. This is another statement of the LAR principle, which says that an immoral act naturally frustrates a moral goal. Thus, if the goal in war is to enslave an enemy population, annex his territory, steal his resources, destroy his culture or frustrate his national destiny, any act in support of such a war is objectively immoral, and the enemy is morally obligated to oppose it. Modern wars, of course, are allegedly fought for the highest of moral purposes, such as "ending British tyranny," "preserving the Union," "ending all wars," "making the world safe for democracy," "keeping Southeast Asia from going communist," "ejecting the aggressors from Kuwait," "protecting our people from terrorists," or "saving the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator." None of these apparently praiseworthy goals can truly be accomplished by immoral means.

Perhaps the best example of how the LAR principle works against those who seek to achieve a moral purpose by using immoral means is illustrated by a group of people who, to avoid the appearance of racism, may be referred to as the Krell. They are an unsophisticated people who have been thrust against their will into world prominence because of the control by some of their countries of certain strategic resources. The western world is willing to purchase these resources essentially at whatever price the Krell demand, but the Krell are convinced that the west, especially the United States, is engaged in a vast conspiracy to blaspheme their god(s), profane their temples, steal their resources, enslave their people, annex their territory, destroy their culture, frustrate their national destiny, violate their women, molest their children, contaminate their food, poison their water, slaughter their farm animals, and torture to death their cats, dogs and pet budgerigars. Their method of preventing all this is to do it to themselves first! Their public statements are, at best, difficult for the west to understand and often are absolute nonsense according to western standards, but the goal of the Krell appears to be that they want every single westerner, as well as western thought and culture, to be out of their countries, and preferably off the planet as well.

The Krell claim to be Muslims, and often represent themselves as such to gain sympathy in the Muslim world that surrounds them, but the Krell morality resembles Islam about as much as the Ku Klux Klan resembles Christianity. Real Muslims detest them because, among other things, they give Islam a terrible name and cause untold suffering of Muslims worldwide! They pick and choose elements of Islam to appear to justify their actions to gullible people and to provoke western antipathy against Islam, so they can claim western hatred and bigotry against Muslims instead of against themselves in hopes of getting Christians and Muslims to destroy each other. They and their actions are directly against the tenets and requirements of Islam as plainly revealed in the Holy Koran. Unlike real Muslims, they drink alcohol, eat pork, have illicit sex, objectify women, murder other Muslims, profane the holy days and desecrate mosques. Very few of them ever visit Mecca! Their only hope of entering Paradise is to trick their petty god into accepting them by dying at the hands of, or while trying to kill, infidels. If they were really Muslims, they would be terrified of the fact that Allah surely punishes evildoers (as, in fact, He has done and is now doing to them), and hates treachery!

Other than their hatred of westerners, western culture and western influence, there is little that unites the Krell. A large part of their social problems are a direct result of their pathological collective inferiority complex. Without the sense of honor associated with self respect, they do not hesitate to lie, cheat and steal, even (or, perhaps, especially) among themselves. They seem to lack a basic understanding of the concept of winning, as opposed to suffering, they are consequently poor at all forms of competition, such as organized sports, games of skill, technological development, diplomacy, or war. They consider that the highest achievement in combat is to get themselves killed by the enemy. It can perhaps safely be said that the Krell never have won, and never will win, an actual war, because the very idea of winning is hateful to all true Krell!

The value of perseverence in the face of incredible suffering is present in many cultures, but it finds its epitome in the Krell concept of suffering for its own sake, as an end in itself. Krell tactics thus prefer prolonged campaigns that result in the most profound misery of the greatest number of people. They emphasize urban warfare to involve as many non-combatant victims of their enemies and their own people as possible in the suffering that civililized military units (on both sides) would attempt to avoid. Their terrorist attacks on military valueless civilians are no doubt motivated by blind hatred, but often achieve their primary goal of provoking retaliation against those whom they believe will be forced to join their cause as the lesser of two evils. This poses an often intractible problem for the military commander, with the Horner Doctrine tactic of massive violence to end the suffering quickly seeming the only viable option.

Krell suicide-based strategy finds its epitome in the desire to acquire a nuclear weapon so they can start a nuclear war and commit suicide en masse. They have not been able to develop a coherent national or strategic policy, viable tactical plans, or realistic political goals. Their so-called military activities consist of suicide bombings of militarily valueless targets (often their own friends and neighbors), kidnapping and brutally murdering inoffensive civilians, bombing of each others' holy places, demolishing their societies' infrastructure, and threatening on the Internet to destroy plastic action figures of G.I. Joe. When given the opportunity, they do everything they possibly can to antagonize, insult, annoy and alienate anyone who might be otherwise inclined to support or tolerate them. In the few instances where western pressure has forced popular elections upon them, the Krell populace elects representatives most detestable to western ideas, concepts and goals.

A telling example of Krell tactics began after a six-month truce between Israel and the Palestinian enclave in Gaza broke down. Hamas, the Palestinian political party, announced on December 18, 2008, that the cease-fire would not be renewed, and began firing 122 millimeter rockets from Gaza into Israel. The rockets have a maximum range of about 18 miles, and are primarily antipersonnel weapons, designed to kill or maim people. They were apparently fired one at a time to do that wherever they happened to land. For legitimate military purposes, they are fired in salvos of 40 to compensate for their poor accuracy, which makes them ineffective against point targets.

Shortly after Christmas, Israel responded with precisely directed air attacks on Hamas strongholds, which are typically located in populated areas. Targeting camera footage released by Israel showed the precision by which Israeli designated and then systematically destroyed specific buildings in the Hamas-controlled Gaza territory, including one weapons cache in which a burning rocket casing could be seen spiraling out of the target area. After a week of bombing Hamas targets, Israel invaded Gaza. Hamas responded with a "Day of Wrath" demonstration against Israel.

Hamas and their supporters replied in various media reports and interviews with their assertions that:

• Israel had provoked Hamas into firing rockets at them.
• Killing Israeli civilians is a just response to Israeli "aggression."
• Indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians is a legitimate military tactic.
• Using ineffective weapons and tactics to commit murder is a virtue.
• Hamas has a "right" to kill Israelis, especially civilians.
• Any Israeli military response constitutes continued Israeli aggression against Gaza Palestinians.
• The actual Israeli response was disproportionate to the provocation.
• More Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza than Israelis were killed by Hamas attacks on Israel.
• The Israeli air strikes were really planned by Israel all along, and,
• The Hamas rocket attacks were used only as an excuse by Israelis to begin wholesale murder of innocent Palestinians.

Krell promises of massive retaliation, "rivers of blood" and "volcanoes of fire" are all bluff and bluster. Any effective resistance against their enemies would be counterproductive to the Krell strategic goal of prolonging their own suffering to cheat their way to eternal salvation in spite of their personal wickedness. As a result of their reliance exclusively on immoral means to achieve their ends, and their incompatibility with democracy, education and information exchange, their influence is dwindling. In subsequent years, they lost every military engagement in which they had been involved (at truly horrible casualty ratios, see above!), while stubbornly choosing to believe that they had won great victories. Their refusal to negotiate or surrender gives the military commander opposing them the tactical and moral advantage of concentrating on killing them in the most efficient and effective manner possible. (The strategic concerns are more complex!) Their lack of military sophistication makes this easy to do. Their only hope for survival is to lure their adversaries into use of equally immoral tactics against them. The only way they can possibly survive is for their enemies to be less moral than they are, if that is possible. Otherwise, the success of their enemies, and their own eventual extinction, is absolutely certain. (Of course, if their enemies do manage to sink to their moral level, all bets are off!)

