A brief note on proportionality
Much comment around and about the commentosphere about what is and isn't "disproportionate". The same gang of chuckleheads were pissing out squid ink around this fairly simple concept of international law two years ago, during the invasion of Lebanon. Typically the way it goes is that someone takes it into their head that the Geneva Conventions might require "proportionality" in the sense of an eye for an eye, constructs some case in which that would be ridiculous and then goes "how ridiculous these people are with their hilarious 'war crimes' accusations! Tch!".
Actually, the word "proportionate" doesn't appear in the conventions; they talk about collateral damage to civilians being "reasonable". And in context, it's clear that there's no requirement of tit for tat, just that unintended but inevitable risk to noncombatants has to be proportionate to the military aim which is being carried out. Thus, it is argued (both ways - I don't have a view on this myself) that the bombing of Hiroshima was not necessarily a war crime, because the war aim in doing so (the early ending of the war in the Pacific) was such a huge one. And this despite the fact that Japan as a belligerent had not inflicted anything like similar civilian casualties on the USA. Conversely, the bombing of Dresden is argued to have been a war crime (again, both ways, and again, I don't have my own opinion) not because the casualties were greater by orders of magnitude than those of the Blitz, but because there was no very great military prize at stake.
As an obvious corollorollorollorollrary to this (fixed! thanks Phil), any military action at all can be disproportionate if it has no point to it at all; no sensible or realistic objective other than shoring up political support for the people who ordered it. And as a further corollary, it is entirely possible (and indeed, not even unusual) for both sides in a conflict to be guilty of disproportionate use of violence.
It's 'corollolary'.
ReplyDeleteI think. Unless it's 'corollollarry'. Or possibly 'corollollorary'.
(Slightly sinister captcha OTD: 'chokey'.)
PS 'Corollary'.
Define "military aim". If "the early ending of the war" counts as military aim, then anything is proportional.
ReplyDeleteI think abb1 has a point here.
ReplyDeleteActually, "proportionality" comes in at several different points in just war theory. It governs the recourse to armed violence in the first place, and then it governs the use of that violence. In the second (ius in bello) respect, the key ideas are protected persons and double effect. You can't deliberately aim to harm protected persons for any reason (so Hiroshima war crime) but you can forseeably bring about harm to them if you are aiming at something legitimate (like killing soldiers, destroying an arms factory etc - i.e. a proximate aim, not the ultimate war-winning aim).
The Israeli action in Gaza seems to fail just war tests on a number of counts. First, appeasing the knuckleheads in your domestic electorate doesn't meet the test of "right intention". But more pertinently for this post, they appear to be expanding the class of non-protected persons to include anyone with a connection to Hamas (as if the WW2 Allies had treated everyone with a Nazi lapel pin as a combatant). Since the Israelis claim that armed settlers continue to be normatively immune from attack (for example) this is, to say the least, inconsistent. I'd say that just about the only people who ought to count as non-immune are active Hamas fighters and the Hamas high command. If killing those forseeably results in a very large number of casualties among protected persons, then the proportionality test built into double effect has been failed. You can't, legally/morally kill 50 or a hundred non-combatants just to take out a single soldier.
PS. I don't think one should fetishize jwt. But Geras, and the decents in general, explicitly rely on it all the time but then interpret its contraints in a ridiculously elastic fashion whenever they approve of the side that's doing the killing.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the relevant paragraph in a 1977 addition (my italics):
ReplyDeletehttp://deoxy.org/wc/wc-proto.htm
Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:
1. an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and
2. an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
And here's Aaro, to illustrate your point:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article5415342.ece
God that's awful ...
ReplyDeleteIf we are to do this then the friends of the Palestinians would be best advised to put pressure on Hamas never to launch another of its bloody rockets and to stop its death-laden rhetoric, and the friends of Israel well placed to cajole it into making a settlement seem worthwhile. All else is verbiage.
Emphasis added - I'm sure Aaro didn't even realise he was doing this.
It always strikes me as absurd when people apply these concepts of "proportional response", "just war", stuff like that - to a situation like Israeli/Palestinian violence.
ReplyDeleteThese concepts are like rules of duel, two gentlemen resolving their conflict by means of sanctioned and codified violence.
But duels hardly ever happen any more, and none of their rules apply to other kinds of violence: melee, armed robbery, rape, ethnic cleansing. There are no rules for a rapist to follow. To pretend that there are, it's just confusing things.
abb1 - up to a point, and of course it's also true that whoever wins a war will subsequently be seen to have been in the right. But it is really worth having these discussions for the benefit of the neutrals, no?
ReplyDeleteThere are no rules for a rapist to follow
ReplyDeleteNot sure this analogy works. Rape is illegal according to the laws of most countries, whereas war is (sometimes) legal according to international law.
The fact that it strikes lots of people as absurd that Israel and Palestine ought to be following the same laws as war as anyone else is IMO a reason to talk about them more, not less ...
