1. The purpose of a trial is to clear up doubts. That other cases require a trial to clear up doubts does not mean that every case does. Who is to decide? By giving a soldier or a policeman a gun we empower them to make life or death decisions. Why not this one?
2. If it is not possible to kill a terrorist after a trial, than the trial itself is not merely a procedural delay in the delivery of justice, it is a procedure by which injustice is guaranteed.
3. The one who dehumanizes the enemy is the one who denies that enemy's moral culpability and thus refuses to treat that enemy as a criminal regardless of their conduct.
4. The laws of war permit the summary execution of terrorists.
5. I do not condone leaving an injured, unarmed alive when that man is a terrorist, yes. It is arguable whether he should be patched up for trial, convicted, and then killed. But to patch him, feed him, and keep him with his fellow terrorists until he is released to kill again? What values does does that uphold?
6. Azaria, it is claimed, violated orders. If he did so, he did so to kill a man who deserved to die, who would not have died had Azaria had not acted. Should soldiers follow the prima facie immoral order to spare a disabled terrorist? Sure. But to judge a soldier who violated an immoral order you need to have the proper sense of right and wrong and the understanding that such an order is, prima facie, immoral.
On no. 5: it upholds the value of law, among other things. You are making excuses for lawless behavior, as you admit in no. 6. Remember why we learn in Avot to "pray for the welfare of the government..."?
ReplyDeleteWhen the terrorist is released alive before he has completed his sentence that demonstrates 1) that we don't take his crimes seriously enough (otherwise he would have been executed) and 2) we don't even take our own laws seriously enough (because we release him before he has completed his utterly insufficient sentence).
DeletePraying for the welfare of the government means praying for the welfare of the Gentile government. As regards a Jewish government, we pray for a Torah government, and what Azariah is alleged to have done is in fact in conormity with the law of the Torah.
Reuven is a policeman in a country with no capital punishment. Reuven arrives at the scene of a murder before the perpetrator manages to flee. Contrary to his country's laws, Reuven believes that murderers deserve to be executed, so he fires his pistol into the murderer's skull and kills him. Is his action legitimate?
ReplyDeleteExtrajudicial executions occur everywhere. Even in Sweden, if you are good enough at killing policemen the police will kill you. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. Legitimacy is neither here nor there.
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