The outdated "just war theory" maintains that only an injury so grave that it outweighs the risks and losses of war is a justification for making war, following the principle of double effect. If such a weighty injury does not exist, then in charity one would have to tolerate the injustice. As noted, such minor injuries such as insults or dishonorable behavior don't qualify in modern times. This is because, in modern times, such injuries can be rectified by other means, and the evils of war are incalculably greater than the evil of such trivial injuries.

Unfortunately, war is not nearly so precise. There are different kinds of casualties. In effect, human lives have different values, depending upon who the people are and what they're doing. (Not how old they are, what color they are, how rich or poor they are, what their religion or political affiliation is, what their occupation is, what their education level is, what they did in the past, or who or what their ancestors were.) For a baseline value, one may consider a group of 3000 miscellaneous civilians, including infants and the elderly, as well as persons of military age (some of whom are actually in the military), peacefully going about their daily lives. Their sudden, violent death is a "grave evil" which their national leader desires to prevent. We wish to determine how many casualties, and of what kinds, are morally acceptable, and how many would be a "graver evil" which would require the national leadership to accept the loss of 3000 of its civilians as an act of justice or charity toward the aggressor.

We should note at this point that the threat of the death of the 3000 civilians in itself, even if it has been preceded by earlier enemy atrocities, is not an excuse to kill, injure or capture even a single aggressor. Moral considerations dictate that national leaders must explore every avenue for a peaceful resolution of the threat if such an avenue is likely to be effective. On the other hand, it is not moral to negotiate away the welfare of one's people with a potential aggressor. It is not morally necessary to submit the matter to any international body which is not considered likely to be effective. One is not morally required (or even permitted) to give a potential enemy any benefit at all (such as time) which would give him a military advantage. The moral law does not require an antiaircraft gunner to ask the United Nations to look into the reason that enemy bombers are flying over him with their bomb bays open. Once the national leader has made the awful decision that all other means of protection are "impractical or ineffective," he is morally bound to protect the citizens he serves by going to war.

A case in point is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The US and Japan had been negotiating their bitter disagreements for some time, and the latest communique' from Japan was their declaration that further negotiations were considered pointless. While the Japanese ambassador was "negotiating" with the US Secretary of State, the attackers were already returning to the aircraft carriers which had been steaming toward Pearl Harbor for a month. The Japanese had used negotiation as an instrument of war. Although the US tried (albeit half-heartedly) to reach a solution, it ceased being morally bound to do so the moment the Imperial War Ministry decided to deploy the fleet (about which, of course, the US was suspicious, but ill-informed).

National leaders are not morally required to accept the imminent threat of domestic casualties as the price of avoiding war if the domestic casualties of that war are likely to be less than those jeopardized by a fragile peace. Thus, as the threat becomes more acute, or the likely number of domestic casualties becomes greater, the moral imperative becomes greater for the threatened country to strike the first blow. In case of the reasonable fear that the enemy has nuclear or biological weapons which could cause millions of civilian casualties, it may be morally obligatory to eliminate the threat by firing a nuclear weapon as the first shot. It is morally necessary accurately to assess the threat, and to make every effort to assure that war does not break out unnecessarily. The national leader does not have to be right, he only has to be conscientious, diligent, and honest. The leader of the nation perceived as a threat is morally obligated to attempt to convince the other that his nation is not, in fact, the threat perceived. If war breaks out due to a misperception of the threat, after all reasonable efforts have been made to make a correct judgment, the moral onus lies with the national leader who failed to testify to the truth.

The threatening leader is not solely responsible for the truth. As soon as going to war becomes a possible option, the national leader considering it is morally obliged to make every effort to determine whether it is justified, that is, if there is a serious and immediate enemy threat which can be effectively resolved in no better way. This requires the gathering of and evaluation of intelligence. Unfortunately, intelligence is a force multiplier in war, so the intelligence target nation or group is likely to feel (correctly) that frustrating such activities confers a tactical advantage. Strategically, however, it may be a mistake. Americans in particular are historically wedded to the idea of freedom of speech and the press, and the conclusion that anyone who conceals his activities is therefore probably up to no good. This creates fear, and the United States virtually always attacks when we are sufficiently afraid. Leaders of potential enemy nations are morally bound to take this national characteristic of ours under consideration and act on it appropriately.

American fascination with freedom of speech and of the press has, unfortunately, created confusion regarding the difference between information and truth. We tend to confuse the two. We even have a word, "disinformation," which is "information" which is not true. Military intelligence, however, deals with information, data, rumor, conjecture, anecdotes and apparent coincidences, much of them seemingly unrelated, from which the analyst attempts to determine truth. He or she then attempts to draw conclusions regarding that truth that can be used to influence a military campaign. This is devilishly difficult to do! Military intelligence analysts are among the most intelligent, educated, and astute people in the world, and even then, they are often wrong. This is because, unlike information or data, military intelligence is the analyst's subjective conclusion from what information, true or untrue, he has. Drawing desired conclusions from available data might look to the uninformed like "manipulating intelligence," but it is usually impossible to eliminate completely from the intelligence evaluation process the natural human tendency to believe what one would like to be true. Senior military commanders who have done extensive apprenticeship as intelligence officers themselves often develop the habit of zealously guarding what they would like to hear to avoid influencing their own intelligence officers, and learn to ask non-leading questions about what the enemy is doing or is likely to do. National leaders who have been politicians from an early age (and especially those who are ignorant of military things in general) rarely develop this skill. The likelihood that any average American, especially lately, has it is, unfortunately, vanishingly small!

The national leadership has the moral obligation to acquire as much intelligence as is reasonable about who might be potential enemies, where they are, what they are doing, what they are capable of doing, what they intend to do, when they intend to do it, and to whom. It also helps to understand why they are or appear to be a threat so that the best possible action can be taken to resolve it. It is always desirable to have more intelligence than one already has, so there is a strong incentive for national leaders to sit and do nothing while their intelligence agencies work overtime. There is also a strong incentive for people who don't know better to claim that the leader should have waited to learn more. But a time finally comes, based upon the seriousness and imminence of the perceived threat, when the leader has to act with what information he has, when not to do so would be a criminal abdication of his responsibility to protect his people. The responsibility of making this decision, and of passing it on to his military forces for execution, is not at all effected by later hindsight which indicates (either correctly or otherwise) that he was mistaken.

If a single individual, or a small group of them, is the threat, such that their death will result in the threat being removed, it is morally defensible to assassinate them. As the size of the group becomes larger, it becomes less likely that all of them are such a threat, so that it becomes less likely that assassination is appropriate for all of them. The question here is not whether they are guilty of anything, it is whether they are dangerous. The danger that they pose may be assumed (There is a good chance that this guy may attack us with a nuclear weapon), or it may be actual (As long as this guy is alive, his soldiers claim they will keep on fighting). The matter at issue here is war, not the administration of justice. The determination of guilt is a matter for the courts; the determination of danger is a matter for national leaders. It is, of course, difficult and fallible, as are all military decisions. Nevertheless, national leaders have a responsibility positively to eliminate all those who they truly believe are personally an intrinsic threat to the safety of the people for whose welfare they are responsible.