ReplyDelete(And while taking CapCab's point on board, I'm personally more concerned with the Geneva Conventions as amended than with just war theory; I guess I was wrong to assume that the "proportionate" debate was purely and simply squid ink, but this kind of goes to show how generally useless JWT is as a contribution to any sensible debate about wars - it's much too elastic. I never quite understand why the school of thought that the drafters of the Geneva Conventions got it about right doesn't get more play. Does (the mighty) Walzer even discuss the actual state of international law in his book (which I confess I haven't read and barring substantial breakthroughs in gerontology, probably won't).
@CapCab: Assuming that some right intention could be asserted, I think the issue under JWT is whether there is reasonable prospect of success (which overlaps with the proportionality issue but is not identical to it). Under JWT, you can't conduct war even for a legitimate purpose if the exercise is futile. I for one would like to hear it articulated what the point of the Gaza action is and why it might actually work.
ReplyDelete@dd: JWT addresses two questions: for what legitimate purposes war can be conducted ("jus ad bello") and how war may be conducted ("jus in bello"). The Geneva Conventions address only a subset of the questions relating to how war may be conducted (mostly relating to prisoners and noncombatants).
The Geneva Conventions address only a subset of the questions relating to how war may be conducted (mostly relating to prisoners and noncombatants).
ReplyDeleteYesbutnobutyesbut ... I was sort of using the GC as synecdoche for the Nuremberg Principles etc - basically the whole load of international law on the subject.
Alkali. Yes but the jab isn't entirely independent of the jib. If you can't achieve your objectives by using permissible means, you can't have recourse to force in the first place. Hence the question of whether the action _could_ remain within the jib constraints wrt proportionality (double effect, discrimination etc) in Gaza is highly relevant to whether the jab case has been made.
ReplyDelete@CapCab: I don't disagree but in the current situation I think that turns the inquiry on its head in a confusing way. It seems better to me to start with "What is country X trying to achieve here, and (assuming it is a legitimate objective) is it the sort of thing they could actually attain with military force?" rather than with "Just how is country X dropping its bombs?"
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it strikes lots of people as absurd that Israel and Palestine ought to be following the same laws of war as anyone else is IMO a reason to talk about them more, not less ...
ReplyDeleteThis phrase strikes me as absurd on so many levels...
The most important problem is that once again category error is obvious here. You are talking about "laws of war" and then you imagine that any violence you want can be classified as "war" from the "laws of war".
Let me point to just one alternative approach here: the right of peoples to self-determination:
" Affirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination recognized as being entitled to the right of self-determination to restore to themselves that right by any means at their disposal"
See, "by any means". Since this is, arguably, not a gentleman's war, but a 'struggle of a people under colonial and alien domination' - completely different set of rules apply. The people under domination can't do wrong whatever they do, while the villain can't be proportional, his whole 'military aim' is illegitimate, the value of his 'military aim' is always negative.
Is there anything wrong with my logic here?
I'm not sure you've thought it through, abb1. I don't think there's ever a point when it's generally recognised that a struggle for self-determination is in progress; the colonial power will have a different view on the matter, to name but one. Then there's the whole question of whether a particular national liberation movement is a national liberation movement or some sort of superpower catspaw, or just a bunch of chancers who like driving around in technicals. You can't say that the rules of war don't apply to anyone who runs up an alternative flag.
ReplyDeleteIn effect the 'different set of rules' can only apply retrospectively. When a struggle for self-determination has succeeded, then it can be recognised as such, and the 'people' which has restored itself the right to self-determination can be absolved of any crime it might have committed along the way. It's raison d'état - but in a world of nation-states, there's a lot of that about.
Well, an outside arbiter can certainly recognize a struggle for self-determination in progress(as the UN GA has done in this particular case), just like a cop can recognize a bank robbery in progress even when the robbers might claim that the money rightfully belongs to them.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, in the case of an arm robbery in progress Dirty Harry, who ignores the rules, is still the hero and the robbers are villains no matter how reasonably they act in any particular intermediate episode of the story - they already violated The Big Rule.
Talking about proportionality is just a way to pretend you give a shit about the Palestinians. M.J. Rosenberg ["We have to get along with the Arabs even if we don't like them very much'] writing as always at TPM is like a whining jailer begging a cage full of men women and children not to spit on him, when he has the key to the gate. Self-pity is always annoying but it's disgusting in an apologia for racism. Chris Bertram is at a guilt-ridden European christian so I guess I cut him some slack: he means well but he's just not very smart.
ReplyDeleteGaza is a prison..
How can a country/government be said to have a right to exist if it is not founded on rights? What right is there to build a white majority country in a black majority neighborhood? What right to expel and then intern the previous inhabitants?
So much for the Rule of Law.
just like a cop can recognize a bank robbery in progress even when the robbers might claim that the money rightfully belongs to them
ReplyDeleteBad analogy - the claim you're making is that in some cases an outside authority would side with the people stealing (or rather liberating) the money. Rebellion against legally-constituted authority is breaking the Big Rule, even if the authority is colonial.
