Is it ethical for a retreating army to take local infants with them? - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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For discussion of moral and ethical issues.
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#15186612
Crantag wrote:This post is actually contradictory. You concede that people often behave irrationally in panicked situations, and then you proceed to ascribe a rational standpoint.


...but I didn't concede the behaviour was irrational though. :?:

The behaviour reminds me best when illustrated by Fantine in Les Mis where handing over the child is what is best for the child given that is rational maternal behaviour. But I suspect there is more to that then just the child's welfare anyway. Whether you don't, doesn't change my opinion. Families are trying their best to get out Afghanistan right now and this is what desperation does. And that is why it is rational. We would do likewise in their position.
#15186615
I guess none of you are familiar with separation anxiety. This is traumatising for infants even if they have no conscious memory of the event.

Crantag wrote:I doubt that it is usually a case where a woman hands a child to a soldier, and runs away.

This sought of things happens more often then you'd expect. Even outside of war zones children are sold to brothels or abandoned in busy cities by those unable or unwilling to care for them. I'm discussing this on reddit and someone stated that someone they knew was involved. They drove a busload of kids to the airport and discovered an extra one upon arrival. The other kids said it was passed through the window when they stopped in traffic.
#15186617
Rancid wrote:What are the instructions given to the soldiers? Take the babies that are handed to them, or not take them?


There wouldn't have been an instruction before today. A solider will act in their moral reflex. And if they were told the child was ill by the mother they would take the child. I suspect you would do likewise and so would I. Today the memo would be whatever you do don't take the child. And today Soliders will have to just turn the cheek and ignore.
#15186618
B0ycey wrote:
There wouldn't have been an instruction before today. A solider will act in their moral reflex. And if they were told the child was ill by the mother they would take the child. I suspect you would do likewise and so would I. Today the memo would be whatever you do don't take the child. And today Soliders will have to just turn the cheek and ignore.


I agree, I think my reflex, especially as a father would be to take the baby (well, even not as a father I'm sure I'd so the same). Further, if I were in a desperate situation where I felt my families life and future is endanger, I would certainly try handing my kid(s) to soldiers.

Maybe I missed the news. Are you saying soldiers have been instructed to not take babies?
Last edited by Rancid on 21 Aug 2021 15:26, edited 1 time in total.
#15186619
AFAIK wrote:I guess none of you are familiar with separation anxiety. This is traumatising for infants even if they have no conscious memory of the event.


No one is ignoring it, it just isn't a factor in why this is happening. That is to say that this is something which would be a consequence of the action but if the alternative is a life under the Taliban, I suspect most people will just accept the consequence as the lesser of two evils. However the solution would be to take the whole family anyway. That is if that is the only moral argument you have over this.
#15186620
Rancid wrote:Maybe I missed the news. Are you saying soldiers have been instructed to not take babies?


That would be top secret information @rancid. There is no way I can know that given there is no way the media would know. However I can work out logically that is what would have happened given the US doesn't want these type of stories making the news right now.
#15186621
B0ycey wrote:
That would be top secret information @rancid. There is no way I can know that given there is no way the media would know. However I can work out logically that is what would have happened given the US doesn't want these type of stories making the news right now.


Ah, ok.

Yea, so I guess what @AFAIK is getting it, is that not taking the baby, or accepting the whole family are better than taking just the baby.

A separate question I would ask is, what happened to the babies that were taken in Vietnam? Are they fucked up people today?
#15186622
AFAIK wrote:This sought of things happens more often then you'd expect. Even outside of war zones children are sold to brothels or abandoned in busy cities by those unable or unwilling to care for them. I'm discussing this on reddit and someone stated that someone they knew was involved. They drove a busload of kids to the airport and discovered an extra one upon arrival. The other kids said it was passed through the window when they stopped in traffic.

Yes. I hear you.

I didn't mean to sound so naive.

Your post reminds me of the Chinese film Farewell My Concubine.

A young boy, who eventually becomes a stage actor in the film, is given away by his mother to an orphanage, where the conditions are really bad. The setting is during the Cultural Revolution.

