David Warren: A horrible truth [just war - the way we fight must be reconsidered]

davidwarrenonline.com ^ | August 6, 2006 | David Warren

[Tolik]

I’ve touched upon “just war” several times in this space, during the last few weeks. I will continue touching it today. The issue is already an urgent one; its significance can only grow in the foreseeable future, as the encounter between fanatical Islam and the West spreads from mere terror incidents to open guerrilla warfare on various fronts.

We see in the Middle East just now, how the conflagration is spreading. Hezbollah enjoyed little support in the Arab world, when it kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, and began firing rockets at an unprecedented rate into northern Israel. The Arabs feared Hezbollah’s aggressive sponsors -- Iran, principally -- even more than they hated Israel. The Saudi and Egyptian governments were among those which actually criticized Hezbollah more sharply, at first.

But the conflict in Lebanon has gone on for nearly a month, and the hatred of Israel comes back to the fore. Both Western and Arab media have had the opportunity to direct rage against Israel, over the deaths of civilians. Neither make an issue of the fact Hezbollah’s whole fighting strategy involves the use of women and children as “human shields”, or in some cases of which I am aware, as “live bait” to lure Israeli soldiers into ambushes.

The Israeli military policy is to hold fire against any building in which soldiers believe civilians are sheltering, even if they believe Hezbollah fighters are also present. This policy goes well beyond the Geneva Conventions, which anyway don’t apply to combat with irregular fighters. Moreover, by slowing Israeli progress in destroying Hezbollah, it grants time for pressure against Israel to be built, internationally.

The entirely predictable result of the media effort, to sensationalize “Israeli atrocities” -- including one at Qana last week that was probably faked -- has been to trigger waves of anti-Semitic rage, across the Muslim world, and on the Left side of the political spectrum throughout the West. (Events, such as the shooting spree in the Seattle Jewish Federation office the Friday before last, do not give sufficient pause. But was that not a natural consequence of anti-Israel incitements?)

As I write, Shia demonstrators are now rioting against Israel in Iraq. Add this to the effect of constant terrorist attacks, on Shia targets, by Sunni “insurgents” -- supplied, like Hezbollah, by Iran and Syria -- and the prospect of a civil war becomes real. One which can only serve Iran’s interests.

Meanwhile, those of you who missed the Nuremberg rallies, and Herr Hitler's progress through Germany in the 1930s, may now review President Ahmadinejad’s latest speech this week in both video clip and translation at memritv.org. Before a huge crowd, chanting “Death to Israel”, and then “Death to America”, he dwells upon various blood-libels against the Jews, mixing these together with a reprise of what the media have been reporting from Lebanon. He boasts of Iran’s nuclear technology, and looks forward to the imminent “Fire of the Wrath”.

What difference has been made, by Israel’s, and the West’s, “just war” policies -- with either the enemy, or the media? Every allied accident is presented as purposeful, and where there was no accident, “collateral damage” is made up. Moreover, the object of Hezbollah’s fight is not to defeat Israel -- it can’t -- but rather to whip up an international “anti-Zionist” frenzy, and turn it specifically to the advantage of Iran. They “think globally, but act locally”.

The way Israel is now fighting -- and the U.S. and allies are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan -- must be reconsidered. The enemy is himself quite indifferent to civilian suffering, as he shows by using his own people as pawns. He consciously uses our own, Western, moral reticence against us.

By openly stating that we will, under no circumstances, attack targets where civilians are present, we “hand the foe a blueprint of our acts, incite him to step over our carefully drawn line, encourage his vice and incur our own defeat.” (I am quoting a priest who has considered the broader implications of the Catholic just war doctrine.)

Even “just war” acknowledges that, as in medicine, real mercy can sometimes require ruthlessness. We have forgotten this in the West. If we want to save civilians, over the longer run, we must resolve to call the enemy’s bluff. Show him by our actions that hiding behind baby carriages will not save him. For the enemy will only stop using “human shields” when they cease to serve his purposes.

[Tolik]

David Warren:

...The way Israel is now fighting -- and the U.S. and allies are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan -- must be reconsidered. The enemy is himself quite indifferent to civilian suffering, as he shows by using his own people as pawns. He consciously uses our own, Western, moral reticence against us.

By openly stating that we will, under no circumstances, attack targets where civilians are present, we “hand the foe a blueprint of our acts, incite him to step over our carefully drawn line, encourage his vice and incur our own defeat.” (I am quoting a priest who has considered the broader implications of the Catholic just war doctrine.)

Even “just war” acknowledges that, as in medicine, real mercy can sometimes require ruthlessness. We have forgotten this in the West. If we want to save civilians, over the longer run, we must resolve to call the enemy’s bluff. Show him by our actions that hiding behind baby carriages will not save him. For the enemy will only stop using “human shields” when they cease to serve his purposes.

