Rules of engagement and the myth of humane war

[Boats]

Rules of engagement and the myth of humane war
By: The Guardian News - 09-02-21
Comments by: Andrew Clapham. Plus letters from Prof Keith Hayward, Blaine Stothard and Margaret Vandecasteele
Re: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-of-humane-war

Below are perspective(s) by European witness writer(s):

It's been said that: Attempts to legitimize warfare should be met with skepticism.
(Comment: Finally someone is asking the right question - Boats)

Samuel Moyn is right to emphasis how humanizing war has distracted attention from questioning whether there should be a war in the first place (How the US created a world of endless war, 31 August). We could go further and argue that the permissive interpretation of the rules that he highlights has actually led to a dehumanization in war.

The last 20 years have seen torture, multiple targeted killings by drones controlled from a safe distance, apparently self-explanatory categories such as “law-of-war detainees”, “law-of-war targets”, and the destruction of objects contributing to what has been called the “war-sustaining economy”. It is as if once one accepts one is at war, we accept that sticking a “law-of-war” label on all the killing and destruction makes it inevitable and acceptable.

Deep in the concept of war lies a need to adopt a state of mind that dehumanizes the enemy. We should be careful not only about claims that war has been humanized, but also be aware that the very idea of war creates a state of mind where the enemy is dehumanized.

Comments By: Andrew Clapham Professor of international law, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

The article on America’s endless wars raised many interesting issues. The idea that the US could strike over long distance by drone without incurring casualties is now an entrenched military maxim. This may not always be valid.

Some years ago I listened to a specialist in military ethics consider the balance of action and reaction to drone strikes from a legal standpoint. He suggested that if the target was a legitimate objective, its remote pilot or any of its supporting personnel, perhaps in Nevada, were themselves potentially legitimate targets from an adversary’s perspective .

Civilian casualties associated with these targets would not be legitimate, but, as with so many innocent victims of drone warfare, might possibly be described as unfortunate examples of collateral damage. The general conclusion from this discussion was that drone warfare, even at a distance, posed major challenges for any advocate of a just war on terrorism and for anyone supposing it might be free of deadly consequences for its operators.
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Comments By: Prof Keith Hayward - London

To add some context to your long read, it’s worth remembering that there have been global wars initiated and inspired by the US since the end of the second world war. The first was the war on communism, AKA the cold war, which some would say was a major factor in the current situation in Afghanistan because the US funded, armed and supported the forces fighting the Soviet Union’s occupation forces, seen by Washington as representing communism.

Then there is the continuing war on terror and the continuing war on drugs; the latter is now in its 50th year and the cause of tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of mainly civilian deaths across the world.

What all have in common is that they were and are unwinnable, and just go on and on with no pause for reflection or consideration of what the wars are actually achieving. George Orwell’s 1984 foresaw endless war. However, his intention was prophecy and warning, not the provision of an instruction manual.

Posted by: Blaine Stothard - London

Surely Britain deserves the headline on this article more than the United States, since it has been involved in so many wars for many centuries.

Posted Per: Margaret Vandecasteele Wick, Caithness

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Personal note: It's quite different when the shoe is on another's foot. It's true Britain has had its share of warfare in the past. How they can be so critical is under review. Warfare
in the past (is not exactly what we have today). The cut and slash days are long gone and the weaponry today is far more deadly. They had their 100 year wars but today its quite different - but the killing doesn't stop. I agree 20 year wars is a bit much - and does have its drawbacks - in as that - some indegressionally used. Meaning civvies are caught in the firepower used today - is not like early years (the cut and slash days). To me that was butchery at its best.

What causes war today?
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There are many potential reasons, including: competition over territory and resources, historical rivalries and grievances, and in self defense against an aggressor or a perceived potential aggressor.

Example: There are many potential reasons, including: competition over territory and resources, historical rivalries and grievances, and in self defense against an aggressor or a perceived potential aggressor.

The wars won't end. They will just be frozen, the temperature of the conflict brought down through a succession of ceasefires. At some point in the future, these failed states might be brought back to life, perhaps when some of the trauma has healed or the infections of hatred have subsided.

War kills, injures and disables the very people who must carry it out. It causes high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and can lead to moral injury as well – namely, the deep shame, guilt, anger or anxiety experienced by soldiers as a result of killing or harming others. Some soldiers may commit suicide.

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Here's a piece I found that nails it down:

It’s time to demand that our leaders find peaceful ways to resolve conflicts. Here are five simple ways in which war could be stopped in its tracks.

1. Require the leaders who promote and support war to personally participate in the hostilities. This would provide a critical threshold of personal commitment to war by requiring some actual personal sacrifice of leaders. (I'd like see that happen - Boats).

2. Show the faces and tell the stories of the children of the “enemy” until we can feel the pain of their deaths as though they were the deaths of our own children. It is much more difficult to slaughter an enemy who one recognizes as being part of the human family.

3. Give full support to the establishment of an International Criminal Court so that national leaders can be tried for all egregious war crimes at the end of any hostilities. All leaders who commit egregious crimes must be held to account under international law as they were at Nuremberg, and they must be aware of this from the outset.

4. Impeach any elected leaders who promote or support illegal, preventive war, what was described at the Nuremberg Trials as an “aggressive” war. It is the responsibility of citizens in a democracy to exercise control over their leaders who threaten to commit crimes under international law, and impeachment provides an important tool to achieve this control.

5. Rise up as a people and demand that one’s government follow its Constitution, cut off funding for war and find a way to peace. US citizens must demand that Congress not give away or allow the president to usurp its sole authority under the Constitution to make the decision to go to war. Citizens should also demand that Congress exercise its power of the purse to prevent war, including not giving financial support to a president attempting to bribe other countries to participate in an illegal war.

About this writer: *David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundati on.
He is the editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future -
(Capra Press, 2003).