Wars between nations are won by eliminating the ability of the vanquished nation to resist the achievement of the victor's political goal. This is usually done by neutralizing the loser's military capability and occupying his territory. The neutralization can be physical, as the Allied powers did to Germany, or psychological, as the North Vietnamese and domestic dissidents did to the United States. Either way, the members of the military, who are instruments of national policy, stop fighting when that national policy decides that the war is over.

The members of the military forces of the aggressor, that is, direct combatants, are the second most expendable. There does not appear to be any moral justification for a national leader to sacrifice any lives of the people for whose safety he is responsible to spare all the lives of those bending all their will to kill them. In other words, a nation is justified in neutralizing as many of the opposing military as necessary to protect any number, however small, of its own citizens. If the military forces are favorably disposed for destruction by a nuclear weapon, that would be the weapon of choice, to neutralize the enemy forces quickly. Of course, once that goal is achieved, the war should stop, but as long as the safety of its civilians is at risk, a nation is justified in using lethal force against the opposing military forces.

Similar considerations apply to indirect combatants, such as intelligence analysts, truck drivers, factory workers, growers of militarily significant crops, spies, and voluntary hostages or "human shields." Since they contribute directly to the war effort, their continued activities are a direct threat which it is justifiable to remove, whether or not they wear a uniform. They are legitimate targets of lethal force, along with the actual war fighters. A nation is justified in neutralizing as many of them as necessary to remove the grave threat which they constitute.

The method which morally may be used to neutralize direct and indirect combatants may be determined by the LAR principle. If the military mission may be most effectively accomplished by killing them, such action would be morally defensible. It is usually more efficient to incapacitate them by injury, panic, confusion and misdirection, which would therefore be the morally preferable options. Killing an enemy soldier reduces the enemy combat power by a single individual, whereas wounding him eliminates his effectiveness as a war fighter and reduces the effectiveness of his fellows who have to care for and evacuate him.

The position of voluntary human shields deserves special mention. If a particular person, place or thing is otherwise a legitimate military target, it does not become less so because a volunteer chooses to interpose himself between it and the munition used against it. The whole purpose of the human shield is to frustrate the military operations of the opposing side. If such military operations are legitimate, their frustration is not, and vice versa. The argument that the human shield is unarmed is simply not relevant, since his military mission does not involve his personal use of a weapon. Unlike the armed combatants, they may not themselves be legitimately attacked individually, but the targets they try to protect may be attacked without regard to how many volunteers may be killed in the process. However, if their presence prevents the target they protect from being attacked (by soldiers who are unwilling to fire on "innocent civilians" for example), they themselves become legitimate targets and may be fired upon directly as long as that condition persists.

Involuntary human shields, such as infants and school children, are noncombatants. Individually, they are never legitimate military targets. Other noncombatants are people formally recognized as such by the belligerent parties, civilians not engaged in the war effort at all, and former combatants rendered impotent by illness, injury or capture. The indirect killing of non-combatants is permissible according to the principle of double effect. But such killing must be unintentional and unavoidable. Otherwise it's murder. The LAR principle says that intentionally killing them will frustrate the military mission and lose the war. Nevertheless, national leaders have a greater duty to protect their own citizens than they have to protect the citizens of an aggressor society. Therefore, a greater number of enemy non-combatant casualties than friendly non-combatant casualties is morally defensible.

The port city of Wonsan in North Korea is a strategic port and contains a number of factories. It is also believed to be a launching site for ballistic missiles. Recently the DPRK has developed the beach as a tourist attraction with recreational facilities, hotels, restaurants, and entertainment. The purpose of this development appears to be to surround the legitimate military targets with "innocent civilian tourists" who would be unwitting human shields in any major military exchange. Given the state of North Korea's tourism industry, these tourists are likely to be high ranking government workers and their families. The adults might be likely contributors to the war effort and thus might become legitimate targets themselves.

"Decapitation" means "removal of the head." In American military usage, it means "removal of the leader," not the heads of prisoners. The latter is, of course, forbidden by a number of valid arguments. Removal of the leader of armed resistance may be tactically or strategically attractive if doing so will likely result in reduction of the enemy's combat power. This is true especially if that reduction is accompanied by or is a consequence of strategically demoralizing the civilian population and making it more likely that the enemy will surrender. In addition, a perception that its leader is being targeted may well cause fear, confusion, loss of confidence, and distraction in the highest echelons of government. This might well compromise the leader's authority and effectiveness without a shot being fired. His advisors, subordinates, secretaries, and other support personnel may not interact with him effectively, or at all, if they believe that at any moment his personal location is likely to become the target of a barrage of heavy artillery! An additional consideration is that people accompanying political or military leaders are likely personally to be actively engaged in managing hostilities and therefore may themselves be legitimate targets. Neutralizing them as well may make a decapitation effort worthwhile, even if it fails in its primary mission of eliminating the top leader.

Those who give aid and comfort to an armed enemy become legitimate targets to the extent that they contribute to the combat power of the belligerents. Therefore, a civilian medical worker helping enemy wounded is not normally a legitimate target because the enemy's combat power is not enhanced by his activity. If a civilian is a military messenger or supplier of goods and services the enemy needs for the conflict, he becomes an enemy combatant. In the case of Japanese cottage war industry in WWII, General Curtis LeMay concluded that the most effective way to cripple Japan's military industry was to firebomb its civilian industrial workers. A similar argument led to the British bombing of German civilians after the London "blitz." No one I know maintains that the British and General LeMay were motivated only to destroy enemy industrial capability, but the argument that killing the people who make the supplies interrupts the flow of supplies has merit.

A special case arises where civilians allow covert enemy military installations in their neighborhoods (such as in southern Lebanon), which thus serve as camouflage for such installations. The opposing force has a right to attack such installations if it has reason to believe they exist, and the civilians protecting it by their voluntary presence become legitimate collateral targets. Voluntary supporters of the enemy in this way are morally responsible for the injury or death of involuntary accomplices, such as children, the elderly and the disabled. The choice a civilian has in such cases is to leave and expose the enemy installation for what it is, cause the removal of the installation and its cadre (usually an impossible task), or stay and take his chances.

The legitimacy of specific weapons used in warfare is inextricably linked to the legitimacy of their targets, both morally and as a practical matter. Antipersonnel weapons are legitimate only against legitimate personnel targets, for example. International law recognizes this and forbids the use of weapons clearly intended to kill or maim, such as white phosphorus, against noncombatants. The LAR principle suggests that antifacility weapons are not appropriately used against people. Intentional killing or maiming enemy soldiers is a legitimate objective in wartime, but intentional killing or maiming of noncombatants is not. It is the commander's responsibility to limit the suffering of noncombatants, insofar as possible, by attacking only their facilities with the appropriate munitions.

In any representative form of government, enfranchised enemy civilians contribute to the conflict by permitting the war to start or continue, and to that extent are legitimate military targets. In the rare case (such as a protracted war with the United States) in which forcing a change in public opinion may be the most effective way to end the war, an enemy is morally permitted to do that (or obligated to do it if the probability of success is high) by making the cost of the war higher than the enemy civilians are willing to pay. This is what Hi Chi Minh and his confederates, such as "Hanoi Jane" Fonda, did to the United States, what the Israelis are doing to Hezbollah and Hamas, and what the sectarian factions think they are doing to each other in Iraq.

