Iowa Peace Network | Des Moines, IA

An historical perspective on an ethical question raised by the recent bombing of Iraq:

Do Good Soldiers Obey Bad Orders?

Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, Head of the Gestopo’s “Jewish Evacuation Department,”

General Colin Powell, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War and

Colonel Robert King, Public Affairs Officer of the Iowa National Guard agree:

“We Receive an Order and We Follow It!”

In 1960, Adolf Eichmann was arrested and broug’s Third Reich. Asked under interrogation by the Israeli police if he had “acquired the view that the salvation of the German people depended on the extermination of the Jews,” Eichmann replied, “We didn’t have such opinions, we just didn’t. Commands were given, and because they were commands, we obeyed...” (From Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police DeCopo Books, NY, 1999)

“We’re just here doing our job. We received an order from the Department of Defense, and we must follow it,” said Col. Robert King of the Iowa National Guard, concerning the challenge to the legality and morality of the Iowa Air Guard’s participation in “no fly zone” enforcement raised by demonstrators. (From The Des Moines Register , March 5, 2000)

Israeli police: “But not if you’re ordered to do something blatantly illegal?” Eichmann: “You say illegal. Today I have a very different view of things...But then? I wouldn’t have considered any of those actions illegal... If anyone had asked me about it up until May 8, 1945, the end of the war, I’d have said: This government was elected by a majority of the German people...every civilized country on earth had its diplomatic mission. Who is a little man like me to trouble his head about it? I get orders from my superior and I look neither right nor left. That’s not my job. My job is to obey and comply.” (From Eichmann Interrogated)

One week before the end of the US led bombing of Iraqin the first months of 1991, the Red Crescent Society estimated that 1,330,000 Iraqi civilians, 60% of these children, had been killed. Asked about Iraqi casualties about that time, General Colin Powell, then Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, replied, “It’s not a number I’m terribly interested in.” (From The New York Times, March 23, 1991)

Israeli police: “If, for instance, an officer gives the order to shoot civilians—not hostages or anything like that--no, he just picks out these civilians and says, ‘Shoot them!’ Must the subordinate carry out such an order?” Eichmann: “Yes, same as the Allied flyers who dropped their bombs on German cities and killed women, children and old people. Its exactly the same.” Israeli police: “But then a subordinate carries out a blatantly illegal order, doesn't he become responsible for it?” Eichmann: “In a war there’s only one thing a man can do: obey orders. If you don¹t obey, you're court-martialed. If you obey and the order was a mistake, the commanding officer must answer for it. That’s how it has always been.” (From Eichmann Interrogated)

Retired Gen Colin Powell told Buena Vista University students and protesters that “In a democracy, sometimes we have to send people into harm’s way in order to protect our liberty. I am not ashamed of being a soldier.” (From The Des Moines Register, Sept. 23, 2000)

“King said that he was not in a position to debate with protesters (as Iowa Army Guard members shipped out to the Middle East). He said the unit was ordered to deploy, and ‘we’re following the order to do that.’” (From The Des Moines Register, January 13, 2001)