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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Augustus Gloop who wrote (2710)	3/25/2003 10:38:02 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 21614

Thats much different than any beast we've faced before. Arguably, we faced similar problems in Vietnam. The VC were notorious for using innocent civilians as shields. The difference now is that we are less inclined to risk those innocents. Unfortunately, it puts our soldiers at risk. Hopefully it pays dividends in the long run. Defensive terrorism Iraq’s ruthless use of human shields in wartime By William Saletan SLATE.COM siliconinvestor.com March 24 — In the wee hours of Monday morning, Iraqi fighters shot down a U.S. helicopter near Baghdad and forced 30 more to retreat. A U.S. commander called the attack “asymmetrical warfare. … You have 10 guys lying on top of a building firing [rocket-propelled grenades] and small arms.” If the U.S. were to bomb the building, the commander explained, civilians would die. So, the Iraqis blasted away, knowing that for moral reasons, the Americans couldn’t. SIMILAR INCIDENTS have been reported all over Iraq. British Lt. Col. Ben Curry told reporters that in Umm Qasr, near Kuwait, some Iraqis fought in civilian clothes, making it hard to distinguish them from noncombatants. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Iraqi leaders “put their communications systems in downtown Baghdad and commingled … civil activities with military activities … in very close proximity to large numbers of innocent men, women and children.” According to The Washington Post, “Allied troops poised to seize the key port city of Basra were stalled at the city’s perimeter by defenders who stationed heavy weapons in civilian neighborhoods.” The Associated Press added, “In two episodes Sunday near An Nasiriyah, Iraqi forces deceived Americans into believing they were surrendering or otherwise welcoming them. U.S. officials said one Iraqi unit indicated it was giving up, but as the Marines approached, the Iraqis opened fire, killing about 10 Americans.” ‘COUSIN OF TERRORISM’ I don’t know whether Saddam Hussein has much to do with al-Qaida. I’ve said for months that U.S. claims of such a connection are weak. But there’s plenty of evidence that Saddam’s loyalists are using Iraqi civilians as human shields. And it’s time the world recognized that tactic as a cousin of terrorism. The most recent U.N. treaty on terrorism defines it as an “act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.” That’s a good definition of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. But it’s also a good definition of what’s happening in Iraq. Saddam’s soldiers are intentionally putting civilians at risk of death or serious bodily injury for the purpose of compelling the U.S. and British government to stop fighting. In international law, terrorism and the use of human shields are closely related. Article 51 of Protocol 1 to the Geneva Convention establishes rules for the protection of civilians. Paragraph 2 of that article addresses terrorism: “The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.” Paragraph seven of the same article addresses human shields: “The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations.” CIVILIAN TARGETS The killers of Sept. 11 exploited the fact that they were willing to shed the blood of civilians and we weren’t. The killers of Basra, An Nasiriyah, and Baghdad are exploiting the same difference. While ruthlessness in attack is worse than ruthlessness in defense, the logic of asymmetry binds them together. I don’t know whether Saddam’s henchmen should go to The Hague for sponsoring terrorism. But they certainly ought to go there for using human shields. William Saletan is Slate’s chief political correspondent.