For some reason discussing proportionality in the context of Palestine/Israel always reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about hunting mosquitoes with bazookas. It works on several levels.
ReplyDeleteSeth, mate, I know you and Chris have had arguments in the past but he doesn't post on my blog so can we not talk about him behind his back please (particularly when I don't think he has actually written anything in recent memory about Gaza)?
ReplyDeleteThat's right, an outside authority could easily side with the people liberating the money.
ReplyDeleteAll I'm saying here is that "proportionality" concept does not apply in some cases, and this case seems like a particularly bad choice.
Like I said, "struggle for self-determination" is just one alternative approach.
Another popular concept stipulates that the fact that the Jews were subjected to a genocide by an ultra-nationalist German movement 60+ years ago gives an ultra-nationalist Jewish movement the right to a free one. If you subscribe to this concept, than, again, "proportionality" is irrelevant.
The point is, there's nothing symmetrical about this situation; a vast, overwhelming majority of people don't see it as symmetrical. It seems absurd to try to approach it as symmetrical and demand proportionality.
abb1, the whole point is that "Proportionality" doesn't imply any kind of symmetry.
ReplyDeleteOf course it does. The sides are treated as equal, the whole thing is imagined as a sort of a boxing match. It's an English thing, I suppose...
ReplyDeleteabb1, it's pretty clear that "any means at their disposal" means "armed force is OK, you aren't limited to signing petitions and holding demonstrations", not "the rebels are allowed to dump radioisotopes in the drinking water and butcher the occupiers' babies because Their Cause It Is Just".
ReplyDeleteAs for proportionality - read the damn post, please. It's not proportional to the enemy's strength, it's proportional to the objective in view.
Your argument seeks to prove more than you think - are you saying that any weaker combatant should be allowed to do anything he wants, because the rules of war only apply between evenly matched opponents? (The Axis in 1944-5 was a lot weaker than the Allies, wasn't it?)
DD/BBoy
ReplyDeleteFair enough,
However:
There was no ceasefire. Uri Avnery lays out the facts.
Here's a rundown of the PR Blitz.
"A new information directorate was established to influence the media, with some success. And when the attack began just over a week ago, a tide of diplomats, lobby groups, bloggers and other supporters of Israel were unleashed to hammer home a handful of carefully crafted core messages intended to ensure that Israel was seen as the victim,"
But the real issue is this: In a world of analytical reason rationality, logic etc. the fact that zionism is racism would not be challenged by anyone other than cranks and denialists. But inevitably, psychology twists reason into a pretzel.
We are not rational beings, we merely want to be. And so I get annoyed by having to point out the obvious to the oblivious, reminding them again and again that the obliviousness is remarkably self-serving, and get banned entirely.
"If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"
David Ben Gurion
We are mythologizing machines. No way 'round it.
And a Ph.D. just makes it worse.
Ajay, it's not clear to me that "any means at their disposal" should exclude anything at all.
ReplyDeleteI think what it does is equating colonialism with deadly assault, attempted murder, and suggesting that you can defend yourself by whatever means you might deem necessary, no specific limits.
And why not to butcher the occupiers' babies - Yahweh did just that to liberate the Hebrews and that is something to be celebrated every spring. He didn't know about radioisotopes, so He had to use lice, locusts and such.
And I'm not saying it's just about the enemy's strength; it's the aggregated circumstances. If you are in a bar brawl you follow one set of rules, but if you're attacked by a gang of homicidal maniacs it's a whole different game - is this so complicated?
abb1, it's more or less standard language in UN resolutions. The authorisation for the 1991 Gulf War, for example, mentioned "all necessary means". You seem to be under the impression that the UNGA and the UNSC voted to legalise war crimes as long as they were being committed by the right sort of person. You are wrong. Just because the language they used is unclear to you does not mean that it is unclear to someone who knows a little bit about diplomatic language.
ReplyDeleteI searched google and it appears that the phrase "any means at their disposal" in the context of struggle appears only in this resolution, General Assembly Resolution 2649, 30 November 1970.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a link pointing to the official correct meaning of this phrase, then post it, please. Otherwise, your intuitive understanding is no better than mine, and mine is that "any means" is exactly what it sounds like.
So your "intuitive understanding" is that the UN deliberately voted to legalise war crimes, as long as they were being committed by movements of national liberation? That's really what you believe?
ReplyDeleteBe serious.
Yes I do, absolutely. Remember, this is 1970. And, no, struggle for national liberation is not a war, which is what I've been repeating here for the last 3 days - and so there can be no 'war crimes'.
ReplyDeleteIn 1975 they passed a resolution about Zionism being a form of racism and they were right about that too.
Those were the good times. And now we live in reactionary times where rape is deemed to be Okay as long as it's 'proportional'.
