Simon Harak: Leftist Marquette Faculty “Peace” Activist Against Military Robots

Simon Harak is a hard left “peace activist” ensconced in Marquette’s Center for Peacemaking.

In fact, his notion of “peace” is that America should never fight anybody. He has little bad to say about America’s enemies, and has even defended Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

He is much more a leftist than a peace activist.

At any rate, Harak is recently been vocal in opposing the U.S. military’s use of robots in combat.

Some argue that military robotics will also increase the threat of terrorism. “If people know that they are going to be killed by these robots,” argues Fr. G. Simon Harak, director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking, “then why would they not therefore retaliate against civilian centers in the United States? It only makes military sense that they’ll find where we are vulnerable.”

Of course, they have been trying to do this for a couple of decades now, and without much success since the Bush Administration’s clamp down on terrorism in the wake of 9/11.

More than anything else, the prospect of U.S. troops dying on some far-off battlefield limits public support for military force. Therefore, if the number of soldiers coming home in body bags can be significantly reduced, then the public will probably pay even less attention to foreign policy and future wars. This will in turn make it easier for politicians to start wars.

For instance, John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, recently wrote in the Washington Post that robots would allow the United States to intervene militarily in Darfur or other hot spots where politicians are currently reluctant to send flesh-and-blood soldiers.

Another hard-left periodical, Mother Jones also quotes Harak.

The Rev. G. Simon Harak, an ethicist and the director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking, says, “Effectively, what these remote control robots are doing is removing people farther and farther from the consequences of their actions.”

Translation: if America goes to war, fewer Americans will be killed. For Harak, this is a bad thing.

Moreover, the similarity that the robots have to the life-like video games that young people grow up playing will blur reality further.

“If guys in the field already have difficulties distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Harak asks, “what about when they are looking through a video screen?”

It is not only possible but likely that a surge of armed robots would lead to an increase in the number of civilian casualties, not a decrease.

The supposed conversation-ender that armed robots will save U.S. lives isn’t nearly as clear as it is often presented, either. “If you take a narrow view, fewer soldiers would die,” Harak says, “but that would be only on the battlefield.”

As happens in every war, however, those facing new technology will adapt to them.

“If those people being attacked feel helpless to strike at the robots themselves, they will try to strike at their command centers,” Harak says, “which might well be back in the United States or among civilian centers. That would then displace the battlefield to manufacturing plants and research facilities at universities where such things are being invented or assembled… The whole notion that we can be invulnerable is just a delusion.”

Harak somehow believes that terrorists, who have been trying to strike the American homeland, and dearly want to strike the Amercan homeland, would somehow gain the capability of doing so if the U.S. military uses robots.

Of course, under Obama, they may very well gain that capability. But if so, they will use it, robots or no robots.

Harak, it seems, is so anti-American that he actually wants any American intervention to create more American casualties. “Peace” is no part of his agenda. Hating America is.