Morality and War: Israeli Strikes Cross The Line!

All weapons kill and maim, but some are especially insidious — like cluster munitions, miniature explosives packed into a bomb, rocket or artillery shell and designed to scatter over a wide area................................................................................
Israel makes its own cluster munitions as well as buying more advanced models from the United States. It used cluster weapons extensively in its latest campaign in Lebanon, and the majority of the unexploded bomblets that United Nations teams have found there so far have been American-made.
Editorial New York Times 26 August 2006




After marching his Union soldiers through Georgia, burning, blowing up and intentionally destroying everything in sight, General Sherman characterized the essence of war in three immortal words, “War is hell.” Perhaps it was a conscience burned with memories of those dreadful events that motivated his now famous disavowal of a presidential nomination: “If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.”


We know that German attacks on London and its environs, during World War II, immorally subjected millions of civilians to the horrors of unmoderated all out warfare. We are also painfully aware of the German attempt to eliminate the Jewish population in the concentration campus spread all over Western Europe; some six or seven million of them did perish. As a young GI, I spent three years at Dachau after the war and know of the holocaust horrors.

The events associated with war bring forward moral dilemmas that can remain to haunt us for decades. In our response to these crises, we bump up against the question that embraces our basic humanity. As Shakespeare put it, “To Be or Not to Be, That Is The Question.”

The Reverend Daniel Berrigan wrote about this same idea in his small but important book, No Bars To Manhood. The good Father wrote words to the effect that during times of normalcy we don’t really know who we are in a moral sense; we are not challenged to find out. But as he noted, when normalcy fades and moral crises confront us, there are no bars to manhood. If we have courage and a good moral compass, we'll answer humanities call to manhood.


Sadly enough, when other nations have performed dastardly deeds in violation of all known moral codes, we are inclined to view these transgressions clearly and responded appropriately–with a sense of righteous outrage. However, when we find ourselves, or one of our close allies, functioning in the transgressors role, we’re hit with sudden onset moral blindness, too often we stand mute. The prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and the current Israeli air campaign come immediately to mind.

Remember the Bush Administration's strong self-righteous outcry when Newsweek dared to publish a one sentence mention of the Koran being flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo? Or, how about the abuse heaped upon Illinois Senator Dick Durbin by an endless stream of Republican Senators who couldn't get to the microphone fast enough to express self-righteous outrage. Sen. Durbin you may recall had merely read from an FBI agent's diary entry, the agent’s first hand account of prisoner abuse at our military prison. At the conclusion of his reading, Sen. Durbin noted that, "If I didn't know where this entry came from, I might have easily concluded that it was an account of Nazi poisoner abuse during World War II." Senator Durbin was forced by political circumstances to issue an apology.

Oh how morally sensitive our Senators seem to be, but unfortunately it’s a selective morality and highly partisan. With daily reports in the news of hundreds of innocent women and children being killed, there are no Senators rushing to the microphones.

I suppose now that God has joined the Republican Party these moral question have taken on a right-wing partisan political flavor. There are no Senators expressing righteous outrage as innocent women and children are being slaughtered by the ferocious Israeli war machine.

To be sure the on-going war in the Middle East brings daily reminders that the sorts of moral crises common to past wars are still with us and demand a moral response. Sabrina Tavernise writes in today’s New York Times:

QANA, Lebanon, July 30 — A series of Israeli air strikes in this small mountain town were the deadliest single attack in the war here so far.
[At least 56 people were killed, most of them children, The Associated Press reported.]

Innocent civilians are being pulverized by the current Israeli assault on Lebanon. The numbers of fatalities and casualties being reported reflect the gross imbalance of the cost being paid. CNN news reports of Beirut neighborhoods show massive destruction of apartment complexes having little if any military significance, and despite contrary claims the evidence of underground bunkers in these civilian areas is scant. The assault on the airport, municipal water plants, power generation facilities and the like are exacting a toll most substantially directed at the civilian population, not military targets.

