A Sad Tale of 4 Navy Seal as Depicted in The Lone Survivor

The Lone Survivor was a story of four navy SEALS who came to Afghanistan for the operation against Al Qaeda leader, Sharmak, who was responsible for the tragedy of the World Trade Center. It was the turn of America to take an action against it by capturing Sharmak. Marcus, the only survivor, has told about the horrific experiences in Afghanistan and how his friends died in the mountains of Hindu Kush. During the operation, they came across three goat herders whom they suspected to be related to goat herders. The SEAL officers couldn’t decide that what they should do with them, whether they should execute the goat herders or let them go. They couldn’t trust them. They tried to get connected with head quarter, but they were not picking up the call. At the end, they decided that whether to let them free or to kill them. Morally, legally and strategically it was difficult to make a decision. This was a dangerous task which could even lead to their deaths.

If we look to this argument from moral point of view, it is very wrong to kill the unarmed civilians. Those goat herders were not friendly at all. Along with that, they even told they were not Talibans, but we cannot trust them as their intensions were not clear. The chances are that the goat herders would tell Sharmak and his men. This would lead to a serious trouble in a way that Talibans would try to look down for SEALS. They had only two choices left, either to kill them and assure their security, or to let them go and get ready to be killed by Talibans. They could save themselves or three unarmed civilians. They were there in behalf of America to take blood revenge. They knew that letting goat herders go would cost then their lives, hence they have justification for killing those unarmed civilians .However, they did not have legal right to kill the goat herders.

Usually during an army mission, there are some decisions that soldiers make in order to handle matters smoothly. According to the American law they didn’t have the justification to kill the goat herders as they were unarmed. Equally, they also have a right to save their own lives. They knew they would have to spend many years in a U.S civilian jail with murderers and rapists if they would kill the goat herders. It would be better to be in jail rather than being killed by talibans .Along with that, if they leave them there would be signs of danger then. Moreover, it is important that a person who doesn’t kill but inform someone is equally dangerous like a person who kills. In this way, they got the chances to get killed miles away from the homeland.

Other than this, in order to save themselves, they could have found any place and hidden the bodies, and no one would have found out about killing. And then they could have been moved with their plan of tracking Al Qaeda leader and members. It was difficult for them to let go those goat herders during an important mission. This was the major obstacle in their mission, that’s why should have killed them.

When they let the goat herders go, after a while, they would have had to consider the Taliban in battle because many talibans with heavily loaded guns were there. Both actions, killing the goat herder and letting them go requires courage as both are dangerous. Navy SEALS mission was ruined by those goat herders. They were not murderers but they should have killed them to save their own lives, but morally it would be wrong.

There were four SEAL officers and all of them were Christians. According to their religion they were not allowed to kill innocent people like goat herders as Marcus mentioned “I have another soul. My Christian soul. And it was crowding in on me. Something kept whispering in the back of my mind, it would be wrong to execute these unarmed men in cold blood” (pg. 234). After thinking a lot, Marcus faith persuaded him to let the goat herders go. Along with that their government wouldn’t allow killing of these unarmed civilians, and so they decided on obeying the rules of engagement of their country. He spends a lot of time commenting on the rules of engagement, the media, God and Afghan society.

Legally they didn’t have any justification to kill the goat herders. If they would kill the goat herders and their bodies would be found, the Taliban would take it to the maximum through Afghan media. After that U.S military would attack them without mercy for killing innocent unarmed Afghans and then they would be charged with murder.

If they had killed the goat herders, then what about the goats? Hiding goats would be difficult task as they will hang around from one place to another. Also, their relatives would have come to find them and if they won’t find them so they would suspect the SEALS to be the murderer of innocent Afghans. Arab media would spread that British U.S armed force killed unarmed civilians. By letting them go had saved them from the consequences they would have faced by Arab and Afghan media, and jail for killing goat herders.

Killing the goat herders or letting them go, in both situations, the SEALS had the potential of getting into trouble. Letting them go could cause their own death and that happened later. Instead of letting them go or killing, the SEALS had many other options which would have saved them from Taliban .Like if they doubted that the goat herders would inform the Taliban. They could have moved to a safer place. People like the goat herders look like simple citizens and are not easily suspicious. At last, either decision made by Marcus had the possibility of putting the lives of the SEALS officer in danger. They made the wrong decision by letting them go. To save their own lives and according to mission situation they should have killed them. The three soldiers serving with Marcus were killed. Marcus was able to escape, but not without significant injuries to his back and left leg.