But this too will pass.
Remember, this is 1970
ReplyDeleteIn which case, even if you were right, it would have been superseded by the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.
....well, that's a keeper, right up with your contention on CT that Stalin was responsible for "a couple of thousand" deaths.
ReplyDeleteD2 is quite right that even under this bizarroworld reading, the Additional Protocols of 1977 extend both the rights and responsibilities of regular forces as defined in the Hague Regulations to guerrillas/insurgents/nonstate actors. As long as you wear a distinguishing mark while actually exchanging fire, you've got the right to prisoner of war status if captured, and you've got to protect noncombatants, cultural property, don't use a biological or toxin weapon, treat any prisoners you take as POWs etc.
But I want to hear more about this doctrine that the UN General Assembly can resolve to let you off international humanitarian law. It ain't in the Charter, that's for sure. There are only two justifications for the use of force itself (Articles 2(4) and 51) which certainly don't exempt you from the laws of war.
I mean, I would think the UNSC would have a say. Do you think the UNGA have to do it under the Uniting for Peace resolution?
Well, first of all, when you attribute an opinion (let alone a quote) to an online personality, you should be able to produce a link, Alex. Otherwise, I'm afraid, you sound like an asshole. Not that anything's wrong with that, of course, if that's the preferred style of your online character.
ReplyDeleteAs for the substance of your comment:
- the UNSC has nothing to do with this. GA and SC often disagree, for obvious reasons.
- the Charter and that "Uniting for Peace" thing do have something to do with it, I suppose, however: the main function of the UN, it's raison d'etre, in fact, is to maintain peace between the nation-states and facilitate resolution of the disagreements between the nation-states.
And so, let me repeat again, for the 50th time, for you personally this time: anti-colonial struggle is nothing like a state-on-state violence. It's just a different species of violence. Most members of the GA suffered from colonialism and they feel (or, at least, felt in the 60s and 70s) strongly about it. Does it make sense?
Here's a piece by brother Nir Rosen in the Guardian that articulates exactly the point I've been trying to make here.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, though not likely, it'll make you all ashamed of your obscene views on the matter.
Does it make sense?
ReplyDeleteNo, it doesn't, because there is no evidence or at least no provided evidence for the idea that this resolution sets out the entirety of international humanitarian law. You need to provide some evidence, see?
Further, you're simply not engaging with the fact that the 1977 Convention explicitly states that whatever silly name you use instead of "war", you've still got to stop shooting prisoners.
I like the word war; it's hard to confuse it with anything else, like "pony".
anti-colonial struggle is nothing like a state-on-state violence. It's just a different species of violence
ReplyDeleteIt is, actually, quite like state-on-state violence, which is why it was brought within the same international laws.
Look, you believe yourself to have an argument to the effect that "national liberation movements" are not subject to any humanitarian law at all, or any other kind of law. This would commit you to the belief that, for example, Jonas Savimbi was allowed to set fire to villages, or that Foday Sankoh was allowed to chop peoples' hands off. Shouldn't this give you at least a little bit of a clue that you are wrong?
No, Alex, I don't need to provide any evidence. The text plainly reads: "by any means at their disposal." The burden is certainly on you to prove that it means something other than 'by any means at their disposal'.
ReplyDeleteNo, Bruschettaboy, this doesn't commit me to defend any particular acts. It commits me to avoid imposing silly colonizers-invented rules onto their victims. Read Nir's piece I linked.
Easy. I note that this conflicts with the law which the UN is sworn to uphold, note further that no-one else in the world has taken this view (which, as state practice is a source of international law, is a nontrivial point), and further that anyway the law has been subsequently amended in such a way as to render it comprehensively wrong, thirty years ago and seven years after the resolution in question was passed.
ReplyDeleteNot only that, but I am not convinced that the UN General Assembly has standing to make such a judgment. The UNSC has standing to authorise the use of force; the UNGA has under Uniting for Peace but only controversially; but international law is generally altered by conventions between states.
I further call attention to the incongruity of wanking about "online character" whilst arguing for the legitimacy of torture and cannibalism under limited circumstances (only some torture and cannibalism - what a great guy!), and observe that Nir Rosen probably isn't your brother.
Well, Alex, if you read the threat you would've noticed that I never claimed that this resolution is a law. It's merely a proclamation (most of the GA resolutions are), and that's why I simply suggested it as an alternative concept, different approach.
ReplyDeleteSo, I'm afraid you've misfired with you 'proof'; you need to prove that the representatives who voted for the resolution with the phrase "by any means at their disposal" in it believed that it meant something other than 'by any means at their disposal'. Good luck.
It appears, though, that I was right about your online character being an asshole, as, obviously, no one here have been arguing "for the legitimacy of torture and cannibalism." Sorry, but bullying won't help you here, brother.
no one here have been arguing "for the legitimacy of torture and cannibalism
ReplyDeleteWell, actually, you have, sister. You said that 1) the UNGA passed a resolution saying that torture (and any other means) was legitimate if a national liberation movement was using it and 2) that you think the UNGA was right to do so. Therefore you are arguing for the legitimacy of torture.
