EDITORIAL – Government right to kill, or not

In Germany, as in many countries, there are very strict limitations on what the military can… In Germany, as in many countries, there are very strict limitations on what the military can and cannot do. After World War II, Germany’s constitution was amended to ensure that the military could not be used for domestic security purposes – the police have taken on that responsibility.

Recently, German legislators tried to introduce a law that would change this policy, one allowing the military to do things like shoot down hijacked commercial planes and keep order at this summer’s World Cup. The proposed law was not passed; Germany’s highest court found it “incompatible with the fundamental right to life and with the guarantee of human dignity.”

Really, with a law like this, there is no easy right or wrong answer. If the government shoots down a hijacked plane, sacrificing the lives of the passengers, thousands of other lives can potentially be saved.

Still, there are times when diplomacy and negotiation have successfully brought hijacked airlines safely to the ground – especially in Germany. In 2003, a mentally ill man hijacked a small plane and threatened to crash it into various Frankfurt landmarks. He later landed the airplane; had the military shot it down, people would have died needlessly.

Many would argue that the government needs to have the right to take action to protect the majority of its citizens – even if it means purposely taking action that will kill some of them. Certainly, a government should not be allowed to fire at will, and strict parameters are necessary, but is there a point at which it’s just time to shoot?

Or, is there no point at which the government should be allowed to knowingly kill its civilians? It’s arguably not the government’s paramount job to keep its citizens safe, and a very slippery slope arguably starts with killing people as a preventative measure.

The implications of such a law in the United States are slightly different than in Germany, given their respective histories and political philosophies.

If the military has full license to protect civilians from perceived threats, in any country, it is likely that two things will happen: some potentially tragic events will be averted, and some essentially innocent events will be misinterpreted as threats. Either way, there is loss.

Does the government have a right to actively kill its citizens? What’s better: to live in a society knowing that if you are a passenger on a hijacked plane, the government might sacrifice you, or that if you work in a building threatened by a plane that the government will not sacrifice the passengers? Ultimately, there’s just no way to decide.