{"id":8133,"date":"2010-11-19T00:30:33","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T05:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=8133"},"modified":"2010-11-15T01:10:28","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T06:10:28","slug":"calls-to-address-moral-conflict-co-definition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/19\/calls-to-address-moral-conflict-co-definition\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls to Address Moral Conflict, CO Definition"},"content":{"rendered":"

In light of recent articles on the increasing moral conflict of war<\/a> — troops told to fight and kill without being provided the moral foundation for those actions — it seems appropriate to note the increasing attention “moral conflict” has recently gotten in the press.\u00a0 The articles even refer to “moral injury” and make a statement similar<\/a> to that made here before:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The report asserts that “moral dilemmas” have contributed to the rising number of\u00a0suicides among service members…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, the “moral conflict” on which the advocacy groups focus is that faced by troops who don’t agree with a particular war<\/em>, not those who are unable to reconcile their conduct in war with their morality.\u00a0 The groups\u00a0claim the “moral dilemmas” are due to “conflicts” over “one or both” of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.\u00a0 Without any further evidence they vaguely assert that military suicides (“perhaps a substantial number of them”) are directly attributable to violations of the just war doctrine.\u00a0 Without questioning the Commission’s sincerity, their efforts seem to have more of a political tone than a moral one.<\/p>\n

As a result, groups like the Truth Commission on Conscience in War are calling for expanding the definition of Conscientious Objector<\/a> to include those who don’t agree with the basis for a particular conflict, rather than its current requirement that COs object to war in any form.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is certainly validity to the claim that “moral injury” is contributing to PTSD and even suicides among active and former military members.\u00a0 It is regrettable, however, that groups are choosing to focus on the seeming political popularity of wars, rather than that which most directly impacts troops:\u00a0 After violently taking a life (an action seemingly at odds with their morality) they seek reassurance that their conduct is “morally right” — and they are told that it is neither right nor wrong, it’s just what they’ve been ordered to do.<\/p>\n

Such justification is illogical to those with a moral conscience, and if they can’t find someone who can help them cope, they may ultimately contribute to the tragic statistics that increasingly characterize today’s veterans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In light of recent articles on the increasing moral conflict of war — troops told to fight and kill without being provided the moral foundation for those actions — it seems appropriate to note the increasing attention “moral conflict” has recently gotten in the press.\u00a0 The articles even refer to “moral injury” and make a statement similar to that made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[46,2,1164,1165,225,917,1166],"class_list":["post-8133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-conscientious-objector","tag-military","tag-moral-conflict","tag-moral-injury","tag-ptsd","tag-suicide","tag-truth-commission-on-conscience-in-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}