No, Bruschettaboy, this doesn't commit me to defend any particular acts.
Yes, it does - any acts committed by a "national liberation movement" are legitimate according to you. (Or, rather, according to the UN resolution which you believe was correct.) The syllogism isn't difficult:
Unita was a national liberation movement (fighting against the Portuguese);
Abb1 believes that all tactics are permissible for such movements;
Therefore Abb1 believes that all tactics were permissible to Unita.
Puts you squarely on the pro-village-burning side.
It puts me on the side of those who refuse to lecture desperate people on what the proper rules are. When you, Ajay, are gang-raped (God forbid) I'm certainly not going to judge your actions and insist that you follow some rules of 'proportionality'.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, there have been some cases of cannibalism, most famously that football team in the Andes in the 70s.
I'm happy to report that my opinion of you guys is not so low as to imagine you yelling at those poor bastards from behind your dinner table: hey you! Take the fork out of that thigh immediately! This is not what proper gentlemen eat!
And yet you guys have no problem whatsoever lecturing people in, arguably, much worse situation - their whole families, whole communities are being exterminated, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly - their children taken out by snipers for fun - you have no problem lecturing these people on the proper rules out of your armchairs?
Have any shame left?
This argument over logic is a way of avoiding the more important argument over morality.
ReplyDeleteIsrael asks for and is given the benefit of the doubt by many, because it is a state as if statehood were a Platonic absolute rather than a temporal and formal/practical category. Thinking otherwise is Abb's first mistake. It goes downhill from there and everybody else follows along.
The targeting of civilians is a hallmark of modern warfare. The US strategy in Korea called for the repeated carpet-bombing of every city in the North. Look it up.
Israeli assassination policy is illegal.
Also of course the Israeli military has aknowledged in private though its not news anymore to anyone who gets in these arguments- except the lazy or the disingenuous- that Hamas in the past has made efforts to avoid civilian casualties.
I've linked to this enough for most of those here to remember if they chose to.
And driving civilians from their homes is a crime too, is it not?
Ethnic cleansing is Israeli policy.
People talk about what they like to talk about and then label it "substance."
Nancy Kanwisher, MIT Asks a question:
ReplyDeleteReigniting Violence: How Do Ceasefires End?
The Answers
One:
"Thus the latest ceasefire ended when Israel first killed Palestinians, and Palestinians then fired rockets into Israel. However, before attempting to glean lessons from this event, we need to know if this case is atypical, or if it reflects a systematic pattern.
We decided to tally the data to find out.
Two:
"The lessons from these data are clear:
First, Hamas can indeed control the rockets, when it is in their interest. The data shows that ceasefires can work, reducing the violence to nearly zero for months at a time.
Second, if Israel wants to reduce rocket fire from Gaza, it should cherish and preserve the peace when it starts to break out, not be the first to kill."
It's not news, but I'm grateful nonetheless.
Now maybe someone can tell Chris and Henry
Slaughtering noncombatants, torture, weapons with fragments indetectable on x-rays, germs, cannibalism - these are wrong.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't matter who does them; it doesn't matter to the tortured, after all. Let's be clear about the content, too; "antineopostsomethingorother nationalpostantinational libersocioanarcommucapitalist" whatever, it's still the same old shit where the rounds land.
It's a hell of a lot like "national security" or "war on terror", another nice excuse for mutilation. Bullshit don't change kinetic energy.
What happened to Masaryk's "Don't lie, don't steal"? Time was rebels thought they'd kill fewer innocents. Of course, this is dependent on imagining that you might one day have some influence, so I guess the whole point is moot. But then, that's what people said about Cheney in 2000 - he won't be any trouble, ignore him.
And yet you guys have no problem whatsoever lecturing people in, arguably, much worse situation - their whole families, whole communities are being exterminated, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly - their children taken out by snipers for fun - you have no problem lecturing these people on the proper rules out of your armchairs?
ReplyDeleteHave any shame left?
Proof if proof be needed that Decency is a style rather than a particular political position.
Regarding Seth's point, my view (perhaps excessively cynical) is that people give Israel the benefit of the doubt because it employs a lot of very aggressive and motivated public relations people to ensure that it is given the benefit of the doubt. I would really, really like to see some sort of disclosure on the part of journalists and bloggers about how many conversations they have had with Israeli government PR employees, and specifically whether they had the GIYUS Megaphone piece of software installed on their computer (because I do think that there is a big unstated PR effort here, and I don't like the effect that campaigns like this have on reporting), but I can't think of a way of proposing it that some bugger won't try to twist to say "aha! you want us to wear yellow stars!"
Doesn't matter who does them
ReplyDeleteBut of course it does, the circumstances matter.