Nailed It!
Moral Clarity BUMP !

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[jwalsh07]

Or as I lke to say, we need to put the symmetry back into war with Islamofascism.

[Lando Lincoln]

Thanks Tolik....you're one of the best!

[JasonC]

Sorry, it doesn't remotely help. Terrorists are politicians first and foremost, and they want this reaction. It is their recruiting sergeant.

You don't gain anything militarily by indulging ruthlessness. There is no great military advantage in it. It isn't getting the terrorists anything militarily, is it? They are only effective in opinion, not on the ground.

If indulged, all it would do is split supporters of war against the terrorists, politically, while adding plausibility to the terrorist's claims to represent all muslims. It removes the position of safety offered to a muslim who chooses not to follow them and not to be a belligerent.

That no doubt is what is actually desired by those writing such things. They are driven to distraction by the "unfairness" of it all. They perceive the morality of their own side as a weakness. They are simply showing their underlying belief, that evil is stronger than goodness. Well if they believe that and start acting on it, why would anyone choose them over the terrorists? In the region I mean, first off.

There is no substitute for gauging acts to the deserts of those on the other side of it. The terrorists have no claim to legitimacy with any decent person precisely because they reject this, in favor of blanket "identity" categories that completely ignore what men have actually done.

There is much the west or Israel could do, far beyond what they are doing, without departing in any serious way from just war doctrine. We do not have the political will to fight Iran to remove its nuclear threat, for instance, even using the cleanest means. Since the scarce quantity is our own political unity and will, why pay more of that (dividing ourselves) to get imaginary on-the-ground benefits, that are not at all scarce?

It simply makes no sense as a trade. We are rich in military means and short on political unity. You can't create more of the latter by increasing ruthlessness - the sign is wrong. You might lament the absence of political unity within the west. But the elemental fact that it is absent, is the basis of enemy strategy and of the war. Pretending it isn't there is just delusional.

[JasonC]

He won't ever stop using them, and they will always serve his purposes.

[JasonC]

You can't. The symmetry isn't there in the political underpinings of the war, and you can't change that by wishing. Western opinion only half heartedly supports the military measures we are currently taking. Add ruthless, and only a small minority in the west will support any of it. When France tried this in Algeria, they first got stronger domestic political opposition, then cut through that with a military coup, installed De Gaulle, and then he sold out the hawks because it was politically expedient to do so.

You can't increase scarce western resolve by measures that divide westerners even more than they are already divided. The actual political division within the west is the basis of enemy strategy, and pretending it isn't there is delusional.

[jwalsh07]

What's delusional is the opinion, presumably yours, that fighting war on the terms of terrorists in an asymmetric fashion is somehow winnable.

Public opinion in both World Wars in America was the same as it is now. Americans were against the war and certainly would have been against the Dresden fire bombing and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Well the data is in there. The killing stopped and the Japaneses and Germans are now members of the world's community in OK standing.

The data is also in on asymmetric warfare, the jihadists chosen milieu. The killing goes on ad infinitum, the war never ends and life becomes ever more dangerous for continental America and Israel.

I'm sure I'll still be delusional though when the first nukes/dirty bombs/chemical shell goes off in Anytown, USA or Tel Aviv.

[EEDUDE]

Back in the late 70's I worked in a nuclear weapons depot. It was guarded 24/7 by Marines.

Standing orders were to shoot to kill any intruders AND their hostages.

Pretty simple. That's the way it must be sometimes.

[hershey]

After 9/11 Bush decided not to wage war on 1 billion plus Muslims, so we're at war with an enemy we aren't supposed to name. Hellooooo.....Evil has a face and its name is Islam.

[RoadTest]

"The entirely predictable result of the media effort, to sensationalize “Israeli atrocities” -- including one at Qana last week that was probably faked -- has been to trigger waves of anti-Semitic rage, across the Muslim world"

But wasn't that already there and everywhere? What have the Israelis to lose? Not popularity.

[oldtimer2]

I think the Israeli people would be ready to go this route, if America would not stop them from doing it.
America has not stared defeat in the face yet and it may be the only way we will be convinced to fight the way we did in World War II.

That said we should not refuse the option of victory for the Israeli nation.

[Mr Rogers]

The asymmetrical warfare of terrorists only works because of our assymetrical concern for the welfare of the innocent.

Given that supposedly 80% of the innocent agree with the terrorist, our concern seems excessive.

War is hell, and we ought to give them WAR until they will accept PEACE.

THAT is just war - acknowledging its awfulness without compromising its goal.

