January 31, 2007
NO ONE'S KILLED MORE CIVILIANS THAN WE HAVE:
Iranians Overwhelmingly Reject Bin Laden (World Public Opinion)
Although the U.S. government has accused Iran's government of sponsoring international terrorism, the Iranian people themselves are somewhat more likely than Americans to oppose attacks that deliberately target civilians. [...]Posted by Orrin Judd at January 31, 2007 11:04 AMBoth Iranians and Americans have strongly negative views of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Three in four Iranians (74%) and more than nine in ten Americans (94%) view bin Laden unfavorably, including large majorities (68% and 89%, respectively) who view him very unfavorably. Only 10 percent of Iranians look at the al Qaeda leader favorably (2% Americans). [...]
At the most general level, respondents were asked: "Some people think that bombing and other types of attacks intentionally aimed at civilians are sometimes justified while others think that this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that such attacks are often justified, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?"
A very large majority of Iranians (80%) take the strongest position that such attacks "are never justified," and another 5 percent say they are rarely justified. Only 11 percent call them sometimes (8%) or often (3%) justified.
Americans largely concur but at lower levels of intensity. Forty-six percent say that such attacks are never justified, while 27 percent say they are rarely justified. Twenty-four percent see them as sometimes (19%) or often (5%) justified.
Iranians were also asked specifically about attacks on American and Iraqi civilians, with "sometimes" or "never" justified the only options given. Nine in ten Iranians (88%) say that "attacks against Iraqi civilians in Iraq" are never justified. Nearly as many (76 percent) say "attacks against American civilians living in the United States" are never justified (15% sometimes justified).
Respondents were then asked to think "in the context of war and other forms of military conflict" and to consider whether certain types of civilians could be a legitimate target. Overwhelming majorities of Iranians reject as "never justified:" attacks on women and children (91%), the elderly (92%), and "wives and children of the military" (86%).
Americans largely agree, though larger percentages in each case said such attacks are rarely justified. This is true for attacks on women and children (72% never, 15% rarely), the elderly (71% never, 16% rarely), and wives and children of the military (74% never, 12% rarely).
Three more questions dealt with targeting civilians employed by the government. Here again, Iranians are more unequivocal than Americans in their rejection of such attacks, whether the targets are civilians employed by the government, policemen, or intelligence agents.
The Chinese and the Russians have killed more civilians that we have. Granted, they were mostly their own civilians, but still more than us.
Posted by: Brandon at January 31, 2007 12:36 PMCountervalue deterrence is a special case which shall remain outside this destruction.
The question of intentionally targeting civilian other than as a deterrent is dealt with by the Law of War, sometimes now called the "Law of Armed Conflict."
It is clear that civilians casulties may not be intentionally made the primary effect of operations. Bombing with the intent to terrorize a population it O-U-T.
Civilian casulties may be incurred collaterally to destruction of a legitimate target, subject to principles of military necessity and proportionality.
Modern precision guided munitions have made the problem much simpler for the attack. No longer must we devastate entire cities to take out a factory or transportation facility.
Another dilemma arises when the enemy attempts to fight from behind or anong protected persons and places. That enemy commits a war crime, but the above principles still apply. My strong opinion is that civilians engaged in war porduction are not protected persons, and that it is never unlawful to, in good faith, shoot at an enemy who is shooting at you.
A useful article summarizing most of these rules is at
http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/wars/a/loac.htm
The headline reminds me of my favorite story about my Polish uncle John's old boss, Sir Arthur Harris. He was stopped one day for speeding, and the cop admonished him to ". . .please be careful, sir. You might kill someone." To which Bomber Harris replied, "Young man, every night I kill thousands."
Countervalue deterrence is a special case which shall remain outside this destruction.
The question of intentionally targeting civilian other than as a deterrent is dealt with by the Law of War, sometimes now called the "Law of Armed Conflict."
It is clear that civilians casulties may not be intentionally made the primary effect of operations. Bombing with the intent to terrorize a population it O-U-T.
Civilian casulties may be incurred collaterally to destruction of a legitimate target, subject to principles of military necessity and proportionality.
Modern precision guided munitions have made the problem much simpler for the attack. No longer must we devastate entire cities to take out a factory or transportation facility.
Another dilemma arises when the enemy attempts to fight from behind or anong protected persons and places. That enemy commits a war crime, but the above principles still apply. My strong opinion is that civilians engaged in war porduction are not protected persons, and that it is never unlawful to, in good faith, shoot at an enemy who is shooting at you.