Institutionalised torture certainly is wrong, but there are certainly situations, easily imaginable, where you youself would be torturing someone (or practicing cannibalism) and telling hypocritical moralists like the one you're playing now to fuck off. There is no doubt about it whatsoever.
The only question is when the circumstances are grave enough.
I assume that you, Alex, have never been treated as a subhuman colonial subject, you haven't been born and lived all your life under military occupation, your little brother wasn't killed by a bored sniper, you and your community are not being exterminated just for what you are.
Your whole oeuvre in this thread demonstrates that you (and most people here, including the host) are absolutely unable (and/or unwilling) to imagine what it's like to be in this situation and thus, I suggest, you - and all the rest of you who preach this 'absolute morality and absolute rule of law' nonsense - must cease and desist and stop embarrassing yourselves.
I assume that you, Alex, have never been treated as a subhuman colonial subject, you haven't been born and lived all your life under military occupation, your little brother wasn't killed by a bored sniper, you and your community are not being exterminated just for what you are.
ReplyDeleteDon't be too sure. He is from Yorkshire, after all.
"Shot by snipers? You lucky bastard. Oh, we used to dream of being shot by snipers when I were a lad..."
(I'm sorry, but I just can't take this person seriously any more.)
So you're OK with me eating babies so long as I do it for Yorkshire independence from the neocolonial vampires of the Britishist Entity? You just have to declare the right form of words, and that's it?
ReplyDeleteThe only question is when the circumstances are grave enough.
Ah, Mr. Cheney. How nice to meet you at last. Of course, Cheney is exactly the example we need here. Once you accept this argument, you usually find that the circumstances - surprise! - are grave enough whatever they happen to be. Need a handy terrorism alert before the midterms? Break out the water board.
This is the problem; there is always a latent demand for maximum violence in the world, and the more ways of justifying it are available, the more of it you'll get.
Eh, any concept can be (and will be) misused, that is inevitable and it doesn't prove anything.
ReplyDeleteAnd baiting is not a legitimate form of argument: you don't mind selling beer to the public? So, then, you're for binge drinking, drunk driving, eating babies?
Come on, you know better than that.
...and in fact, as I mentioned before, your absolute gentleman's rules are definitely being mis-used to prevent the oppressed from resisting the the oppressor: don't have any F16s? Too bad, then lie down and die, such are the rules.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, when the Britishist Entity decides to lock you Yorkshirites up in your barns and churches and burn you all alive - if you think that eating their babies would help, I would definitely restrain myself from from double-guessing and criticizing your actions, and blame the Britishist vampires for everything that might happen.
Would "any means at their disposal" include "appealling successfully for help from an outside power"? Because it strikes me that the Iraqi Kurds were an oppressed people engaged in a struggle of national liberation, and the 2003 invasion was justified as part of exactly that struggle. Bringing democracy to Iraq, etc.
ReplyDeleteI suspect abb1 has just justified not only the Iraq War but also every atrocity committed by the coalition...
"Any means at their disposal" means just that, including, of course, appealing (successfully or not) for help from an outside power.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately for your counterexample - in 2003 the Iraqi Kurds actually did have a (defacto) separate and independent state-like geopolitical entity. More so than what they have now.
But even back in the 1980s, when they indeed were in a desperate situation, appealing for help is one thing - and who would've blamed them? certainly not me - but the US/UK invading and occupying Iraq (whatever the pretext) is a completely different story.
Why are you looking for some absolute formal rule that applies to every situation? It doesn't exist. Is cannibalism acceptable? No, in general it isn't, but in some extreme situations it is. It's always like that, everything is trade-off.
So, the UNGA in 1970 declared colonialism an extreme, intolerable situation, more intolerable than blowing up civilians (assuming that non-military colonizers are 'civilians'), so what's so shockingly unbelievable about that? I just don't see the big problem here.
Unfortunately for your counterexample - in 2003 the Iraqi Kurds actually did have a (de facto) separate and independent state-like geopolitical entity. More so than what they have now.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't matter a bit. Just because the national liberation movement failed to achieve its aims - even if, as you claim, it was actually counterproductive - that doesn't mean it wasn't a national liberation movement, just that it wasn't a very successful one. You can't be arguing for a movement's status to be defined retrospectively, depending on its eventual success.
And the US invasion was part of a national liberation movement. They said so. It just wasn't the US that was being liberated.
But the nationality of the actors shouldn't matter, should it? If it's OK for a Nicaraguan Sandinista (for example) to do X, shouldn't it be OK for an idealistic Frenchman who's gone to Nicaragua to fight alongside the Sandinistas to do X too? It's the cause that matters, not the passport.
Furthermore, what happens once a nation's liberated itself? Are they still allowed to use any means available to defend their liberty against an attempt at recolonisation? Surely if liberty from colonial domination is important enough to allow any atrocity to gain, it's important enough to allow any atrocity to defend.