[RSmithOpt]

Well, ever since homicide bombings, the 2 attacks on the Trade center, the US embassies, the Cole, etc., have ramped up in occurrence, I've find it hard to believe that the US and other countries haven't put much much more pressure on the terrorists, radical Muslims with more and more covert operations to assassinate the problem figures. If we were to use the same tactics against the high value targets of radical Islam like their leaders, mosques, schools, hospitals, etc., then they may decide it isn't worth the effort for continued murder of innocent civilians and see that democracy coupled with diplomacy is the best alternative.

Recognizing that use of such tactics brings 'us' down to their level of insanity is a serious drawback and moral failure, however, either we attack covertly and constantly with equal harshness, or fight it out right like now in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc, under constant global criticism, or we can just sit back and live life according to their views and culture.

[Tolik]

You are making a lot of good points I have no argument with. Still I want to clarify some. Let's put it this way. Terrorism as a tool is used because it works. The root cause of terrorism is its success.

When modern Islamic terrorism started almost 40 years ago with airplane hijackings, the policy was rightly formulated: we don't negotiate with terrorists. Unfortunately, in too many cases the West did negotiate with terrorists - to the level that prisons installed a revolving doors for terrorists, released with each consecutive hijacking. Arafat and his Co freely admitted that they achieved with terrorism much more than they ever could have with other tools.

Or take Geneva convention. The idea is simple and noble: to reduce casualties among civilians, it is agreed that uniformed soldiers will be treated much much better than non-uniformed combatants masquerading as civilians and hiding among civilians. Sticking to this policy would discourage unwanted behavior. Unfortunately, the opposite is legitimized by the recent decisions of the USSC and the "world's opinion". They are killing the Geneva with pretense of supporting it.

My point in this argument is not to support ruthlessness for its own sake, but be unyielding and uncompromising against those who won't fight by the civilized rules and not give them advantage of hiding behind the civilians. The same as with hostages: if you want to save more hostage lives in the future - don't negotiate to save this hostage life now.

[JasonC]

It isn't the terrorist's terms, they are the west's terms. The western left and press are not the terrorists, they are our very own.

No we are not in the same situation as WW II, when the public supported the war wholeheartedly. Wishing we were will not make it so. Our enemies know which suit is our short one and they play in that suit - it is domestic political unity.

Germany and Japan were not defeated because we bombed them, but because we sent entire conventional militaries into their homelands without sanctuary and occupied them all. (Even Japan we had to occupy. And they surrendered after Russia attacked conventionally in Manchuria as well as the atom bombs - until then they had hope to get Russia to broker a peace on less than unconditional surrender terms).

As long as a single one was left unoccupied, the war continued. We are in downtown Kabul and downtown Baghdad, and didn't need any special bombing to get there, beyond the entirely ample rounds of it we performed. But we aren't in Damascus or Teheran, and it is a silly to expect the war to end without being in those places, as it would have been to expect WW II to end when we invaded Italy.

Also, the killing didn't stop. It moved, and the enemy changed. War does not stop. One war stops, another takes a while to begin. But war is a natural condition across most of mankind and we will always be fighting one, or need to be ready to and about to, or wrapping one up messily. There was a time in the past when that wasn't so, but it was because the British empire was out there doing it for us. Now we have the brass ring, and we will fight as long as we have it. Cold or hot, on again or off again, small scale or large. Get used to it. There is no empire without warfare, and we have empire.

If you defeat every external opponent you will just pick up some internal ones.

You can still win every one of these wars. What is needed to do so is primarily domestic political will to see them through.

Which is not maximized by dividing ourselves politically as much as possible, and giving the half our population not interested in any of it better reasons to oppose doing any of it.

As for life becoming ever more dangerous, life will always be dangerous, get use to it. And since nobody is disinventing atom bombs, nor slowing scientific progress which will find new and wonderful things, it isn't going to get easier.

And I don't care how many countries you plow with salt, there is always another one, as well as our own pols.

Empire is held through the continual exercise of martial virtue and political unity. As soon as either slips, it slips. There is no technological solution to a decline of either one, nor does any sacrifice of morality help the case in the slightest.

[JasonC]

"Terrorism as a tool is used because it works. The root cause of terrorism is its success."

Correct. But it does not succeed because we appease it or reward it foolishly, as though all we'd have todo is refrain from doing so and it would fail.

It is a considerably nastier and more effective piece of political technology than that. It is a piece of political technology. That is what it is. It is as much a discovery with serious geopolitical ramifications as control theory for smart bombs or aerodynamics for jet fighters.

But we can't use it. It doesn't help us. Like many things in politics, it succeeds in the short run because it pushes in a direction that human nature is inclined to go. But it ends in places where no decent human being wants to live. It is an elemental force for societal dissolution; it is acid to justice and order and states and existing empire.