I guess it is ethical, than. And I was being a reactionary.

Had seriously never thought about this topic before, about women giving up babies at the end of the war.

America is guilty for all of the suffering. This circumstance is a side affect of the failed occupation by America, which was based on a pack of lies.
#15186625
Rancid wrote:Yea, so I guess what @AFAIK is getting it, is that not taking the baby, or accepting the whole family are better than taking just the baby.

A separate question I would ask is, what happened to the babies that were taken in Vietnam? Are they fucked up people today?


I don't know what happened to the Vietnamese children, although I suspect they were ok.

However I don't know what @AFAIK POV of taking whole families rather than only the child was and won't assume that was what he was in essence saying given his OP was about the effects of trauma rather the effects of of asylum. Perhaps he could clarify? However what I will say is the mental trauma would be significantly more magnified under the Taliban and poverty than separation could ever achieve.
#15186626
AFAIK wrote:Operation babylift was an attempt to evacuate orphans. It wasn't for the benefit of collaborators and there was no fear of famine at the time.
_____

Thanks for discussing this with me, btw. It's really helped me organise my thoughts.


No, it wasn't necessarily for the benefit of collaborators but it's reasonable to assume they are easily the ones that will be most interested in fleeing first, or at least giving their children the chance to. Famine was just an example of what could happen in the future that could push people to be willing to literally hand their babies to strangers but more than Vietnam in 1975, I had Afghanistan in 2021 in mind.

At last, you don't even need a literal war for parents to be willing to do something like that. Just consider how many children are sent unaccompanied into the US from Central America...
#15186675
American soldiers are not authorized to take Afghan children with them. A baby that was handed to a soldier over a razor-wire fence amid the chaos in Kabul has been safely reunited with their father. Adoption from Afghanistan is a challenging prospect. Only 41 Afghan children were adopted by U.S. families between 1999 and 2019. Operation Babylift by President Ford evacuated thousands of orphans from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War to be adopted by families around the world. The big difference is that Afghan children are not orphans who could be left to die in Afghanistan without parental care.

#15186710
B0ycey wrote:That is if that is the only moral argument you have over this.

I also disagree with the people who think being a minority in America is superior than living in your own country alongside your extended family. America is full of animosity, narcissism and division and Afghani refugees who relocate there may witness yet more political violence. The Taliban's arrival in Kabul appears to have been more peaceful than the transfer of the presidency from Trump to Biden.

America has deported a large number of refugees to Cambodia in recent years because they failed to acquire full citizenship before committing a crime. Many of them don't speak the language and have wives and children in US.

A Cambodian refugee who says he was wrongly deported nearly two years ago was reunited with his family in Massachusetts on Wednesday, becoming the fourth such refugee — and first on the East Coast — to be allowed back into the country since the Trump administration stepped up deportations of Southeast Asians.

The 50-year-old Lowell resident was welcomed by his family and supporters, who cheered, held signs and handed him flower bouquets as they greeted him at the baggage claim.

Chea quickly scooped up his young daughter and one-year-old son, who was born after he was deported and had never met him in person.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/cam ... s-69225762


Rancid wrote:A separate question I would ask is, what happened to the babies that were taken in Vietnam? Are they fucked up people today?

I posted a link about their experiences Australia.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/from-saigon ... 0-years-on

wat0n wrote: it's reasonable to assume they are easily the ones that will be most interested in fleeing first, or at least giving their children the chance to

I assumed collaborators would be taken care of with visas and access to military bases and embassies. Operation babylift was specifically for orphans and the S Vietnamese gov't passed a law in order to facility it.

wat0n wrote:At last, you don't even need a literal war for parents to be willing to do something like that. Just consider how many children are sent unaccompanied into the US from Central America...

We shouldn't encourage or enable such actions. We should make efforts to keep kids with their families.

I should point out that in SE Asia family and communal ties are very strong so attitudes to orphans are very different. If a child's parents are unable to care for them they will be adopted by the extended family or a neighbour. There are orphanages here that encourage poor people to leave their children there even though it is much more expensive than supporting them within their family unit. A cruel scam in my opinion.
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