I have been debating someone over at The Right Report on the issue of international law in relation to the Iraq war. This person, who goes by the handle, "Dissident," made a comment, regarding atrocities committed by terrorists in Iraq: "When the little guy fights the big guy, he has to fight dirty if he wants to win."
This is a revealing comment that raises some interesting issues.
In response, I wrote:
That's really the rub, isn't it? The Left seems to think that the lack of power on one side tips the moral scales in that side's favor, so that allowances are made when it commits atrocities. This moral equation is seen most often when you see Lefties cite Palestinian casualty figures versus Israeli casualties. But it manifests itself in other ways, too.
Two things.
One, our nation was founded by people who fought in accordance with the laws of war against vastly superior forces. They did not engage in terrorism. They did not send human bombs into London churches. Contrary to popular myth, the vast majority of battles were fought by uniformed forces engaging strictly military targets.
If inferior military power, and larger casualty figures as opposed to the enemy, lends a cause moral credence, then Nazi Germany was morally superior to the Western Allies, and Imperial Japan was morally superior to the United States and her Pacific allies.
Second, Dissident's comment, in its own unintentional way, illustrates the very problem of "illegal combatants" that the Geneva Conventions tried to address, and which has become the subject of so much controversy in the last few years in relation to Gitmo detainees, etc.
The laws of war were intended to constrain combating states to engage military targets in a symmetrical manner. This has both a practical and a moral dimension. The practical dimension is that the result of combat is determined by which armed force emerges victorious over the other. The moral dimension is that non-combatants are spared, to the extent reasonably possible, the agony of warfare because the allowable scope of conduct in circumscribed for both sides.
In other words, the armies fight on the field of battle, and whoever may win or lose, the civilian populace should be spared.
Dissident's proposition raises the very problem that the laws of war were, in part, intended to prevent -- the notion that there are no moral or political boundaries to circumscribe what is permissible to do in support of one's cause. For example, once adversaries start to blur the line between who is a civilian and who is a combatant, the civilian population as a whole becomes endangered, as the side trying to fight by the rules is increasingly faced with a zero-sum option: either engage the unlawful combatant and risk killing innocents, or give up the fight altogether.
This moral equation leaves the unlawful combatant with a tactical advantage, because he is, in effect holding the civilian populace hostage to his aims. This is true whether, by order of the commander, a tank is parked in a civilian farmhouse, or a terrorist takes civilians hostage or uses them as human shields while engaging an army that is trying to fight by the rules.
It is a terrible irony that this moral dilemma has only worsened over the years by the approval, whether tacit or explicit, given to such methods by those on the Left. Dissident is a classic example of a Leftist who is trying to have it both ways:
-- I abhor killing innocents, BUT... an insurgent's gotta' do what an insurgent's gotta' do.
What seems to be lost is that the Left-wing cheering section has made the situation for innocents in war-torn regions even more grave than it otherwise would be. The Left celebrates Palestinian terrorism. Israel attempts to root out terrorists in accordance with the laws of war. The Left condemns Israel for its imperfect efforts, and indeed accuses Israel of "terrorism."
"Cycle of violence," indeed.
This will continue to be one of the great moral dilemmas of our age unless the Left shakes itself from its moral torpor and begins to condemn what is rightly called, by every Iraqi, Israeli, and civilized human being: terrorism.
But I'm not holding my breath.
UPDATE: This seems like a good place to revisit Stephen den Beste's excellent post on game theory, and why cheaters will always win, unless the other side cheats, too.
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