The term "asymmetric warfare" refers to a war in which one side is militarily vastly superior to the other. The only hope the inferior force has of winning its political goal is to avoid a decisive battle (that it cannot win), thus prolonging the suffering until a miracle happens or the other side gets tired and quits. This might be called the "Ho Chi Minh Doctrine." It is a moral method of waging war, because the choice here is not between a short war with minimum suffering and a long one with more, but between suffering in the hopes of winning and the disastrous consequences of losing. If these are worse than the suffering of fighting on, it is moral to keep doing that, at least until all (note: all) hope is gone.

The ultimate asymmetric warfare tactic is the use of totally unarmed combatants in the hope that the armed opposing force will be restrained by political pressure from using its superior force to win a decisive victory. Unarmed blockade runners and "human wave" tactics involving children are modern examples. Usually the inferior force (and its sympathizers) see its renunciation of the use of deadly force as some kind of virtue which thus supposedly makes it "deserving" of victory. India used this tactic very successfully to win its independence from Britain. Unfortunately, the feeling of moral superiority often leads the inferior force to misjudge the intentions or misinterpret the actions of the superior force, with unintended, but tragic, consequences.

Whatever the political implications may be, the morality of an armed force's mission is influenced not at all by the tactics used to oppose it, and a combatant does not become a noncombatant because he doesn't have a weapon. The military commander always has the moral responsibility to minimize suffering on both sides; if the enemy refuses to fight, the number of his options to carry out that responsibility increases. As a practical matter, the potential for unnecessary injury or loss of life resulting from misunderstanding often makes an unmistakable demonstration of the superior commander's resolve the most attractive option. This may involve killing the opposing commander or ringleader, disabling his ship or other means of transportation, or creating a situation in which the inferior force must either stand down or destroy itself as, for example, crossing a plainly marked minefield.

It is usually an advantage to any military force to be recognized as such to avoid civilian casualties, and international law requires recognition as legitimate combatants of anyone who wears any kind of distinctive uniform, even an arm band or bandanna. The side using the uniform is required to assure that those who do not wear it are, in fact, noncombatants. This rule requires unarmed combatants (military truck drivers, intelligence analysists, senior commanders, etc.) to wear uniforms, which is why all members of modern legitimate armed forces in a combat theater do that. Modern terrorist groups usually don't employ this convention, with predictable results. Their philosophy is that anyone not in sympathy with them is an enemy combatant. The Arabic word is "takfiri." In the absence of such identification, or its deliberate misuse, the opposing military commander is faced with the difficulty of recognizing direct and indirect combatants and discriminating between them. He is therefore obliged by the enemy to waste ammunition on members of the enemy population who are not tactical threats at all. Terrorist commanders consider this a legitimate means of wasting enemy combat power, perhaps not realizing the lethality of the combat power remaining or the interpretation of this tactic by the opposing force. Japanese military leaders made this mistake in WWII, which was one of the factors in the US decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan. The general rule in such cases is that anyone with a weapon, as well as anyone who assists him, supports him, gives him supplies, aid or comfort, enables him in any way to carry out his mission, or in any way frustrates or attempts to frustrate the mission of friendly forces, is a legitimate target of lethal force, without regard to race, creed, color, gender, age, national origin or political affiliation.

One of the most intractable problems of modern warfare is the result of the use of mines. Imagine a soldier who never gets tired, never sleeps, never takes time off to use the bathroom or eat or write a letter to his mom. He mans his post forever unless he is killed in battle or relieved by higher command. Such a soldier is the humble land or sea mine. Because it is so useful in prosecuting the military mission, the mine is an indispensable part of the warrior's arsenal of weapons, and the fact that civilians are killed by mines is an unfortunate consequence of the incomperable misfortune of war. There is nothing inherently immoral about mines as long as they are used responsibly. This requires that they be used only as part of a legitimate military mission, that reasonable measures be used to keep noncombatants away from them, and that they be removed or inactivated when they are no longer required for the military mission. US mine warfare doctrine includes all of these requirements.

An extension of mine warfare is the use of unmanned weapons and surveillance systems. These include unmanned aircraft or armed with sensors, rockets and bombs; "smart" bombs and projectiles of various kinds; unmanned aerial, seagoing and land mobile vehicles with various kinds of sensors and weapons, and "autonomous" systems. If they are remotely operated, they are simply another kind of weapon. To the extent that they operate autonomously, they are essentially sophisticated mines or surveillance devices, or both.

The moral implications of the use of these are heavily influenced by the facts that they: (1) multiply friendly combat power and thus facilitate a more rapid military victory, (2) protect friendly combatants from harm, and (3) allow military concerns such as target identification and decision to engage to be programmed into the system after careful analysis and due consideration instead of being decided abruptly in the heat of battle by fallible human beings distracted by the prospect of sudden violent death. These factors argue strongly for the development and employment of such systems. Like all weapons systems, they must be used responsibly, with due concern for their capabilities and limitations. One of the latter of these is that they sometimes attack the "wrong" target, resulting in unintended civilian casualties. Adverse public reaction to such incidents may make this a strategic concern, but it is rarely a tactical one. Historically, the number of friendly casualties these systems have almost certainly prevented much more than balances the unintended casualties they have caused.

Current military thinking is to limit the autonomy of these systems, so that a human being either makes the decision to engage a target ("in the loop") or has veto power over engagement ("on the loop"). Both these degrees of involvement are more effective controls than those on conventional land mines, which have no "loop" at all, but neither are required for the moral defensibility of their use. The same moral considerations apply to a decision to activate an autonomous weapon as do to pulling a trigger while sighting a target.

Friendly direct and indirect combatants are more expendable than friendly noncombatants but less so than enemy noncombatants because of the relative responsibilities of national leaders to protect their own citizens from harm. A commander is never morally obliged deliberately to put his own troops at risk to avoid risk to enemy military or civilian personnel. If somebody has to die, it should be an enemy. If the choice is between a friendly noncombatant and a friendly combatant, it should be the individual who has voluntarily put himself (or herself) in harm's way to protect a fellow citizen, that is, a member of the military. Acceptance of the necessity, if called upon, to die for one's country is one of the many responsibilities one assumes by wearing its uniform. On the other hand, it is certainly true that, as General Patton put it, "Nobody won a war by dying for his country. The idea is to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

Morally permissible neutralization of an enemy consists of removing him as a threat, no more and no less. Such removal must be consistent with the military mission of achieving a political goal. A national leader has a moral responsibility to warn a nation which is believed to be a threat of the grave consequences of its past and apparent future actions, and what an appropriate solution, short of war, is considered to be. If the enemy persists, it is legitimate to go to war in a manner most conducive to winning it, the immediate destruction of his military forces by one or more nuclear weapons being one of many potentially morally acceptable options. Neither moral considerations nor international rules of war require a military commander to telegraph his punches. But both moral considerations and the rules of war require that the war should stop once the political and military objectives have been achieved. This principle applies to all levels of enemy engagement, including the individual enemy soldier. Once an enemy combatant has been wounded so badly that he cannot fight, he ceases to be a legitimate target. On the other hand, an enemy soldier who is still capable of fighting is still a legitimate target, regardless of what he happens to be doing at the moment (unless it's surrendering). If he's running, it's morally acceptable to shoot him, regardless of which way he's facing. If he's hiding, one is justified in dropping a grenade in his hole. "If he runs, he'll only die tired. If he hides, he'll only die scared."

