For years, I've tried to get more people—and especially Americans, citizens of the most militaristic nation on Globe--to concur with me that war that must be abolished. One simple--some would say simplistic--argument I've tried is this: state of war is wrong because killing children is incorrect, and children are inevitably killed in wars. If I believed in moral absolutes, not killing kids would be a leading candidate.

The earth recently reacted with horror and pity to a photo of a three-twelvemonth-one-time male child, Aylan, who drowned while fleeing Syria. Aylan was an indirect victim of war in Syria. Since 9/11, U.Southward.-led forces have killed—straight, not indirectly--more than a thousand children in Syria and other war zones effectually the earth. To my listen, each ane of these victims should provoke universal horror, pity and condemnation.

Diverse nonprofit watchdog groups try to keep count of children killed past U.South. and allied forces by tracking media, government and non-governmental-organization (NGO) reports. Co-ordinate to Iraq Body Count, betwixt 2003 and 2011, U.S. coalition forces killed at to the lowest degree 1,201 children in Iraq lonely.

Airwars.org estimates that more contempo attacks by U.South.-centrolineal forces against Islamic forces in Republic of iraq and Syria accept killed at least 1,239 civilians, including an unknown number of children. Co-ordinate to a recent United Nations study, U.Southward. and centrolineal forces killed 24 children in Afghanistan in 2014. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan over the past decade take killed between 172 and 207 children.

These documented cases are just a tiny fraction of all child casualties of U.S.-led attacks, emphasizes Neta Crawford, a political scientist at Boston University. Writer of Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America'due south Post-ix/eleven Wars, Crawford tracks civilian casualties of U.Due south. wars for the Costs of War project, which I oftentimes cite on this blog.

Estimating civilian casualties of U.S. war machine operations is extremely difficult, Crawford told me by email. "There was essentially no record kept in Afghanistan and Pakistan for a few years of any U.S.-caused noncombatant casualties, and virtually particularly the killing of children." Some of the all-time-documented cases of kid casualties involve U.S. drone strikes, which "aren't the chief source of civilian killing in these wars," Crawford points out.

She adds: "Virtually children killed and injured directly by U.S. forces and their allies were killed the same style every bit their parents: they died when bombs roughshod; when they were caught in 'cross-fire'; shot in dark raids; shot at bank check-points and run over by U.South. convoys who speed through the streets and roads.  The roadside deaths are oftentimes not recorded unless the U.S. gives some bounty to the families."

Crawford adds that "the harm to children in war is besides indirect--morbidity and mortality due to the destruction of infrastructure which impairs delivery of medical care, makes drinking water dangerous, and makes food scarce."

Unfortunately, many people react to the killing of children with a shrug or a cheer. Americans flocked to American Sniper, which lionizes a soldier who, in the opening scene, shoots an Iraqi male child and his mother. (See my critique of the film here.) When I object to the U.Due south. military killing children, I often hear three counter-arguments. Here they are, with my responses:

Statement 1: Children are ofttimes killers themselves, whom our troops kill in self-defence. This is the view advanced implicitly in American Sniper. The sniper, Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, shoots a boy who is threatening U.S. soldiers with a bomb. The phenomenon of child warriors is all too existent. According to the United Nations, "hundreds of thousands of children are used as soldiers in armed conflicts around the earth." But child soldiers are victims, who should if possible be rescued and rehabilitated, not killed. Moreover, the vast majority of children killed past U.Southward. forces are non suspected combatants. They are "collateral impairment" resulting from U.S. attacks on developed targets.

Argument 2. Our enemies kill children also. The Islamic Country of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Boko Haram and other militant groups have indeed committed atrocities confronting children, co-ordinate the United Nations. But we abhor these groups, supposedly, because nosotros find their brutal treatment of civilians (among other acts) inexcusable. Their behavior cannot alibi ours. Moreover, when nosotros commit atrocities, we provide ISIS and other groups with a provocation and justification for their behavior. We should ready a moral example for militant groups, not stoop to their behavior.

Argument 3. We don't impale children on purpose. When presented with irrefutable evidence that its forces have killed children or other civilians, the U.S. occasionally apologizes (see below), while insisting that the deaths were unintentional. But when our forces kill children over and over once more, claims that the killings are unintentional become hollow, a contemptuous evasion of responsibility. We would be outraged if American police, in attacks on suspected criminals, routinely killed children who happened to exist nearby. We should be equally outraged when U.S. troops kill children in their operations.

Last November, for example, an air strike by the U.S.-led alliance aimed at a suspected "explosives-making and storage facility" in Syria "likely caused the deaths of two noncombatant children," the Pentagon has acknowledged. One was a five twelvemonth old girl, Daniya Ali Al Haj Qaddour, who poses with her father, Ali Saeed Al Haj Qaddoura, a suspected militant, in the photo higher up. Airwar.org has posted a video of Daniya and the other child killed in the assail here. Pentagon officials admit that the deaths of the two children violate "international humanitarian law" and land that the brotherhood should "ensure that it doesn't happen once more."

At this point, many readers are no dubiety thinking that war is a messy, unpredictable business organisation, which always ends up hurting innocent people, such every bit children. Exactly. That is why state of war must stop.

Further Reading:

A Global Security System: An Alternative to State of war, published by Worldbeyondwar.org.

U.South. Bombs, Which Helped Spawn ISIS, Tin can't Crush It.

War Is Our Most Urgent Problem. Permit'southward Solve It.

Nosotros Need a New Just-War Theory, Which Aims to Cease War Forever.

How Tin can We Condemn Boston Murders Just Alibi U.Southward. Bombing of Civilians?

Did the U.Due south. Overreact to the 9/xi Attacks?

Barack Obama Should Call for End of All War, Not Just War on Terror.