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Sewall (in NYT; of Carr Center for Human Rights Policy), June 13 2006

Text Source

Sewall, Sarah (NYT Op-ed Contributor, currently director of Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, former US deputy assistant secretary of defense). "Blinded by Haditha." New York Times (www.nytimes.com. June 13 2006): http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/opinion/13sewall.html.


Message Unit 1 - an example of patriotized morality

Ordinarily, we say that using real military to fight against nonmilitary people makes the military side less moral and the nonmilitary side more moral. That is, ordinarily, when there is an unequal military-vs-nonmilitary situation, we say that, morally speaking, whatever other moral factors there might be in the equation, the military-vs-nonmilitary factor counts in favor of the nonmilitary side.
The fact that the US fighters are military whereas the people they are fighting aren't military is of moral credit to the US fighters and is a moral failing of the people they are fighting.

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The hard cases ... the grindingly routine judgment calls, the snap decisions soldiers have to make when their foes (like suicide bombers) refuse to wear uniforms.