Moral Idiocy
in the Halls of Power
By Lawrence
Davidson
September 07,
2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Unz"
-
It was on 12 August 1949 that the
nations of the world, with Nazi atrocities still in
mind, updated what are known as the Geneva Accords.
This constituted an effort to once again set limits
on the wartime behavior of states and their agents.
Among other things, the accords set the range of
acceptable behavior toward prisoners of war,
established protections for the wounded and the
sick, and the necessary protections to be afforded
civilian populations within and approximate to any
war-zone. Some 193 countries, including the United
States, have ratified these agreements. Now, as of
August 2016, they are 67 years old. Have they
worked? The answer is, in all too many cases, no.
In
just about every major conflict since 1949 the
Geneva Accords have been partially or completely
ignored. Certainly that was the case in the Vietnam
War, where civilian deaths came close to 1.5 million
people. The treaties have had minimal impact in
Afghanistan (during both the Russian and U.S.
invasions), Iraq, the Israeli occupation of
Palestinian territories, Russia’s military activity
in Chechnya, and various conflicts in Africa and
Asia. The International Red Cross, which oversees
observance of the accords, has not been able to do
much more than shine lights on the breaches of the
law and pick up the bloody pieces in the aftermath.
At the rate our nation-states slaughter the
innocent, it is a wonder there is an overpopulation
problem.
Part II – Honored Only In the Breach
There are likely two main reasons why the Geneva
Accords have had so little influence on behavior:
hypocrisy and ignorance.
As
to hypocrisy, it is the case that, except in rare
instances, there are no serious consequences for
violating the law. Particularly, if you are agents
of a strong state, or the ally (like Israel) of a
strong state, the chances of state leaders or agents
being arrested for war crimes or crimes against
humanity is exceedingly low.
One wonders why nations bothered writing and
enacting the Geneva Accords in the first place. The
reason might have been specific to the moment. Faced
with the atrocious behavior of leaders and soldiers
(it is most often the behavior of the defeated party
that is pointed to, so think here of the Holocaust),
and the immediate outcry this behavior produced, the
pressure for some sort of reaction carried the
world’s leaders forward to make and ratify
agreements to prevent future repetitions of such
crimes.
Yet, as it turns out, these were not serious efforts
except when applied to the defeated and the weak.
For the strong, it is one thing to enact an
international law, it is another thing altogether to
apply it to oneself or other strong states.
As
to ignorance, to date it is obvious that the
politicians and soldiers who wage war, or who are
responsible for the arming and training of allies
who do so, do not regard seriously, and in some
cases are not even familiar with, the Geneva
Accords. In my experience, they often cannot, or
will not, discuss them when asked, and regard
statements referencing the disobeying of illegal
orders in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to
be rightfully honored only in the breach.
And that is the important point. We can safely say
that when it comes to waging war, or for that
matter, aiding and abetting others doing so, the
accepted behavior of both soldiers, statesmen, and
diplomats is that called moral idiocy.
Part III – Moral Idiocy
Moral Idiocy is not something this writer, creative
as he is, has simply made up. It is a real concept
in psychology that has been around for over a
century. However, in our increasingly relativistic
societies, it has fallen into disuse. Briefly, it
means the “Inability to understand moral principles
and values and to act in accordance with them,
apparently without impairment of the reasoning and
intellectual faculties.” The key word here is
“understand.” It is not that moral idiots do not
know, intellectually, that something called morality
exists, but rather they can not understand its
applicability to their lives, particularly their
professional lives. At best they think it is a
personal thing that operates between friends or
relatives and goes no further – a reduction of
values to the narrowest of social spaces. This is
paralleled by the absence of such values as guiding
principles for one’s actions in the wider world.
There are innumerable examples of such apparent
moral idiots acting within the halls of power. The
following short list specific to the U.S. reflects
the opinion of this writer: George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Oliver North,
Richard Nixon and, my favorite, Henry Kissinger.
Those reading this both in and outside of the United
States can, no doubt, make a list of their own.
A
particular incident related to Henry Kissinger’s
behavior gives us an excellent example of this moral
failing. The story is told by Stephen Talbot, a
journalist and documentary producer, who in the
early 2000s interviewed Robert McNamara, who had
been U.S. Secretary of Defense for much of the Viet
Nam War years and was, by the 1990s, full of remorse
and feelings of guilt for his behavior while in
office. Then, shortly thereafter, Talbot interviewed
Kissinger, who had been Richard Nixon’s Secretary of
State and National Security Advisor during the Viet
Nam War’s final years. Here is how Talbot describes
what, for us, is the relevant part of his interview
with Kissinger: “I told him I had just interviewed
Robert McNamara in Washington. That got his
attention. . . . and then he did an extraordinary
thing. He began to cry. But no, not real tears.
Before my eyes, Henry Kissinger was acting. ‘Boohoo,
boohoo,’ Kissinger said, pretending to cry and rub
his eyes. ‘He’s [McNamara] still beating his breast,
right? Still feeling guilty.’ He spoke in a mocking,
singsong voice and patted his heart for emphasis.”
Kissinger obviously held McNamara and his feelings
of guilt in utter disdain. He had actually committed
greater crimes than McNamara – crimes documented in
Christopher Hitchens’s 2001 book, The Trial of Henry
Kissinger – and yet apparently felt no remorse at
all. How does one get like that?
Part IV – A Learning Deficiency
Let’s start our speculation in this regard by
stating that none of us is born with a gene that
tells us right from wrong. Those notions are
cultural, though some basic principles (say, seeing
murder within one’s tribal or clan network as
morally wrong) come close to being universal.
Nonetheless, because we are not dealing with
something genetic, it is quite possible that all of
us have a potential for this moral failing. That
being said, the vast majority of folks do
successfully learn from their cultures that moral
indifference is wrong and that committing what their
society deems bad behavior should result in remorse
and feelings of guilt. It also seems that a minority
do not learn this, or learn it only superficially.
Most of this minority, realizing that such
indifference is viewed negatively, keep it hidden as
much as they can. Yet when, on occasion, these
closet moral idiots reach positions of power and
influence, they can cause enormous damage.
There is a corollary to this. One can get socially
sanctioned subgroups within which one is expected,
at least temporarily, to act without reference to
moral values. The military is a good example of this
environment. And, under certain circumstances, so is
the State Department or other foreign offices. In
such a situation, most people “go with the flow”
even if they know better, and then, in later life,
some suffer from the trauma of the experience.
Moral idiocy can be seen as a very long-standing
cultural flaw that often gives license to the
violence that law and cultural mores are,
simultaneously, trying to control. And, who are
those who most often take advantage of this
loophole? Ironically, it is the very people who lead
our societies and those assigned to defend the
culture and enforce the law. Lack of accountability
makes for very poor public hygiene.
Lawrence
Davidson is a retired professor of history from West
Chester University in West Chester PA. His academic
research focused on the history of American foreign
relations with the Middle East. He taught courses in
Middle East history, the history of science and
modern European intellectual history. |
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