Stop Blaming the Victims
We still do not have all of the details surrounding what happened to the Malaysian Airline's flight that was shot down over the Ukraine border last week. It seems clear enough, however, that the plane was brought down by a military-grade surface-to-air missile and that the plane, carrying hundreds of innocent civilians, was hit while cruising at over 30,000 feet.
I served in the United States Army as a Field Artillery Officer and it was part of my job to direct fire, including rocket and missile fire if need be. Regardless of the circumstances, I had an obligation to do what I could to verify the identity of any target I meant to destroy. Assuming what happened over Ukraine last week wasn't a deliberate act of terrorism, and at the very least, whichever entity fired the missile failed to verify that they were shooting at a legitimate combat aircraft instead of a civilian airliner. Due to the previous statement, fault for this catastrophe lies exclusively at the feet of whomever fired the missile and any command and control system that authorized the shot.
Despite the clear nature of the responsibility for these murders, I still hear people trying to blame anybody and everybody for what happened. It was the fault of the pilot for flying too close to the Ukraine. It was the fault of the airlines for approving the flight plan. It was the fault of the President, or the European Union, or anybody else besides the criminals who actually shot the plane down. Why is this so?
Psychologists call it defensive attribution. We don't like to think that one day we could be on a routine airplane flight when it is shot down from the sky by criminals so we come up with a list of reasons why it wouldn't happen to us. We tend to think things like, "I would pick a better airline," or "This would never happen to me." It is scary to think that terrible things could happen to us that are simply beyond our control, so we look to shift blame around so we feel better about ourselves.
We see it all the time in other walks of life. Someone is assaulted and we think, "This wouldn't happen to me because I would never walk down that street at night." Somebody is victimized by the gross incompetence of a nursing home and some people say, "I would be more careful with my family member," or "I would never send my mom to a nursing home in the first place." A person is taken advantage of by an insurance company or a stockbroker and citizens make a statement like, "I wouldn't have let them take advantage of me like that." People who say these things don't want to place responsibility where it truly lies, because then they would have to face the possibility that it could be them the next time. It could be their family member hurt by the incompetence of the nursing home. It could be their money stolen by a predatory bank or incompetent stockbroker.
The only way to make the world a safer place for all of us is to be honest about where fault lies and do what we can to make sure justice is served. It might feel better to blame the victims, but when we do so, we all too often fail to deliver justice.
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