A thought on Mr. Trump’s idea of deliberately killing the families of terrorists

http://www.christianpost.com/news/trump-kill-innocent-family-isis-gop-debate-152612/

The laws of war — yes, there are such things — have long banned the deliberate targeting of women and children.  (See here, for example.)

But Donald Trump proposes doing precisely that, in direct violation of (among many other things) the Fourth Geneva Convention.

I was shocked and dismayed to see him repeat that proposal in last night’s debate and double down on it during an interview with Bill O’Reilly, which he did from Mesa, Arizona, earlier today.  Behind him, a large crowd of perhaps a thousand people, gathered in what looked like some sort of airplane hangar, cheered loudly.  I’m guessing, given the location, that not a few of those cheering were members of my church.

The policy he recommends is immoral.  It’s the kind of thing that ISIS and al-Qa‘ida do.  It’s the kind of thing that the Nazis did.  It contravenes international law.  It would make our nation and its leaders and its soldiers war criminals.  It would inflame much of the world, and virtually all of the Islamic world — that’s something on the order of 1.6 billion people — against us.

I understand the fear and the anger.  I understand it very well.  But this proposal, while it plainly gratifies some audiences, is utterly irresponsible as well as completely unethical.

If Mr. Trump doesn’t really mean it, he’s a manipulative liar.  If he means it, he’s aspiring to commit war crimes.

Imagine our pilots, ordered to target schools, hospitals, or homes.

Imagine our soldiers, ordered to enter into houses and apartments in order to shoot unarmed women and children.

Imagine the toll that such actions — and, surely, they’re the sorts of acts that the deliberate targeting of the wives and children and extended families of ISIS terrorists would require — would inevitably take on the members of our military, on the moral self-understanding of our nation.

Plato was right:  It’s preferable to suffer wrong than to do wrong.  Evil can injure our bodies against our will, but evil can only injure our souls if we permit it to do so.

Donald Trump is an increasingly sinister demagogue.