In terms of the moral arguments being presented by the Israeli government and the Bush Administration to justify the carnage being inflicted on the innocent women and children, the current line is moral garbage. The fact that two Israeli soldiers were captured by a band of war crazed fighters does not justify subjecting the entire Lebanese civilian population to the ravages of war. The fact that Hizbollah fighters conceal themselves among innocent civilians similarly does not justify the Israeli translation of either those innocent victims or their neighborhoods into military targets.

Nobody would argue, for example, that local police, in hot pursuit of a bank robber, would be justified in blowing up an entire building complex where the robber had sought refuge, just to get that one potentially guilty robber. . .and Oh, by the way . . . . to hell with the innocent building occupants. That’s just the price you gotta pay to fight crime in the city. Yeah sure!

Similarly many cities in the United States have prohibited high speed police pursuit by squad cars within municipal boundaries because the practice has victimized far too many innocent civilians.

The current Israeli military assault against the Lebanese, and historically against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, says, in no uncertain terms, that Arab lives don’t count when there’s a rub between Arab and Israeli factions. The targeting of the UN outpost in Beirut reflects the same Israeli calculation. The evidence is clear that the occupants of that UN post and others in the UN chain of command had clearly communicated their concerns to the Israeli military; and in spite of their repeated warnings, they where blown away. It is important to note that the UN outpost had been a fixture on maps known to all. . .certainly known to Israeli intelligence.

In short, the cost of membership in the community of civilized nations requires a higher standard of behavior than that which currently guides Israeli military decisions. Justifying immoral behavior by using the lowest common denominator as a guide doesn’t fly. It is well to remember that Hizbollah as a political-military entity didn’t exist until after the disastrous Israeli military incursion into Lebanon in the early 80's. It was a newly born Hizbollah that blew up the Marine Barracks killing 240 some odd young American soldiers. Hate breeds hate! The picture in the NYTimes (July 30) of young Arab militants rioting in the streets of Beirut this morning indicates that rather than solving problems, more are being created. The ranks of young Arabs willing to literally put their young lives on the line grows larger with each passing day.

As a starter, political and military policy makers need to get beyond the Bush/Rice tired democracy bromides and actually try to understand what it is that’s producing the hatred fueling the current Middle East Crisis. Surprisingly enough, given the incredible stumbling and bungling that characterizes current policy, the underlying forces driving this crises don’t seem all that elusive. The Arabs have actually written essays loudly declaring the reasons for their hatred. However, until US and Israeli policy makers can get beyond the simple minded notion that terrorism is an ideology or a religion, it is doubtful that there will be any progress.

So, with that in mind, a little lesson in the ABC’s of terrorism seems to be in order here: Terrorism is a tactical choice one makes when there seem to be no other viable alternatives. In the case of the Arab radicals, cheap rockets and suicide bombers and terrorist tactics serve as a substitute for Abrams tanks, F 15's; F 16's; attack helicopters; drone spy planes; bull dozers etc. It’s seems pretty clear that most folks would choose the technological instruments of war if they were afforded that choice, but that doesn’t seem to be an option for the Hizbollah Army. Indeed, the US, the major Israeli weapons supplier, has frequently criticized the Iranians and the Syrians for supplying weaponry to the Hizbollah forces (Is that hypocrisy?). But to get back to the ABC’s here, the tactical choices; i.e., the Hizbollah fighters decision to use terrorists tactics, their decision represents a decision of a military nature, battle planning as it were. In the simplest terms they made that choice because they didn’t have a sugar daddy with a bag full of planes and tanks. Terrorism is a tactic of the poor and dispossessed but is nevertheless a tactical calculation. You could talk about terrorism endlessly and never shed light upon the reasons that made someone think they had to initiate hostilities. Let’s demand more from our politicians than meaningless platitudes.

Ever on the watch for ya!

Davy Crockett


"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, both in your own person and in the person of others, never as a means only but always equally as an end."
--Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)