Were the VPA allowed to use any means necessary against the French in 1954, but not against the Chinese in 1979? Seems a bit unjust.
Is it moral to introduce a civilian population into a war zone a way of goading the enemy into "immoral" actions? Who has Israel camped in Sderot? Poor immigrants: expendable.
ReplyDeleteAbb is goading you all in to arguing platonic absolutes rather than the facts, and the mess of the world. Arguing the mess would force you to take a stand, and that's the last thing any of you want to do. Abb likes easy anger, but you all like easy answers.
I will say this: I have more sympathy for palestinian civilians born in Ashkelon than I do for Israeli civilians born in Moscow.
Is there any reason why this is illogical?
"I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes started [on the Golan]. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow someplace where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was." --Moshe Dayan interview with Rami Tal, 1976."
Chris Hedges, Gaza Diary: "I sit in the shade of palm-roofed hut on the edge of the dunes, momentarily defeated by the heat, the grit, the jostling crowds, the stench of the open sewers and rotting garbage. A friend of Azmi's bring me, on a tray, a cold glass of tart, red carcade juice.
Barefoot boys, clutching kites made out of scraps of paper and ragged soccer balls, squat a few feet away under scrub trees. Men in flowing white or gray galabias – homespun robes – smoke cigarettes in the shade of slim eaves. Two emaciated donkeys, their ribs protruding, are tethered to wooden carts with rubber wheels.
It is still. The camp waits, as if holding its breath. And then, out of the dry furnace air, a disembodied voice crackles over a loudspeaker.
'Come on, dogs,' the voice booms in Arabic. 'Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!'
I stand up. I walk outside the hut. The invective continues to spew: 'Son of a bitch!' 'Son of a Whore!…'
The boys dart in small packs up the sloping dunes to the electric fence that separates the camp from the Jewish settlement. They lob rocks toward two armored jeeps parked on top of the dune and mounted with loudspeakers. Three ambulances line the road below the dunes in anticipation of what is to come.
A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than ten or eleven years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. They descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos.
Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered – death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo – but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."
Ajay, you're thinking about it as if it was some law on the books, but it's merely a proclamation, denunciation of colonialism in the strongest terms possible, declaring it an unbearable condition.
ReplyDeleteIt's a general principle, your quiz is missing the point; hypotheticals don't mean anything.
abb1, you're talking as if it was some law on the books, when it's merely a proclamation, denunciation of colonialism in the strongest terms possible.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"Since this is, arguably, not a gentleman's war, but a 'struggle of a people under colonial and alien domination' - completely different set of rules apply."
No, they don't. 'War' and 'war crime' are defined within international law. A UNGA resolution is not international law; it has no effect on international law and no implications for the way we think about international law.
I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the definition of 'war' under international law. I suspect that two independent nation-states are necessary to have a war. If you have the relevant definitions, then post them here, and we can dish it out, and you might turn out to be right, who knows.
ReplyDeleteNot that it would change my opinion, mind you: the laws are not perfect, and if an equivalent of the Warsaw ghetto uprising is defined as 'war', then it's a lousy law that needs changing.
Lots of laws are lousy and need changing. They still apply.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: "Since this is, arguably, not a gentleman's war, but a 'struggle of a people under colonial and alien domination' - completely different set of rules apply" and backed this up with a UN General Assembly resolution.
UNGA resolutions don't make different sets of rules apply.
Right, in the legal sense it doesn't - although you haven't proved so far that in the legal sense a 'struggle of a people under colonial and alien domination' does indeed count as 'war' - but in the sense of the current state of human consciousness, human civilization - it sure does.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I repeat, the law is never absolute. Ever if you (undeniably) kill someone, you are not automatically found guilty of murder, the circumstances will be carefully considered by the jury and you may be found not guilty, by one reason or another. I'm saying (and I think the GA was saying) that 'struggle of a people under colonial and alien domination' is one of these circumstances.
"Ajay, it's not clear to me that "any means at their disposal" should exclude anything at all."
ReplyDeleteReally? You think perhaps it is meant to include say releasing biological weapons on third party countries that have minor suppliers for the country in question? Say smallpox in Germany or anthrax in Spain? It wouldn't be shocking if a small 'nationalist' group had access to that type of technology in the near future. That would be ok?
Why, does it bother you at all that Germany and Spain are allowed to make profit from colonial oppression in the country in question? Profit is a very powerful motive, you know.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a possibility of retaliation would deter Germany and Spain from cooperating with that colonial power dominating all those native people in the country in question, don't you think? Perhaps, then, the colonial power itself will be deterred from colonizing and dominating? And consequently the people in the country in question get their right of self-determination restored?
What's your suggestion, your alternative? What should the colonial people do?
The laws of war aren't about creating perfect justice for all people everywhere. They are about ending wars so that civilians can get on with their lives.