Once a member of an enemy military force (but not a terrorist) has been eliminated as a threat and captured, he becomes a prisoner of war, and he must be treated with compassion and dignity according to international law as well as moral law. If the detaining authority and the national sponsor of the detainee have agreements regarding treatment of prisoners, these must be observed as well. The threat the detainee might otherwise pose must be eliminated, not just reduced. An enemy soldier engaged in a combat operation does not become morally immune to attack because he's tired, hungry, thirsty, cold, sick, injured, disillusioned, or depressed. He must be incapable of being a threat, either physically or because he has surrendered. A dying soldier with a grenade is still a soldier with a grenade, and it is morally justifiable to keep shooting him until he succumbs or the grenade explodes. The justifiability of shooting him is not diminished by a later finding that the "grenade" was a dud, a dummy, a religious relic, a billiard ball, or imaginary. If an enemy looks like he's about to throw something at you in combat, it is moral, as well as wise, to assume it's a live grenade and do unto him before he does unto you.

Prisoner of War status resolves the ethical, as well as economic and tactical, problems posed by fighters who have quit fighting either by surrendering or being neutralized in other ways. Military operations benefit from giving the enemy the option of surrendering and becoming a valuable source of intelligence and possibly inexpensive labor to the captor. This option works as long as everyone obeys the rules, which is why enemy prisoners, who are expected to try to escape, can be legally punished or executed for disobeying rules the captor has chosen to impose. For children or mentally impaired (drugged) captives, it may be difficult to determine at what point the captive has ceased to be a threat. Where the enemy is reasonably believed to be under the influence of drugs that make him immune to the debilitating effects of major injury or has demonstrated an unwillingness to accept defeat under any circumstances, it is moral positively to eliminate him as a threat be making absolutely sure he's dead before ignoring him in the heat of battle. "Never leave a live enemy at your back" is a useful guideline.

Prisoners of war are members of military units and supporting personnel, who are under the command of officers who are responsible for assuring that they behave themselves and follow the rules established by the detaining power. They have a chain of command and rules of conduct. As long as this works, chain of command is from the detaining authority to and through the senior prisoner commander(s). Modern conflicts often involve insurgents, bandits, terrorists, and other miscellaneous miscreants who don't willingly follow orders from anybody. International law recognizes these persons as having fewer rights than prisoners of war. Functions normally carried out by officer prisoners of war are performed by detaining power authorities in the case of enemy combatants. Essentially, they are similar to persons who have been arrested but not yet arraigned for any crime. The Supreme Court has recently decided that enemy combatants held by the United States have a right to access to US courts, but have left the courts' options regarding them essentially open. Their right to habeas corpus confers only the right to challenge their detention in federal court, not to be let go if they haven't been convicted of anything. (For example, they might be able to prove that they were third country TV reporters, not involved in the fighting on either side. Without the right of habeas corpus, there is no mechanism by which they can even present the claim, but the burden of proof is still on them.) The latest ruling is that foreign nationals captured in combat and held outside the United States do not have the rights of US residents or US citizens, because they are neither. There is some question concerning what exactly their rights, if any, are under existing treaties and international laws. US policy regarding enemy combatant prisoners at Guantanimo Bay is to grant as many rights of prisoners of war as reasonable, under existing circumstances.

One tactic frequently used by terrorist sympathizers to promote public sympathy is to agitate for trial of detainees for criminal charges. Their claim of being "held without charge" is indeed relevant if they have been arrested and are in custody for suspicion of criminal behavior, but has no bearing whatever on known or suspected enemy combatants, since there is no ethical, legal or moral requirement to charge them with anything, or, as a matter of fact, for them to have done anything "wrong" or illegal. The detaining authority is under no obligation to release them unless and until (1) it is established that they are not, in fact, combatants or are associated in any way (such as giving them political support) with such persons or (2) the conflict is resolved. Absent both of these conditions, they may be legally detained forever. Except in the case of notorious criminals, which the detaining authority may find it politically desirable to hang, convicting a detainee of a crime committed before capture would accomplish nothing useful.

American confusion about the difference between criminal prosecution and military action against obvious threats no doubt saved Osama bin Laden's life, at least at the time. In 1996, three years after bin Laden orchestrated the first World Trade Center bombing, Hassan al-Turabi, the Speaker of the Sudanese National Assembly, offered to deliver him to Saudi Arabia to stand trial for sedition. Concerned that trying the overwhelmingly popular bin Laden in their country would provoke a revolution, the Saudis offered him to the United States, no questions asked. The Clinton administration replied that the US didn't have enough unclassified evidence against him for a criminal indictment, so the offer was declined, much to the confusion of the Saudis who knew, as the US did, that he was definitely a dangerous threat to the stability of the entire Middle East. This left him free to become involved with the Taliban and eventually bring down the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The United States never did bring him to trial for that crime; we just found him and assassinated him in his home in Pakistan on May 2, 2011.

Because prisoners of war and enemy combatants are imprisoned solely to prevent their contribution to the enemy's war effort, not because they are assumed to have done something wrong, international law requires that they be repatriated when the war is over, but only then. As long as they behave themselves, enemy prisoners are entitled by US and international law to be returned to their home county (only) when they no longer pose a threat, and are usually treated as heroes when they return. On the other hand, international law very specifically allows them to be detained until the conflict is resolved. Absent a formal peace treaty between the detaining nation and the nation of which the detainee is a citizen (not the political party or terrorist organization of which he is a member, which has no authority in the matter), there is no legal requirement ever to release him or to keep him captive in the host country. If the conflict goes on forever, the detainees will die as prisoners, possibly in a third country where they are subject to its own laws. The requirement for repatriation does not apply to those who have violated the laws of the detaining power, to which they are legally and morally subject, while being detained. It also does not apply to those who have violated international law at any time, either before or after capture. Such persons become criminals and may be tried, convicted, condemned and punished by an appropriate (usually military) court of the detaining power if it so chooses. This would normally be done only after the other prisoners are repatriated.

International law and the moral law require that an enemy fighter must be given the opportunity to surrender if it is consistent with the military mission. One of the responsibilities of the military commander to limit suffering is to maximize the opportunity for enemy forces to surrender and work out effective means for them to do it. He is not morally or legally required to invite their surrender, or even accept it, if he cannot adequately care for the prisoners, if it would put his own forces in jeopardy, or if it would interfere with his mission. With the exception of covert operations, a military commander can almost always accommodate one or two disgruntled enemy misfits, but even then, they must demonstrate that they have ceased to be a threat, usually by laying down their arms. But with large military units, surrender involves negotiation with the enemy commander to assure that he is not using it as a ruse to achieve a military advantage. Since the surrender of a large force is almost always conducive to the opposing commander's accomplishment of his mission, the commander has an obligation under such circumstances to accept it. He may require the enemy units to build their own prisons and destroy their weapons with their remaining ammunition, or turn them over to the detaining power, as a gesture of good faith.

Terrorists may also surrender if they choose, and they are then entitled to prisoner of war or enemy combatant status unless and until it has been established that they committed terrorist acts. If they are indicted, they lose their protected status and become criminal suspects, subject to whatever rules the detaining power applies in such cases.

