“No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.” Albert Camus
I came across the quote this week; in every conflict, the biggest problem is how to avoid unnecessary casualties – it’s a matter of drawing the line of how far you’re willing to go for victory. Unfortunately, it almost always seems to happen, and the question that comes to mind is “why?”
The more politically minded would say that, in order to keep the universal good safe, small “sacrifices” are allowable. The trouble is, once you start compromising on the small scale, you jeopardize the entire good of what you’re fighting for. In Star Wars, there are at least two examples of this happening; the most famous example is the Padawan Massacre, committed by the First Watch-circle of the Jedi Covenant:
For those not read up on Star Wars, allow me to explain:
After the near-destruction of the Order by Exar Kun (a Jedi-turned-Sith-Lord), a former Master named Krynda Draay gathered like-minded Jedi to her and formed an organization that operated secretly, devoted to preventing the return of the Sith by any means necessary. During a private meeting, the group of Jedi Masters shown above experienced a vision of their deaths, brought about by a figure in red armor – armor that looked extremely similar to the spacesuits their apprentices were wearing at that moment. Convinced that this signified a new Sith Lord – another Exar Kun – was one of their students, the Masters decided to end the threat before it surfaced – by eliminating their students.
The results are two-fold: first, the Covenant leaders end up dying the same way they envisioned – like Oedipus, their actions to prevent fate have instead brought it about. Second, the founder of the Covenant, Krynda Draay, is horrified by what they have done. She remarks that NO cause is worth the lives of children; however, she is confronted with the fact that her own teachings – of doing whatever is necessary to prevent disaster – brought about this travesty. In trying to prevent the return of the Sith, the Covenant became the very thing they were fighting against.
I’m reminded of a quote from a science-fiction TV series I watched years ago: “You forgot the first rule of the fanatic: when you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy!” Jeffrey Sinclair, Babylon 5 (“Infection”) In the referenced episode, a man is taken over by an artifact from a dead civilization; as he is transformed into a living weapon, we (and the crew) learn more about HOW the civilization who designed the weapon were killed.
After multiple invasions from space, the civilization created a weapon that wiped out everything that didn’t match its ideological programming – which is compared to what the Nazis did in defining the “perfect Aryan.” In the end, the weapons turned on their creators when they deviated from the programmed “ideal;” in short, they were destroyed by the very means they invented to protect themselves.
No matter what the fight, or how “worthy” the cause, once you sacrifice those whom you should be protecting, you have already lost.