ReplyDeleteWhat about a lack of profit motive. Let us posit a country that takes no part in the 'colonial war' and has a ban on arms sales to all parties. But they trade in other things. Would the colonial people be ok to introduce smallpox in Holland in order to try to induce the Netherlands to cease all trade entirely with the colonial power?
Perhaps it might be better to lose than to do that?
I have no idea what's better, I have never lived under colonial domination.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it might be better to end colonialism and foreign domination? I guess that's what they thought they were doing in the 70s.
And how did that work for them? And can anyone seriously argue that the Palestinians are better off for fighting what you allege is colonialism than they would have been just working with Israel, even if on 2nd class terms? Would they have been worse off than most of the people in Lebanon? Almost certainly not.
ReplyDeleteFighting against colonialism doesn't justify EVERYTHING. It is an evil that is worth resisting, sure. But that doesn't translate into "excuses ALL possible actions" which is what you seem to be defending.
It is the flip side of arguing that Israel is being disproportionate in their attacks. How can someone who argues that Israel ought not respond by bombing near civilians also argue that smallpox attacks against the Netherlands to stop them from trading with Israel could conceivably be ok?
Does the magic 'colonialism' wand really hold that much power over you that anyone who waves it can get you to completely throw out any moral considerations whatsoever?
The 20th century saw the end of colonialism, like the 19th saw the end of slavery.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you would argue that slaves (where they still exist) should just tough it out and be happy with what they have; after all they might be better off than some (many, probably) free people somewhere. An Eastern European or Filipino girl held in a bordello has to have sex with a couple of dozen men a day, but she certainly eats well and wears nice dresses. You know this is not an argument for slavery.
But you do feel that colonialism is OK, not totally intolerable.
That's your opinion and that's fine, and it might even be a reasonable opinion in some (or even many) cases, like Puerto Rico or something.
But it's just an opinion of some American guy from San Diego, CA; and this guy gives an advice to people in Gaza.
Why don't you take a couple of years off, learn Arabic, assume an Arabic name and go live in Gaza or West Bank as a Palestinian? Try working with Israel on 2nd class terms, see how that goes. Do it for a few years. Then come back and tell us. That would be more interesting and much more convincing.
"Why don't you take a couple of years off, learn Arabic, assume an Arabic name and go live in Gaza or West Bank as a Palestinian? Try working with Israel on 2nd class terms, see how that goes. Do it for a few years. Then come back and tell us. That would be more interesting and much more convincing."
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. You're not very convinceable. You seem to think that smallpox in the Netherlands is an appropriate response, which is frankly ghastly for almost any conceivable situation like stopping mind control aliens from taking over the universe, much less situations that are actually happening in the world.
The entire Middle East is still under colonialism if you are going to define it as the level of control that Palestinians had to put up with in say the 1990s before they resumed violence against Israel.
And even the ANC was much tighter on the violence under much worse circumstances in South Africa. You may also note that they were much more successful.
Or you may not note that.
I will note that Palestinian civilians were doing much better in the 1990s, when the Palestinians were not engaging in drama-queen levels of tactically stupid violence, then they are now. You may think that waving the 'colonialism' wand makes that fact go away, but I tend to think not.
I don't have an opinion on what's a good or bad tactic in their situation, and what level of control other people should put up with.
ReplyDeleteWhy should they put up with any level of control?
Why is it that their actions are under scrutiny and not those who control them? This is completely backwards, it's hard for me even to understand how you're thinking.
What does it mean "entire Middle East is still under colonialism"? Who is colonizing? That's just nonsense.
"What does it mean "entire Middle East is still under colonialism"? Who is colonizing? That's just nonsense."
ReplyDeleteEgypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Syria: all are ruled by narrow powers every bit as compromised as Israel and most only because either the USSR or US supported them. Yet only one is subject to an analysis where smallpox in the Netherlands while fighting them makes sense. That 'colonial' magic wand is very powerful.
What "narrow powers", what're you talking about? Do you understand what the word 'colonialism' means? You're embarrassing yourself.
ReplyDeleteIf I told you that there is no difference between you - wage slave - and a 19c slave, - and that's why 19c-style slavery is OK - what would your reaction be? And now direct that reaction of yours back onto yourself.
Btw, what's so sacred about the Netherlands anyway? Why is it OK to 'control' and kill Palestinians, while it (apparently) feels like unimaginable horror to you that some of the Dutch might be harmed? It seems curious.
ReplyDeleteUmmm because the Dutch don't have much to do with the question at hand at all. I could easily have said Estonians or Chileans or Haitians.
ReplyDeleteYes, but the Palestinians (for example) don't have much to do with it either.
ReplyDeleteThey are merely a bunch of olive growers who were minding their own business when then they got first expelled from their villages by a bunch of militant racist Europeans, and then for the next 60 years the rest of them have been slowly pushed out or exterminated simply for who they are, simply because they are not Jewish.
If this seems acceptable enough to you, then what's wrong with harming Estonians? Seems to me it should be acceptable too.