The burden of proving that he or his forces are abiding by the rules the capturing commander has laid down, and that he or they actually are surrendering, always lies with the person or commander doing it. If the surrender cannot be negotiated because the enemy cannot comply with the terms or because the potential captor cannot accept the surrender (or reasonably suspects it's a trap), the only choice open to the vanquished force is to keep on fighting or retire and hope they don't get shot in the back. A combatant ceases to be a threat only after he really surrenders, not because he was planning to but didn't (or thought better of the idea), and certainly not because he's running away to fight another day.

Surrender at sea is perhaps the most difficult. Individual sailors can surrender by jumping overboard and swimming toward the captor's vessel, or the commander of a vessel can surrender it to another vessel or a port authority. The vessel itself, however, may well continue to be a threat, either because it may be used later on in the conflict, or because its compliment or passengers represent able-bodied combatants. The capturing vessel is morally permitted to sink or destroy a vessel to prevent its further use, using any effective means, as long as it resists capture. Once it has surrendered, the captor is still morally permitted to sink it, but is then required to either take it's crew aboard as prisoners or, if that is not possible, abandon them in the most humane manner possible. Usually this involves allowing them to take to lifeboats with provisions from their own stores, or from the capturing vessel if they can be spared.

Submarine warfare represents a particular problem. The combat radius of a submarine is strictly limited by the food and other provisions required by its crew. The commander of a submarine therefore jeopardizes his military mission either by taking prisoners aboard or by supplying their lifeboats. This was once thought to be such a severe restriction that the morality of submarine warfare itself was called into question. The moral dilemma was resolved in favor of the submarine by the fact that the fleet commander of a captured or stricken vessel has a responsibility to know where his ships are at all times, that modern communications certainly make it possible to do so, and that it is his responsibility to pick up his sailors if they're bobbing around in the water waiting for rescue after their ship has been sunk.

If feasible, the capturing vessel commander is morally obligated to put a prize crew aboard a captured vessel and deliver its complement of enemy combatants safe and dry into captivity at a waiting port. The danger of being attacked by one's own fleet forces and that of subsequent mutiny by the supposedly vanquished crew makes this rarely a viable option.

Prisoners of war or enemy combatants are members of an opposing military force actively engaged in combat operations who have ceased to be a threat because they are wounded so severely that they cannot continue fighting (at all), or because they have surrendered, or because they have been taken unawares and disarmed. Noncombatants who accompany military forces, such as medical personnel, chaplains and Red Cross workers are also prisoners of war, if captured, to deny their usefulness to the enemy, and to allow them to continue to provide their services to other prisoners. International, US and moral laws require that anyone found wandering around the battlefield or floating around in the sea, is entitled to prisoner of war status absent convincing evidence to the contrary. Conviction of terrorist acts would be such evidence.

It is important to distinguish between a prisoner of war (or an enemy combatant) and one serving a prison sentence as punishment for a crime. The military prisoner is merely detained for the duration of the conflict to prevent his active participation in it. US, moral and international law prohibit his being punished because he is a combatant, or for any lawful act of war he committed before capture. He may not lawfully be incarcerated with criminals serving sentence. He is not entitled to the benefits or lack thereof normally extended to persons as a result of having been indicted for a crime, because he is not presumed to have done anything wrong, and they therefore simply don't apply. There are no moral or legal grounds for his appeal of capture or release from detention before the conflict is resolved unless he can show that he is not, in fact, subject to the laws governing prisoners of war. For example, he might be a news correspondent from a third country in the combat theater to report on the war. If he is not a threat to either side, he must be repatriated to the neutral country or be given voluntary asylum in that of the captor. Otherwise, the detaining authority can legally and morally keep him incarcerated, without access to legal counsel or prospect of parole, as long as necessary. Of course, he has to have some access to the detaining power's legal system to seek relief if his rights have, in fact, been violated. Such rights do not include continuing the war in captivity by mucking around with public opinion.

A military prisoner is subject to the laws of the detaining power regarding prisoners of war or enemy combatants, not its own citizens. On the battlefield, they are subject to the provisions of martial law imposed by the commander. There are international guidelines for what these should be. The detaining power is required reasonably to inform him of what its laws are so he can obey them. He can morally and legally be punished for violations of law by the detaining power, according to its rules for trial and conviction of prisoners of war and enemy combatants, not necessarily for its own citizens. In the US, such rules extend some, but not all, of the Constitutional rights of US citizens. Punishment after conviction by a court of competent jurisdiction can range from verbal reprimand to death.

Enemy guerrilla fighters present a particular moral dilemma. Guerrilla warfare itself is a recognized and legitimate way of waging war, and as long as the enemy guerrilla adheres to the rules of war, international law requires that he be treated as any other combatant. It is moral to kill him as long as he represents a threat, but he must be protected and cared for as a prisoner of war once that threat is eliminated. If it is later found that he is or was a terrorist, he loses whatever immunities he had as a legal combatant and becomes a convicted criminal.

Unfortunately, with a guerrilla fighter, it is difficult to know when that is. The guerrilla must be subject to authority, and must lay down his arms when ordered by that authority to do so. Generally, one is considered to be a combatant once he has committed a hostile act, and remains a combatant until he is killed, mortally wounded, captured, or has surrendered, either individually or as part of a larger force, or until the conflict is resolved. He does not cease to be a combatant, once he has become one, because he doesn't happen to be fighting at the moment, any more than any other fighter does. Knowing the difference between a peaceful noncombatant farmer and a temporarily non-hostile guerrilla fighter is one of the more difficult problems facing a soldier in the field. The moral difference is easy. One may (in some cases, must) shoot the latter but must leave the former alone. In practice, the US does not have effective tactical doctrine on the matter. Soldiers are urged to use common sense, but if common sense prevailed, there wouldn't be a war in the first place.

Once a nation has surrendered, or declared conquered by an occupying force which has ceased offensive operations, anyone who keeps fighting is a brigand. He may be dealt with legitimately by shooting him and then, if he manages to survive, trying, convicting and executing him for insurrection, according to whatever laws happen to be applicable at the time. The occupying military commander has the legal right to convene a reasonably unbiased military court, convict the accused, and then execute him. The highest appellate authority in such cases is the highest ranking field commander, who may legally and morally refuse to review the case and let a finding stand and sentence be carried out without his intervention.

There is no universal authoritative definition of a terrorist. However, working definitions generally include those who: 1) commit an illegal act, 2) against one or more people, 3) to create fear, panic or chaos, 4) with the purpose of forcing a political act or decision that would otherwise not occur. The essential difference between a guerrilla fighter and a terrorist is that the guerrilla fighter uses only tactics sanctioned by international rules of war against enemy military forces or military targets to achieve a military objective. Guerrilla warfare is just as moral (or immoral) any other kind of warfare. The terrorist uses any tactic he considers expedient against noncombatants or non-military targets to create panic and severe public emotional reaction. Terrorism is always immoral. If captured, terrorists legally can be tried and executed for the criminal acts they have committed. While guerrilla tactics have been shown to be effective against well-disciplined military forces (as in the American Revolutionary War), terrorists historically have generally been militarily ineffective. This is a demonstration of the validity of the LAR principle. One cannot achieve a moral goal by immoral means.

Rules of war are designed and intended to enable belligerents to achieve their political goals with a minimum of suffering on all sides. Terrorists attempt to maximize suffering, often without any defined political goal at all. For this reason, terrorists individually and collectively often constitute a "high value" target (sometimes the highest value one) which it is essential to the opposing military effort to destroy by any means necessary. Noncombatants in the vicinity of identifiable military units are not normally targets, but those who tolerate the known presence of terrorists and do not report them to the authorities contribute to the terrorists' activities and therefore themselves become terrorist supporters and legitimate targets. A higher level of collateral damage can therefore be morally tolerated in attacking terrorists.

