ethics and war

The recent disturbance in the middle east raises some very interesting questions for ethics in war.

It was started by an unprovoked Hizbollah raid that captured two Israeli soldiers. (How would we feel if someone kidnapped two of our NSFs?) Hizbollah has also kept a constant rain of rockets into Haifa. In response, Israel began air strikes and raids into Lebanon, which is an independant state in which Hizbollah is based. The stated aim is to rescue the soldiers and disable the rockets. Was this response from Israel justified? Thus far the major powers have refrained from condemning this retaliatory action, although there have been a few private protests.

The Hizbollah headquarters is based within a Lebanese residential district. In targetting this, a significant number of the residences have also been destroyed by Israeli bombs. Was Hizbollah wrong to cite a military target among civilians (holding them hostage)? Assuming Israel has dropped their leaflets to warn the residents, are they justified to bomb the area? And if residents supporting Hizbollah refuse to leave and are subsequently killed, whose fault is that?

On the whole topic of civilians, I always have difficulty digesting civilian death tolls in such low-intensity conflicts. What really is a civilian? Does it depend on the clothes you wear? Does it depend on whether you are carrying a weapon at the time of death? Does it depend on whether they were pointing the weapon at you? Does it depend on whether you are carrying a weapon at the time the media arrives to take their pictures? And can we blame civilians for choosing not to leave their homes even when warned? (Naturally they would want to guard against looting and pillaging.) So whenever people cite civilian deaths to condemn an action, I take it with a pinch of salt.

Such is the complexity and ambiguity of modern warfare. I hope we never get embroiled in one.