Bomber Command and Moral Equivalency

Today Queen Elizabeth II unveiled the World War II Bomber Command Memorial.  This long overdo tribute takes me back to 2008 when my son and I visited London.  One of the many museums we visited was the RAF Museum in Hendon (on the outskirts of London).  While there we witnessed a television interview with Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Michael Beetham GCB CBE DFC AFC DL FRAeS.  The purpose of the interview was to drum up support for the Bomber Command Memorial that the Queen unveiled today.

As I watched the interview I was shocked to learn that while all the other branches of the military, including Fighter Command, had memorials for their dead, Bomber Command did not. 

Once the interview was over—and being the imprudent American—I walked up to the distinguished gentleman and started to engage him in conversation.  By the reactions of everyone present, including the television crew, I immediately realized that I had committed some breach of propriety.  This fact was driven home by the stunned look on the Marshal’s face but he quickly recovered and he turned out to be a very nice man.  The burning question I had for him was why a memorial had not yet been dedicated to those in 55,000 who lost their lives serving in Bomber Command? 

Marshal Beetham and I

He explained that the since the end of the war there had been a growing sentiment that the bombing of German cities were immoral.  In more recent times it had even been referred to as a war crime on par with the crimes of the Nazis and no one had the will to support a memorial dedicated to war criminals.  I finished our brief chat by thanking him for his time and his service.  I also wished him the best in achieving his lifelong goal of establishing a memorial to the men who lost their lives taking the ‘battle to the Nazis.”

Today, I am very pleased to see that Marshal Beetham has indeed achieved his goal and I am delighted that the Queen herself is doing the dedication.  But I am disturbed by the moral equivalency I am reading in some of the stories and in the comments to the stories.  As one commenter wrote:

Unfortunately, force is also its own justification. Had the Nazis won the war, they would have, over the years, poured out reams upon reams of justifications for what they did. Anyone who questioned them would be sick and wrong and guilty of ignoring their obvious truth.

In other words, the Allies were morally no different than the Nazis.  Like all proponents of moral equivalency this commenter only looks at the event while completely ignoring the motivation behind the action.  Unlike the Nazis, who used force to subjugate “inferior peoples” the Allies, including Bombing Command, were using force in defense of liberty and freedom.  In defense of liberal democracy and the rights of man.  This creates a big distinction.  It separates the use of force for self-defense from plain outright murder.  Yet, moral equivalency sees them as being equal.  The use of force is immoral regardless of the situation.  

But there is a difference on the individual level and the national level.  This is a distinction that Rudyard Kipling recognized when, as the 18^th century gave way to the 19^th, he gazed upon the hundreds of masts creating an artificial forest on the Thames River.  These masts belonged to the frigates of the most powerful navy in the world, the Royal Navy.  Recognizing the power they represented, Kipling would write: 

Any other people or nation would have unleashed that terrible force long ago, for their own gain and glory, and brought a horrible Holocaust on humanity. But not England, not Great Britain.

Of course, Kipling came from a period when people’s moral compasses allowed them to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil.  Unfortunately, today too many of us are lost in a type of moral Bermuda Triangle.  Our moral compasses spinning and gyrating in all directions.  As a result, we are so morally lost that we can no longer discern the hero from the villain, the liberator from the oppressor, the freedom fighter from the terrorist.  

The Bomber Command Memorial is more than a symbol of those who lost their lives defending freedom.  It is a symbol that maybe—just maybe—we are regaining our bearing and can once again accept the fact that not all societies are equal.

Well done, Marshal Beetham, well done!  It was an honor and a privilege to have met you.