The essential difference between a soldier (even a guerrilla fighter) and a terrorist is that the soldier follows rules, acts responsibly, and uses appropriate military force against legitimate military targets to achieve political goals. Terrorists do the opposite. The only ethical response to enemy soldiers is to reduce and hopefully eliminate their capability to achieve the political goal assigned to them, and only the appropriate force needed, with minimum suffering, is morally justifiable. With terrorists, the object is to eliminate the threat of evil and wanton suffering they constitute by discouraging them or, failing that, by killing them. Since the terrorists, by definition, do not legitimately pursue political goals, they themselves are military targets. It is morally defensible and militarily desirable to inflict the maximum amount of suffering on them to create fear, confusion and reluctance to act among them, and to discourage others from imitating, joining, supporting or tolerating them. My weapon of choice would be white phosphorous. It is allowed by international laws to be used against combatants, it is inexpensive and easily delivered; it causes massive, excruciatingly painful burns for which there is no effective treatment, and even if the victim somehow manages to survive, he is painfully and grotesquely disfigured for life. If even one terrorist possesses, or is believed to possess, a nuclear weapon, it is legitimate to use a nuclear weapon, if otherwise appropriate, against wherever he is reasonably believed to be. Since an enemy terrorist with a nuclear weapon is virtually certain to constitute an actual nuclear threat, the collateral damage among his supporters resulting from a preemptive nuclear strike follows the "if somebody has to die, it should be an enemy" rule.

Ethicists need to come up with a compelling moral military strategy for dealing with guerrillas and terrorists hiding in a sympathetic non-combatant population, such as the Palestinian Autonomy, southern Lebanon, and Iraq. The final method of resolution used on Native Americans by the United States in the nineteenth century can't possibly be the best way.

In addition to rebuilding both nations devastated by war, the victor nation, whoever that is, has the responsibility for resolving the problems which caused the war in the first place. Vanquishing the enemy might be the easy part. The evils of the war are its sole outcome if it results in restoration of the status quo. Such evils can be justly accepted only by achievement of an overriding greater good. If that good is not achieved, the victory is inherently immoral regardless of the war's duration, intensity or outcome. If overpopulation or lack of food or other resources is the reason for a nation going to war, the conflict is not won unless and until these problems are addressed and effectively solved by imposition of morally legitimate reforms. If cultural differences led to the conflict, the victor has the moral obligation to change the culture of the defeated population, by force if necessary, to eliminate the differences to the extent necessary to promote peace and harmony. This was necessary in Japan after World War II, as a result of which modern Japan culturally resembles the modern western world much more than it does its pre-war society. If national militarism is the problem, that must be eliminated by social, economic, political, cultural, religious and other needed reforms. World War II in Europe cannot be said to have been won until 1991, with the demise of the Soviet Union, and World War I, which left Europe in ruins and exacerbated the tensions which caused it, cannot be said to have been won at all!

Conventional warfare throughout history has used the most sophisticated available technology to kill people and break things. Having now achieved the ability to kill everybody and reduce all our species' works to smoking rubble, it is incumbent upon the human race to find other ways of waging war. These other ways are known as unconventional warfare. They include exploitation of the enemy's technological, psychological, economic, social, cultural, religious, demographic, and ethnic vulnerabilities. Traditionally, this has been of limited, and somtimes negative, value because of lack of understanding of each of the belligerants about the other. Such misunderstanding has often been one of the causes, in some cases the main one, of the breakout of hostilities in the first place. With increasing world communication, cultural homogeneity, economic interdependence, and ability to gather information from anywhere, modern military forces have the potential of achieving their strategic objectives with greatly reduced suffering, destruction and post-conflict trauma and ill will.

Examples of modern unconventional warfare might include using technology to:

• Disrupt enemy computer systems that operate critical functions
• Steal enemy data, falsify records and make public secret or sensitive information
• Plant false or malicious disinformation appearing to be authoritative
• Change, destroy or reveal information aimed at discrediting national leaders or authorities
• Degrade transportation and distribution systems by overt threats validated by random sabotage
• Falsely direct and confuse the flow of information on which the enemy's banking and commerce depends
• Create chaos by fake news, rumors, gossip and misdirection of information
• Produce confusion, mistrust and inaction by discrediting enemy leadership and governmental activities
• Install friendly sympathizers as religious leaders to preach against enemy policies, political leaders or governmental operations
• Intefere with enemy business and commerce by fomenting public demonstrations, strikes, boycotts and riots
• Force the enemy to expend valuable resources countering nonexistent threats
• Foster animosity between and among enemy ethnic and other heterogeneous groups, especially within the military and government
• Contaminate or destroy critical enemy resources

Having discussed the moral implications of the decisions of national leaders, we next turn our attention to the individual member of the military. We consider the duties of the citizen soldier, sailor, airman or marine who actually has to fight the war. He (or she) is in the best position to assure that moral principles are observed, for only by participating in events can one hope truly to influence them. If all those who oppose war stay home and protest, the war itself is likely to be conducted only by the immoral, stupid and cruel.

There are two separate ideas here:

"The obligations necessary for national defense" are most acute during times when the nation most needs defending. Therefore, the argument that one should not join the military during times of crisis because it is only then that he might have to kill somebody simply doesn't make sense. Since it is the purpose of the military to win wars, by fighting and killing if necessary, any service in the military implies that possibility. If one is not prepared to do his duty, he shouldn't join, period.

The Church points out that "carrying out one's duty honorably" specifically excludes:

The cold war ranks among the longest wars in history, almost 50 years. It is unique in that it employed the most fearsome weapons ever created by man. It is also arguably unique in that it had the lowest time rate of casualties of any war in history, and was won by both sides. Because military personnel in both the United States and the Soviet Union carried out their duties honorably, the world was spared nuclear Armageddon.

The avoidance of deliberately immoral acts is no more (or less) a responsibility for the soldier in combat than it is for anyone else, and can perhaps can be summed up in the statement that it is a sin to do something one believes is wrong. The Church's point, however, is that all is NOT fair in war, and there are still rules of moral conduct in war. Part of the training of every military person in the United States is what these rules are, at least as they apply to the individual service member. The United States also commissions clergy approved by their denominations to minister to the moral needs of members of their religions. People in the US military therefore have the opportunity to resolve any moral questions they may have, according to the principles of their faith.

Two problems arise from this situation. The first is that chaplains are military officers, paid by the military and promoted according to their observed military expertise. There is no requirement for a military chaplain to be an ethicist. There is, in fact, no effective means within the military of even rating his competence as a clergyman. The military assumes that ecclesiastical approval is sufficient certification by the faith he represents that he is minimally able to advise his congregation concerning how it applies to military duty, but that assumption is often wrong.

The second problem is that the people in the military most in need of the advice of a chaplain are the least likely to get it. Clergymen who go into the military are most likely to represent religions which freely tolerate, or even advocate, military service. Conscientious objectors in the military, such as some medical corpsmen, have no chaplains at all, and must rely for guidance instead on their personal understanding of the principles of their faith and the counsel of an often hostile civilian cleric. The conscientious military commander (not the chaplain) who sincerely tries to get help for a conscientious objector involved in a dilemma between discipline and faith can expect instead of help to receive verbal abuse from a clergyman (or woman) who considers him a modern Pontius Pilate.

