Can we become desensitized to civilian casualties?
TKS
The conflict in Israel and Lebanon seems to get endlessly more depressing. I’m beginning to wonder, though, if the typical terrorist propaganda efforts of, “look at how cruel our enemies are, look at how they kill civilians” is beginning to lose its punch, however.
Let’s look around the world at recent events. Terrorists in Bombay blow up trains, killing 207 people.
<<< While police are still trying to determine who was behind the attack, an organization calling itself Lashkar-e-Qahhar said in an e-mail to a local TV station that 16 people took part in the bombings in Bombay, also known as Mumbai, and that one was killed.
But "all the remaining 15 . . . are totally safe, and celebrating the success of this mission and also preparing for the next mission," said the e-mail, written in poorly punctuated and often ungrammatical English.
It advised Muslims not to go near main historical and government sites, or risk getting hurt. >>>
In Iraq, two bombs in Sadr City and one car bomb in Kirkuk killed 66 Iraqis:
<<< The first was a car bomb that detonated at 9:30 a.m. in Sadr City's Jamila district, on a busy traffic circle where a popular open market and a police station are situated. An Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Raad Muhammad, said the bomb killed 48 people — six of them police officers, most of the rest day laborers waiting for work — and wounded 65. The Defense Ministry reported 34 dead and 73 wounded.
A few minutes later, a roadside bomb went off in the same area, killing eight civilians and wounding 20, the Defense Ministry said.
Three weeks ago, a car bomb at a market in the same area killed about 60 people. >>>
In Afghanistan:
<<< In the second, attack, which occurred shortly after the first about 100 feet away, another attacker approached a crowd of people and detonated his vest, killing six bystanders and wounding another 20, said Dawood Ahmadi, spokesman for the governor of Kandahar, adding that both bombers died in the attack. >>>
Targeting masses of civilians - on trains, on streets, in crowds in public spaces - has become a the preferred asymetrical method of war in today's world. We also know that terrorists deliberately choose to operate in densely populated areas, and hide behind women and children, so that efforts to strike them and neutralize them will inevitably kill innocent people in the process. We know that in this Israeli/Lebanese conflict, when Hezbollah launches their rockets into Israel, they’re not aiming at IDF facilities; they don’t care where the rockets land. They just want to kill Israelis.
(By the way, if you Google the phrase “civilian casualties,” almost all of the first 40-50 links are about civilian casualties inflicted by U.S. or coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. I guess because inflicting civilian casualties is standard operating procedure for our enemies, nobody really worries about it.)
The slaughter of civilians is shocking, or it ought to be shocking. But it’s hard for something to be shocking when it’s commonplace. And we see it, day after day.
I was reminded of something David Frum wrote back in 1999, in a Weekly Standard essay declaring Winston Churchill the Man of the Century. He looked at other possible nominees who had a huge impact on the century's events, some forgotten by history:
<<< A joint nomination: Helmuth von Moltke and Giulio Douhet. One of the great achievements of European civilization in the 18th and 19th centuries was the broad acceptance of laws of war. War was to begin with a formal declaration, civilians were not to be targeted, soldiers who surrendered were to have their lives spared, and so on. And one of the great relapses into savagery of our century is that these rules have by and large vanished. A tip of the hat, then, to the German general who ordered the shooting of Belgian civilians in August 1914 and to the Italian military theorist who as far back as 1921 envisioned winning wars by the aerial bombing of cities. >>>
Terrorists use these tactics because they want to shock and horrify - terrorize, really - their opponents. But when they become commonplace, they lose their effect; civilian casualties on one's own side become grimly accepted, and civilian casualties on the other side become increasingly seen as an acceptable collateral damage. One can easily imagine the average Israeli saying, "It happens all the time; if the Lebanese wanted to avoid Israeli bombing, they would kick out Hezbollah." (In a similar phenomenon, Israel is used to international condemnation. By denouncing Israel at every opportunity, the United Nations ensured that no Israeli really cares what Kofi Annan or the security council has to say.)
