USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20010924.0506 (On Screen): I keep running into this, people who are still trying to think of the upcoming conflict as some sort of international law enforcement operation, and trying to think of our opponents as criminals. They want them captured, they want the capture to be bloodless, they want trials and sentences. And they want indictments; they want to see evidence before our forces are committed to perform the arrests. It's not like that. This isn't a law enforcement operation, it's a war. War and Law Enforcement really have nothing to do with each other; they're handled according to entirely different rules, and what may be immoral in a law enforcement operation may be a moral obligation in a war.

Law enforcement is reactive; it happens when someone transgresses against citizens of a state, and it has the purposes of punishment, deterrence, and prevention of future crimes. Someone who commits a crime once is more likely to commit another, so if we lock them up they cannot do so. That may make someone else think twice before committing a crime. There's also a general consensus that someone who commits a crime should pay for doing so. The ultimate aim of law enforcement is to try to create conditions within a state where its people feel safe and can go about their busness without being threatened by others within the state. The critical point here is that crime does not directly threaten the state itself, only the citizens within it. That means that the process of law enforcement has to be balanced against other issues within the state, since law enforcement which is out of control can be worse than the crime it purports to prevent. So, for instance, law enforcement authorities place the safety of innocent civilians above all other things, and when innocents are in danger will take the risk of a micreant getting away rather than take the risk of killing or hurting innocents who get caught up in the situation.

In war, it is the nation itself which is at risk, and thus by extension every citizen within it. It isn't just the citizens who happen to be near where the crime was committed, but all of the citizens everywhere. A really horrendous crime (such as the Oklahoma City bombing) may kill a few hundred of us; a war threatens all 270 million of us. With stakes that large, the rules change. In war, the civil rights of citizens are routinely violated. For example, it is routine for young able-bodied men to be ordered to abandon their lives and to involuntarily report for service wth the military (the "draft"). While this violates their rights, it serves the greater good of preserving the nation as a whole, and it does not violate the Constitution. No right is absolute; these things are all balancing acts. When the fate of the nation itself is in peril, individual rights give way to some extent. (Of course, that argument can be used to routinely violate all our rights all the time, so it has to be watched carefully.)

Soldiers are not entitled to the same rights as civilians; a soldier who is tried is not entitled to a jury, for example. Legal proceedings in a Court Martial are not the same as in a civilian court. All this is necessary because an army must be efficient in order to be able to fight for its nation; the soldiers in that army must cede some of their rights for the greater good of preserving the nation.

Policemen involved in law enforcement in our nation should never even consider summarily executing a prisoner; but this is actually permissible under the Geneva Convention for enemy soldiers captured in a war, under certain circumstances. For example, if they're found to be operating in the wrong uniforms or in no uniform at all, technically they're "spies" and can be shot on sight without trial. Equally, enemy soldiers captured in the normal course of battle who are in the proper uniforms can still be shot if trying to take them captive would risk the survival of the capturing unit. This isn't common, but it is more common than most people realize.

Tho protection of innocent civilians is probably the top priority for law enforcement authorities, it is not and cannot be for soldiers. If the only way to win a war is to kill civilians, then they must die. It is better for a few thousand civilians to die than for the nation itself to be destroyed, risking the lives and safety of all 270 million of its residents. No-one wants to kill civilians, and certainly our army shouldn't seek them out to deliberately slaughter them, but their safety cannot be the paramount concern in planning of military operations. If the mere presence of civilians in a given area makes it off limits to military action by our side, our enemy will pick up on this very rapidly and put all their most valuable assets in those kinds of locations -- and we'll lose the war. In fact, the Iraqis tried to do something exactly like this during the Gulf War; there was a military command bunker they knew we were going to try to bomb, and they herded several hundred civilians on top of it, who then died in the bomb blast. It was unfortunate, but it was also necessary. Iraq didn't try that again, but if we had avoided that bunker, pretty soon there would be civilians forcibly detained and placed on top of every Iraqi military target.

The biggest difference between law enforcement and war is that war is not necessarily reactive. While we would consider it completely unacceptable to arrest and try someone because they might commit a crime