A useful article summarizing some of these rules is at
http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/wars/a/loac.htm
The headline reminds me of my favorite story about my Polish uncle John's old boss, Sir Arthur Harris. Stopped one day for speeding, the cop admonished him to ". . .please be careful, sir. You might kill someone." To which Bomber Harris replied, "Young man, every night I kill thousands."
Bombing is always just meant to terrorize people into changing their behavior.
Posted by: oj at January 31, 2007 1:39 PM"It is clear that civilians casulties may not be intentionally made the primary effect of operations. Bombing with the intent to terrorize a population it O-U-T.
So Lou, how does this square with the U.S. and Allied firebombing of WWII, where it appears to me we intentionally targeted civilians?
In Germany
* Hamburg (45,000 dead)
* Dresden (35,000 dead)
* Bombing of Kassel (10,000 dead)
* Bombing of Swinemuende (23,000 dead)
* Bombing of Pforzheim (20,277 dead, almost 31.4 % of the Population)
* Bombing of Würzburg (5,000 dead)
* Bombing of Braunschweig -- 15 October 1944 (approx. 1,000 dead and 90 % of the city centre destroyed)
* Bombing of Darmstadt -- 11 September 1944 (12,300 dead)
* Bombing of Heilbronn -- 06 December 1944 (6,500 dead)
and others for which I could find no casualty figures:
* Bombing of Saarbrücken -- 05 August 1944
* Bombing of Wuppertal - 10 May 1943
* Bombing of Remscheid -- 31 July 1943
* Bombing of Kaiserslautern -- 14 July 1944
* Bombing of Stuttgart -- 12 September 1944
* Bombing of Mainz -- 27 February 1945
* Bombing of Würzburg -- 16 March 1945
* Bombing of Hildesheim -- 23 March 1945
In Japan:
* Bombing of Tokyo (~120,000 dead)
* Bombing of Kobe (~8,800 dead)
[All casualty figures are approximate] In these cases conventional high explosive bombs were first dropped to expose building frames and structures (mostly wood) and then incendiary bombs were dropped to ignite the fuel and create a firestorm.
Jd: The recent book, Firestorm, covers the allied fig leaf, plausible deniability, concerning the legality of American bombing
http://www.amazon.com/Firestorm-Bombing-Dresden-Paul-Addison/dp/1566637139
As I read history, the British don't even get a fig leaf. That RAF uncle led me to believe that they knew what they were doing and they did it anyway.
The arguement for WWII bombing was that military necessity outweighed the collateral damage. The British supposedly had no choice but to resort to night area bombing, due to the state of their technology and that of German counter-measures.
The American way of bombing, daylight precision bombing, was a much better case, although it may still be questioned.
Even Dresden had military significance. It was a transportation center, whose destruction greatly disrupted German movement throughout the then collapsing Eastern Front.
As to Japan, it may be argued that, since the entire population was prepared to fight to the last breath for the Emperor--grandmothers with sharpened sticks, child suicide bombers, that sort of thing, there were no protected persons in Japan.
There is a difference between killing civilians to terrorize a population and killing them to attrit a military resource, which resource may be the civilians themselves, they being engaged in the war effort. The record is that terror-bombing is ineffective, while attrition bombing is war-winning.
Remember, none of this has to do with deterrence policy, which is based on terror. Deterrence is allowed, the argument for it goes, because it is intended that the force never be used. The mystery of deterrence is that, while the use of countervalue force is not desired or primarily intended, the threat to use it must be credible. Moralists and LoW experts will disagree about deterrence, not surprisingly, according to how close they are to the need to use it, for necessity drives the issue.
Posted by: Lou Gots at January 31, 2007 7:49 PMLou:
Thanks for your thoughtful response, but it leaves me confused and unsatisfied. It seems to me that it can always be argued that "military necessity outweighed the collateral damage", that all cities have some military use or significance, and that all civilians are a military resource, since their social and economic activity is necessary to the military. This last point seems similar to the jihadists' justification for attacks on civilians.
If anyone and anything can be considered a military resource, then anyone or anything can be attrit'ed. Like a hate crime, it seems to depend on your state of mind: if you do it for attrition it is OK, but if you do it to terrorize it is not. It seems to me that the LoW are a legal fiction to soothe our conscience, of little consequence during the conduct of most wars, whose application is determined by the victor after the fact. Lemay famously said that if we had lost WWII, he would have been tried as a war criminal.
Posted by: jd watson at January 31, 2007 9:45 PM