A problem sometimes arises with a chaplain who misunderstands his military duties or finds them at odds with what he believes. Such a person is duty bound to get his mind right, resign his commission, or both. A chaplain is, in fact and at the same time, a pastoral representative of his religion to its adherents, an advisor to anyone seeking his counsel, a clerical representative of the religious organization that certifies him, and a military representative of the United States. It is his (or her) responsiblity to reconcile the legal, moral, ethical and military requirements of these positions. A chaplain who, for example, wears a uniform in violation of direct orders to a demonstration against US Government policy or claims that one is not allowed during a bona fide worship service or observance to pray in Jesus name (or that of any other deity) dishonors his religion and uniform, and betrays those who trust him to guide them in what is right.

It is difficult to justify such a decision on the grounds that the President is NOT a legitimate authority whom the service member should obey. The oath is pretty clear. If he is not committed to obey the President, he shouldn't take it, regardless of the consequences. The argument that this is "blind obedience" may be valid, because obedience is obedience; one either does what he's told or he doesn't. If he doesn't it's called disobedience, and is morally and legally unacceptable. If the service member does not want "blindly" to obey, he is free to examine the order, ask what it means, and attempt to resolve any conflicts of conscience he may have about it, as long as he obeys it as soon as necessary. During wartime, his senior officers are morally and legally permitted to have him court martialed and shot for thinking, talking, arguing or asking questions about what he's told to do instead of doing it.

The argument is sometimes made that war can be declared only by Congress and, absent a specific declaration of war by Congress, a soldier is not required to fight anybody. Common sense rejects this argument. First of all, there are few soldiers who know what Congress is doing, and fewer still who are qualified as lawyers to determine if the President has authorization from Congress to order any particular military operation. It is well established in law that the President has the authority to undertake all sorts of military operations not specifically authorized by Congress. The point is moot, however, because the military oath is to obey the President, not Congress, and would be valid even while the matter was being debated by the Supreme Court. Even then, Presidential orders to the contrary are usually considered valid unless and until found specifically to be otherwise by the Supreme Court.

The burden of proof that an order from otherwise legitimate authority is NOT valid always lies with the one making that claim. Absence of proof of the legitimacy of an order is not proof of absence. The President's military orders do not require ratification by Congress, his cabinet, or the public, and certainly not by the Pope, one's bishop, the local chaplain, or one's parents or spouse. Unless there is convincing proof to the contrary, the President and his cabinet must be assumed to be acting lawfully and morally. Individual service personnel are almost never in a position to establish that proof, or even to appreciate its implications if it has been established by others. It has long been an unwritten principle of military law that an enlisted person is generally not capable of determining that an order from a superior is not valid. It is usually a sufficient defense in cases where an enlisted person committed an illegal act that he or she was ordered to do it. Officers are assumed to know better. This principle is currently being tested in several courts martial involving abuse of enemy prisoners at Abu Gharab prison where the abuses were so flagrant that, according to the US Army, no reasonable person could have believed they were lawful.

Because of a service member's oath to obey, not to examine or criticize, the popularity or perceived correctness of an order from the President or any other superior is irrelevant. If he is given an order from his superior, he must presume it to be lawful, regardless of who (or how many people) opposes it, absent proof (not suspicion) to the contrary. This is particularly true of an order to deploy, since deployment constitutes the most critical action prior to combat. If a service member feels at any time that he cannot deploy for any reason, including his belief that it would be immoral, he has a duty to get out of the military entirely. Once he's ordered to deploy, he has a moral obligation to do it.

A particular problem arises in the United States because of the First Amendment right of citizens to criticize Presidential orders. As a citizen, the service member has the right to disagree, and even to criticize, (within certain limits) but he does not have the right to disobey. He also does not have the right to prejudice good order and discipline, incite a mutiny, misbehave before the enemy, or provide aid and comfort to them. It is his responsibility to make sure his exercise of his lawful right of free expression does not unlawfully go beyond the restrictions of his military obligation. In such cases he has a moral obligation to keep his mouth shut or face the consequences which, in a combat theater, can be death before a firing squad. It is not a defense that he didn't know any better.

The right to express one's opinion does not confer immunity from the consequences of it's being unpopular. It is unwise in the extreme (although not necessarily unlawful) for a soldier in combat to be the lone dissenter in a group of emotionally charged people, all of whom are trained killers with guns and live ammunition.

Senior military officers sometimes find themselves called upon to give advice concerning a particular matter in which they have passionate opinions, only to have that advice rejected and to be ordered to do the exact opposite of what they recommend. Senior officers become senior in the first place partly by learning how to deal with these apparent conflicts. When asked for their opinions, they give them honestly and accurately, and then carry out their orders regardless of what they think about them. If they don't believe they can do this, they resign. Once the order has been given, opinions, except those about how best to carry out that order, become irrelevant.

The right of civilians in the US to criticize Presidential orders is a little more broad, but it is not absolute. The purpose of the First Amendment is not to promote anarchy, but to assure that the people know generally what their government is doing and to communicate their opinions regarding it. On the other hand, the President, once sworn in, is in law and in fact the commander in chief, and has the moral, as well as legal, authority to order the military to undertake operations not specifically proscribed by Congress unless and until he resigns, is recalled, is removed by impeachment, dies, or is defeated in an election and replaced. The right of the people to influence his orders extends to communicating their views, however passionate, using only legitimate means. The first thrown rock or broken window or movement of a police barricade turns an entire moral protest into an immoral riot, which it is the sworn duty of law enforcement to quell by any means, including the use of lethal force, necessary. Responsible citizens already know this. Irresponsible citizens sometimes have to learn the hard way. Sometimes even non-participants get killed in riots. For this reason (and others), it's best not to start them. Again, it's not a defense that the rioters didn't know any better or lost control. It is the legal and moral responsibility of the organizers and members of a group not to let it get out of hand, or to disband immediately if it does.

Given the effectiveness of the ability in the United States to communicate to the Government by telephone, letters and e-mail, the right of free expression never supersedes the obligations of citizens to protect the safety and security of their fellow citizens or their country as a whole. War protesters are morally permitted to criticize the operations of the government, but not to disrupt them, however passionately they feel. They are never (note, never) morally permitted to give aid and comfort to an armed enemy or betray their country just because they don't agree with what it's doing. If the evil of disruption of social solidarity caused by protesters for an otherwise just cause (anti-war, pro-life, etc.) outweighs the good, if any, which they accomplish, the protesters are morally obligated to find a less disruptive method of expression or, failing that, to be silent.

As the custodian of the security of the United States, the President is required, as is every citizen, to do his duty. He is never morally obliged to compromise US intelligence gathering capability to provide citizens with the information they believe they need to gauge the morality of his actions. He is obliged under certain circumstances to provide this information to Congress and the Supreme Court, but not to the general public. If the people don't have proof that he is not acting morally or lawfully, they are morally obliged to assume that he is. It is clearly established in law that there are certain things the people do NOT have a right to know. What the people do have is a responsibility to give their legitimate consent to their government. They do this by becoming knowledgeable of the issues, including all their moral ramifications, by communicating with their elected representatives, by voting, by paying their taxes, and by influencing the military by their loyal participation in it.

Until then, sadly, it remains true, as George Washington observed, "To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."