New Law: Humanity Doctrine

303 words published on Feb 20, 2012

Choosing to take military action should not be something any representative of our government can take lightly. Perhaps we need to inject a bit of humanity and realism into the minds of those in office.

Know Your Soldiers

Any representative that votes “YES” to any initiative that causes military action is added to a list. If any soldier is injured in that operation, someone on that list must personally write a hand-written letter to that soldier. This cannot be a form letter and it cannot be written by an assistant or other third party. For any soldier that dies in that operation, the letter should be addressed to their spouse, parents, and children.

The representatives chosen to write these letters will be ordered randomly based on the list and every one on the list must write one before any of them is called to write a second one. The cycle continues like this until that military action is concluded.

The President is included in this list, whether he/she supports the action or not.

Intended Result

Hopefully, this will keep our soldiers in mind when they are voting to continue funding and supporting wars. If this law was in effect for the Iraq War, each person who voted for the invasion (297 Congressmen and 77 Senators plus the President = 375 people) would have each had to write 100+ letters (Source) as of last December. On the U.S. side of it, that is over 17,000 injured and 4,484 deaths. Can you imagine writing over 100 letters to the families of soldiers you sent to their injury/deaths by hand? I would hope that this harrowing experience might prevent them from extending or supporting these kinds of actions unless they truly believed in the cause.

That is, of course, assuming they have consciences. Let’s hope at least some politicians still do.

Comments (4)

John says:

Feb 21, 2012 at 12:47 am

There’s a flaw in your assertion, Eric, that, “right now, our government, despite its ceremony, is absolutely dissociated from the human costs of war.” I’m focusing on the temporal aspect of what you wrote. Indeed, that disassociative extension of politics by other mean is present in every century, in every country, and is perhaps a fundamental expression of our nature. Moreover, there have been plenty of wars, major and minor, voted for and approved by legislators despite full cognizance that their own kin could (and they often did) fall in combat. There is certainly a decrease in that statistic, but there is also a marked decrease in the number of military actions and casualty rates.

Reply to John
Eric says:

Feb 21, 2012 at 12:35 am

You’re right. There’s got to be something we can do, because I don’t think writing letters would be enough to bring legislators into reality.

Reply to Eric
Eric says:

Feb 20, 2012 at 5:31 pm

I like this idea. Right now, our government, despite its ceremony, is absolutely dissociated from the human costs of war; they view the men and women giving their lives for their dirty work as their own life-sized action figures.

I would go a step further: A child of any legislator who votes in favor of military action, or even the First Family may be conscripted. If you really want to bridge the gap between our civilian government’s understanding of war and the military cost, this is how you do it.

Reply to Eric
1. Corry says:
  
  Feb 20, 2012 at 10:59 pm
  
  You can’t force an adult (you can only enter the military as an adult) into something because their parent made a decision…

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