Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 35 October 14 - 20, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
The Civilian Toll BY
A.J. CHIEN
Back to Bulatlat.com Alternative Reader Index As
the bombs fall on Afghanistan, the toll among civilians mounts:
76 dead and over 100 injured after four days, according to Reuters.
While to many it is indefensible to kill innocent people, US and
NATO leaders offer a defense: that civilians are not being targeted.
As Tony Blair claimed, "This military plan has been put together
mindful of our determination to do all we humanly can to avoid
civilian casualties." But there's two problems with this defense:
it's not
relevant, and it's not true. On
the first point, consider something called the "mens rea" analysis
of criminal law. According to Michael Tonry, Professor of Law at the
University of Minnesota, "In the criminal law, purpose and
knowledge are equally culpable states of mind. An action taken with
a purpose to kill is no more culpable than an action taken with some
other purpose in mind but with knowledge that a death will probably
result. Blowing up an airplane to kill a passenger is equivalent to
blowing up an airplane to destroy a fake painting and thereby to
defraud an insurance company, knowing that the passenger will be
killed. Both are murder. Most people would find the latter killing more
despicable." Tonry
uses such reasoning to indict the architects of the US "war on drugs."
Writing in 1995, Tonry notes that from 1980 the rate of incarceration for blacks
rose much faster than that for whites, and that the proportions of blacks among
those admitted to prison reached record levels. These results were foreseeable.
Data available in the late 1980s showed, on the one hand, an overall national
decline in drug use through the 1980s and, on the other, a general increase in
use of cocaine and heroin as measured by emergency room admissions and
urinalysis results of arrestees in urban areas. The latter indicators were
reflective of a growing drug use problem in urban poor areas, with minority
populations. Inasmuch as drug czar William Bennett's drug warriors knew this
data well, they knew the consequences of their policies: as Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan put it, "...by choosing prohibition [of drugs] we are
choosing to have an intense crime problem concentrated among minorities."
Tonry concludes, by the "mens rea" analysis of criminal law, that
Bennett and colleagues were just as morally responsible for the destruction of
black communities as they would be if this destruction had been their goal all
along. Another
application is the current bombing. Let's assume, as we are told, that civilians
are not being targeted. It doesn't matter. The first wave of attacks reportedly
consisted largely of "dumb" bombs dropped or launched from long
distances, and even current "smart" bombs hit their targets only 70 to
80 percent of the time. So our leaders know full well that the bombs will kill
innocent people, indeed admit as much. By the principles of our criminal law,
they are therefore just as culpable for these deaths as they would be if
innocents were targeted. Similarly for the foreseeable starvation of Afghan
civilians because of the bombing's disruption of humanitarian aid efforts - only
in this case there are potentially millions of victims. What
if the purpose is noble? One could defend the predictable deaths of civilians if
it resulted from, say, shooting down an airliner in order to keep it from
smashing a skyscraper. In Afghanistan the purpose is, as a New York Times
correspondent puts it, "to tilt the balance of power within Afghanistan
against the Taliban," put forth as a noble goal in the fight against
terrorism. But recall that the Taliban does not stand accused of the terrorism
of September 11. The Taliban is guilty of real crimes, but the reason we are
bombing them is for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden without seeing the
evidence against him. Its punishment is to be overthrow by an equally brutal
regime. Notwithstanding the headlines in US dailies, nobility is not immediately
apparent, never mind anything so noble that it outweighs a great many deaths. Let's
now consider whether all the targets are really military, in conjunction with
some relevant international law. Under article 48 of the Geneva Conventions,
"In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population
and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish
between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and
military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against
military objectives." But the main aim of the US strikes is not military
but political, to remove the Taliban from power. For all its wretchedness, the
Taliban is not simply an army but a political entity, and its members largely
civilians, not combatants. So the distinctions of article 48 evidently have not
been heeded: many of the targets hit, such as Taliban headquarters and other
buildings in Kabul and Kandahar, would seem to count as "civilian
objects" (just as the White House presumably would, notwithstanding its
hosting of the commander-in-chief). Then
there is article 51: "Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited...[such
as]...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 similarly we have the Nuremberg Charter, which classes as
war crimes any "violations of the laws or customs of war which
include...wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not
justified by military necessity." Are there violations here? Among the
targets so far are airports, communication facilities, electrical plants,
government buildings, houses - all attacked for a political purpose. After a
building that housed UN de-mining workers was destroyed, the UN appealed to the
US to protect civilians in its military strikes: in less polite terms, to obey
international law mandating such protection. Apparently they do not agree with
Tony Blair that the attackers are doing all they "humanly can." (In
Ramsey Clark's The Fire This Time, similar arguments and many more are made with
regard to the Iraq war.) The
Pentagon has expressed satisfaction with the early results. Let's conclude by
considering a different source: Afghan civilians. Here's a sampling of
testimonials reported by the Boston Globe and New York Times. Rais
Mazloomyar Jabirkhail: "They are not God. They want to pinpoint every
target, but they can't make every missile go after Osama and terrorist training
camps..." While not a supporter of bin Laden, he asked why, in response to
what bin Laden was accused of doing, the United States "is destroying our
whole country." Mohammad
Akram: "They should find Osama bin Laden and attack only him. Why did they
attack all of Afghanistan? We are just poor people in Afghanistan." Mohammad
Zahir: "Everyone wants to eliminate terrorism from the face of the earth,
but the way adopted by the US is not fair because masses of ordinary people also
live in Afghanistan. The attack was not just on terrorist camps...I know those
are residential areas." Abdul
Malik: In his village there was "great panic among the people - they are
running toward hilly areas away from cities...We were telling the women and
children that everything will be OK, we will be safe [in the hills], we will
pray to God." Naseebullah
Khan: "It's not true that the Americans have only been bombing military
targets. Many of the bombs are dropping on residential neighborhoods." Abdul
Qahir: "Though people are fed up with Taliban rulers, at the same time we
are not supporting the US attack on our beloved country. It is against human
dignity." Meanwhile, thousands of Afghans reaching the Pakistani border have reportedly joined anti-US demonstrations in Quetta, Peshawar, and elsewhere. Apparently the view of many ordinary Afghans doesn't match that of their self-proclaimed saviors. Back to Bulatlat.com Alternative Reader Index We want to know what you think of this article.
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