The UN criticizes precision weapons?
For Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, now the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, takes a stand, and tries to be even-handed:
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour today expressed grave concern over the continued killing and maiming of civilians in Lebanon, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory and called for accountability for any breaches of international law.
The High Commissioner recalled that parties to a conflict have the obligation to exercise precaution and respect the principle of proportionality in all military operations so as to prevent unnecessary suffering among the civilian population. "Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians", she said. "Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable".
So if Hezbollah hides missiles in a school, mosque, or private home, Israel can't touch it for fear of hurting nearby civilians? But they are attacking those rockets in order to save civilians. Civilians who have been dying because the UN did nothing to protect them from Hezbollah.
The Israelis have been telling the enemy when and where the attacks are coming by dropping leaflets warning civilians to get out of the way.
But she thinks Israel is run by war criminals:
"International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligation to protect civilians during hostilities", the High Commissioner said. "This obligation is also expressed in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity".
"International law demands accountability. The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control".
Funny thing, putting "predictability" into the mix. Hezbollah's rockets are very inaccurate. There is little predictability about where they will land and if anyone will get hurt when they do. On the other hand, Israel's weapons are modern and precise. If there is a bombing run against a missile storage bunker under a building next to a home, the bomb will hit the bunker. The combined explosion of the bomb and the targeted ordinance will, predictably, severely damage the home. If the occupants have ignored the leaflets, they might be hurt and killed.
By Arbour's calculation, that means Israeli commanders are war criminals, because they have high confidence in hitting the intended target, and so could predictably count on people getting hurt if those people didn't heed the warnings and get out of the way.
On the other hand, a wobbly unguided Hezbollah missile might or might not hurt someone, so somehow that limits the criminal responsibility of the person who launched it. The terrorist could not predict that civilians would be hurt.
Weird.
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Comments
The propaganda campaign by Hezbollah is not being conducted by amateurs. These are pro's with access to oil money, money that I think is sprinkled in all sorts of influential places.
Pat
Posted by: pat at July 20, 2006 02:01 PM
Yeah. I felt sick to the stomach when I heard our Canadian Liberal UN Leader In Waiting (If Maurice Strong is not in the running) equate Israel and Hizbollah. Shot of the day is to be found at Atlas Shrugs and reveals all.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
Posted by: Wimpy Canadian at July 20, 2006 02:40 PM
"Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable".
This statement is simply incorrect. In fact sites used by enemy forces may be targeted. The possibility of civilian casualties can not trump military necessity. Proportionality of respone is the only legal determination.
Posted by: x2para at July 20, 2006 03:10 PM
hezbollah victory video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqvrynHsLdA&search=hezbollah
Posted by: DrWright at July 20, 2006 03:15 PM
Mr. Janke: From my reading of Justice Arbour's press release statement, at no point does she single out either side for criticism. Or rather, as is evident from her quoted statement in the 2nd paragraph of the press release, she criticizes both sides equally. Loss of innocent, non-combatant life is tragic, regardless of which side sustains it, and regardless of cause. Hence her point about the protection of civilians during hostilities being the "supreme obligation" of international humanitarian law.
Her point of "predictability" also applies to both combatants equally. As you note, dropping a laser-guided bomb onto a Beirut apartment building will result in predictable levels of harm, but so too does firing rockets indiscriminately into a densely populated Israeli city. The weapons used by Hezbollah do not operate with pin-point accuracy, but they're accurate enough to hit within a general vincinity -- say, a residential neighbourhood in Haifa.
The point is, while common sense and the laws of self-preservation would suggest that civilians caught in a war zone would do well to vacate the area, surely the moral (if not legal) responsibility for the deaths of those innocents who are killed because they failed to "heed the warnings and get out of the way" remains with those who fired the weapons, whether Hezbollah rockets or Israeli bombs.
Posted by: A at July 20, 2006 03:19 PM
This statement is simply incorrect. In fact sites used by enemy forces may be targeted. The possibility of civilian casualties can not trump military necessity. Proportionality of respone is the only legal determination.
I didn't want to get into this because I'm not the expert, but I've always understood that it is the person who decides to use a school or a church or a mosque as a weapons depot or a sniper's nest who has committed the war crime.
Doubly so if civilians are still there.
When faced with a civilian location that is being used by the enemy as a military asset, the opposing force has every right to obliterate that location and everything and everyone inside it. Without repercussion.
When you think about it, it makes sense. If both sides know that hiding behind civilians will not earn you even a moment's hesitation from your enemy, then you'll stop hiding behind civilians. They make poor shields, and when civilians realize that you are making them into targets, they have a tendency to fight back in desperation, trying to get out of the way. Do it too many times, and the whole population is going to rise up against you, especially if the other guy is making an effort to play by the rules.
In Arbour's world, every tank is going to have some poor shopkeeper strapped to the front, every daycare will double as a ammunition dump, and every holy place will be a command and control centre. I guess in a perverse way, if everyone followed the rules, no one would be shooting at each other. But I don't like the idea of being told to stand in front of an APC just in case an attack helicopter comes by.
I doubt Arbour would enjoy that either.
I don't think the rules have actually changed. If that's the case, Arbour's statements are the product of ignorance. The Geneva Conventions are still designed around the principle that both sides follow the rules, but as soon as one side breaks them, the other is given carte blanche. That way the Convention is self-policing, because in most fights, both sides know that their long term interests are best served by sticking to the rules.
In this case, though, Hezbollah broke the rules ages ago. Actually, they're not even a state, so the rules don't protect them. Israel is not bound by any convention with regards to how it prosecutes the war against Hezbollah. The only rules the soldiers and commanders follow are those they impose on themselves as a function of their own innate morality.
Posted by: Steve Janke at July 20, 2006 04:26 PM
"The Geneva Conventions are still designed around the principle that both sides follow the rules, but as soon as one side breaks them, the other is given carte blanche."
No less than the U.S. Supreme Court, among others disagrees with this statement. The court's recent ruling regarding the continued applicability of the Geneva Convention vis a vis detainees at Guantanamo suggests that even where one side (in this case, suspected terrorists) breaks the rules, the other side (the U.S.) is no given carte blanche to commit its own crimes against humanity. Your argument, though perhaps appealing in the fog of war, amounts to a quick race to the bottom.
"In this case, though, Hezbollah broke the rules ages ago. Actually, they're not even a state, so the rules don't protect them. Israel is not bound by any convention with regards to how it prosecutes the war against Hezbollah. The only rules the soldiers and commanders follow are those they impose on themselves as a function of their own innate morality."
True, Hezbollah is not recognized as a state body by Israel and many other western nations. They are not bound by conventional rules of war. Israel, in the same way as the U.S. in Iraq & Canada and others in Afghanistan, have however declared this as a "war" (on terror, Hezbollah, etc). I would argue that they, as states, are therefore bound to international law.
Posted by: A at July 21, 2006 07:08 AM
 
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