In Afghanistan, in Iraq, the West has fought wars that aimed to achieve two goals simultaneously - destroy its enemies, while bringing a better situation to the civilians on the other side - democracy, international aid and development, liberty, and a stable new government that ensures the rule of law. Perhaps that latter effort is faltering. The result may be that in the future, when the West goes to war, it goes with only the former goal: Destroying the enemy, and tough luck for civilians in the combat zone.
UPDATE: Going after Juan Williams is kind of like going after fish in a barrel, but I'm looking at his comments from yesterday:
<<< My worry is, as I hear Paul and others talk about, you know, giving Israel sufficient time to degrade Hezbollah, is what do you mean by that? What is victory in this case? It seems to me that you are destroying Lebanon. People are dying, an alarming number of people.
And the resentment that's building in the street, the so-called Arab street, is — I mean, it seems to me it works against Israel. >>>
[Jim: Oh, for Pete's sake, when is the Arab street ever not angry? They were angry when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. They were angry when the U.S. invaded Iraq. They were angry when Israel went into Lebanon, when they pulled out of Lebanon, when Israel went into and pulled out of Gaza, when the Danish cartoons came out... they're always angry. And they're never going to not be angry at Israel. Full stop. End of story.]
<<< It works against the U.S. interest. It may even create more anger and terrorism that would hurt us here inside the United States.
So that's why it seems to me like, you know, there's pro- democracy policy. I mean, I was all for it, but at the same time we're destroying a democracy in Lebanon and allowing the Israelis to do it. >>>
Paul Gigot strongly disagrees. Later, the roundtable gets a little more heated:
<<< WILLIAMS: But this undermines our basic theory that Secretary Rice is taking over to the Middle East this weekend, which is to get the Arab states to act as a buffer between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government and Israel and the United States, because what you're doing is you have the Arab leadership now willing to go to Rome and talk with Secretary Rice.
But the people — the people are angry at Israel and the United States and see this as a one-sided deal, the U.S. speeding delivery of more military munitions, more of those F-15 U.S.-made fighter jets bombing away at Lebanon. How do you imagine that that won't result in animosity and generations of people who are just furious?
GIGOT: So you're furious because we're sending targeted weapons, these smart weapons that can explicitly ...
WILLIAMS: Have you seen the pictures, Paul?
GIGOT: Look, it's a very difficult situation. But the smart weapons actually do less damage. We ought to speed more weapons over there because they'll do less damage to civilians.
WILLIAMS: I think the weapons they're speeding over there are those bunker busters that are going to do more damage.
GIGOT: Thank God for the bunker busters, because...
KRISTOL: Yes, there aren't a lot of civilians...
GIGOT: ... that means you're going to get these people 100 feet down.
KRISTOL: There aren't a lot of innocent Lebanese civilians in bunkers. It's the senior leadership of Hezbollah, and they need to be killed.
WILLIAMS: Well, General...
KRISTOL: And this operation will fail, I'm afraid...
WILLIAMS: But, General Kristol, General Kristol...
KRISTOL: ... if they don't succeed in wiping out...
WILLIAMS: ... you understand we're fighting people who are a guerrilla unit. They hide in civilian — they hide in apartment buildings, under apartment buildings. So we're saying okay, we know you've got to go get them, and we're apparently saying therefore go get the Lebanese...
KRISTOL: I'm sorry, the Israeli army broadcasts and drops leaflets telling civilians to leave.
WILLIAMS: OK.
KRISTOL: They've done that throughout south Lebanon.
WILLIAMS: True.
KRISTOL: They've been incredibly careful. They've aborted bombing raids when they've said there were too many civilians that might be killed. The U.S. and Israeli armies have conducted the wars in Iraq and this war in Lebanon with incredible attempts to minimize civilian damages. >>>
It's easy to relate to Williams' heart aching for the Lebanese civilians, but his stance is essentially, "because Israel's actions will hurt Lebanese civilians, it should cease taking actions to stop Hezbollah rockets from killing Israeli civilians." No one can seriously expect a country to value the lives of foreign citizens more than it values the lives of its own citizens.
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