It operates by moral contagion, and by removal of safety and forcing men otherwise uninterested in politics to become political out of sheer self preservation and to choose sides. And by inducing weariness. Its underlying requirements are political, not military. It requires that its opponents care less about the matter in dispute than its users do - dramatically less. It exploits that necessary pre-existing political condition, and without it cannot accomplish anything. (Though it can still be tried, and is).

It can be defeated by a similarly informed political strategy. No strategy that ignores politics or is unrealistic about politics has the slightest chance. And expecting monolithic unity within the west, or expecting everyone to love those who play by queensbury rules and despise any who do not, are both hopelessly unrealistic as mere politics.

In politics, men seek advantage over those who disagree with them. Every position taken is an opportunity to another to distinguish himself by taking a different line, making a different offer. Those opportunities will be seized wherever and whenever there is immediate access to political power to be gained by doing so. Because once people have that, they can pick their own policy strategically. Meaning, in the service of their continued control over policy.

Take Bin Laden's politics. He knows that America is the most powerful empire in the world, that it has ever seen even. He knows that by that very fact, it has countless rivals and provokes countless resentments. He therefore knows that taking a swing at America will be popular with lots of political forces in the world. We do not have to like this for it to be true. It is true.

Take Ahmadjehad's politics. People pretend he is a buffoon because he is so extreme. He isn't a buffoon, he is politically quite astute and he is very dangerous. He knows exactly what he is doing. He may in the end push too far and get himself overthrown or killed - we can hope. And the direction he pushes things in damnable. But he knows how to get there.

Fighting Israel is immensely popular. Nothing to do with following some set of rules for international behavior. Israel is hated as the most sanctimonous country on the planet. Anti-semitism has been a major political concept for a thousand years - it still is. It is politically difficult for a politician in France today to support Israel - a hundred years after the Dreyfus Affair. Scarcely believable a priori but empirically entirely true.

Ahmadjehad knows that there is political division within the west, that the cold war triumph of liberal democracy and specifically its neo-liberal, center right victors, is profoundly upsetting to a lot of previous ambitions. Socialists have lost the mantle, he wants to pick it up. And it is succeeding, to a degree few would have suspected a decade ago.

China realized the failure of socialism in economic terms required that it embrace capitalim economically. But it was profoundly unwilling to liberalize politically or to westernize culturally. They found an expedient - neo-fascism. It is working splendidly for them.

Lula and Chavez in Latin America rode the same backlash. Socialism is discredited economically, but if you keep the bond traders happy or are sitting on a pile of oil or can exploit cheap wages, the economic side is relatively easy. One no longer needs to deliver actual social justice or equality - not that they ever did, they just wrecked things trying. Now it suffices to preach anti-Americanism. Suffices in what sense? It creates a politically secure position as safe as the seat of any typical tyrant or fascist of the interwar period.

These are major political winds, not details of the tactics of obscure irrelevant sects. "Not rewarding them" is a reasonable proposal - we should not be funding the PA etc - but won't remotely make any of it go away. Whole countries are being successfully ruled, captured, hundreds of billions of dollars are controlled, serious shifts in world power and the future prospects of nations and regions are in play. Nobody is going to say "oh I'm sorry, I'll give it up" because they didn't get bakshish this week.

[cooldog]

Plowing Iran with "salt" would immediately stop Syria's support for terrorism, and Eygpt's and Pakistan's efforts would become much less half-hearted.

Without Iranian and Syrian support, Hez'b'Allah would fold up within several months, as would Hamas.

Closing mosques in the West, based on the incontrovertible fact that islamic teaching is plainly conspiracy to commit murder, is another obvious and overdue step.

This war is winnable, if only we'd fight.

[ClaireSolt]

Your comments are a lot more thoughtful and insightful than most! Thanks.

I am thinking that we are letting the Lebanese government off the hook when they should shoulder the responsibility and blame for allowing this. If this is concluded with them still accomodating Hezb, I see no way the situation could improve. After reading your comments, I wonder if increasing civilian pain would make the citizens demand more of their government than crocadile tears.

[Bryan24]

I agree with Warren's sentiment, but it STILL does not get to the ROOT OF THE PROBLEM.

Here is the ROOT OF THE PROBLEM: Radical Islam

If we are to win this, we must be prepared to ruthlessly go after the ROOT OF THE PROBLEM.

As I see it, here are the targets:

1. Mecca, actually the Kaaba or Black Stone would be ground Zero.

2. Medina

3. The Dome of the Rock - Jerusalem

4. Tehran, Iran, or more accurately, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We have to be prepared to destroy him, his cabinet, his government.

5. Damascus, Syria, or more accurately President Assad.

6. ANY MULLAH, IMAM or ISLAMIC LEADER WHO ADVOCATES WHOLESALE GENOCIDE AND KILLING OF NON-MUSLIMS.

The West has to be willing to go to the end game to eliminate these targets. Start at the bottom and go up.