Death as a side effect

Geneva Conventions (Article 48, 1977 addition to, Part IV):
“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.”

“Collateral damage” is more than a euphemism; it’s a lie. Since the development of long-range artillery and aerial bombing in the First World War, the killing zone of wars has expanded and the involvement of civilians in battle has become commonplace.

John Keegan, a military historian, wrote an interesting book called The Face of Battle. In it he looks at the concept of a battle from the individual soldier’s point of view, as a social and psychological experience. He uses the battle of Agincourt in 1415, the battle of Waterloo in 1814, and the First Battle of the Somme in 1916 as examples. One of the striking differences about these battles is the extent of the killing zone. At Agincourt there were archers who could kill at distances up to a hundred yards or more, but most of the bloody work was done at arm’s length. Armored men hacked and slashed at each other face to face, while people from the nearby villages watched from the adjacent woods. Waterloo was fought with muskets and cannon, and the killing zone was extended to a mile. Even so, some troops sat out the battle on the back slopes of hills or in dense woods within a short walk of the carnage. The First World War was different. Modern artillery extended the killing zone to seven miles, and the soldiers of each side reached the front through a maze of well-policed trenches. There was little opportunity for refusal or escape. Keegan doesn’t cover this, but at the same time, the Germans were beginning to make aerial forays over Britain with dirigibles, dropping bombs on industrial areas and their surrounding cities. Shells fell on French villages. Civilians were now part of the battle. Keegan’s final point is that in our era of intercontinental ballistic missiles the killing zone has become global. We are all on the battlefield.

In fact, as the reach and power of our weapons has increased, so has the ratio of civilian war related deaths to military battle casualties. During American military operations in the Middle East since 1991, the ratio of civilian deaths to U.S. military deaths has varied from 13:1 to 20:1 by the most conservative counts. The ratio of civilian deaths to tons of bombs dropped has varied since the introduction of aerial bombing, but nobody denies that there is a ratio. Even the use of so-called “precision guided munitions” hasn’t reduced the number of civilian deaths.

The arsenal of a modern army includes bombs that can be (and are) dropped from miles in the air, destroying entire city blocks. Artillery can reach out to 14 miles, delivering high explosives, shrapnel, and burning chemical agents such as phosphorus. Individual soldiers with handheld weapons can send multiple projectiles far beyond their own visual range, or blanket an area with a hail of bullets. Combine this technological prowess with the limitations of human perception, communication, cognition, and moral judgment and there is an inescapable conclusion: It is literally impossible to conduct modern warfare without killing significant numbers of innocent civilians. This conclusion is amply corroborated by our experience from the Second World War to this day.

This stark fact puts a moral burden on those in positions of political power who propose the use of military force. The argument of collateral damage, i.e., “We didn’t mean to kill civilians - it was an unfortunate error,” is one of negligence. The inevitability of civilian casualties in modern warfare disallows the plea of negligence.

What if someone were to visit a crowded shopping mall with a paper target and a handgun, paste the target on a wall, back off through the throng, put on a blindfold, and start blasting away in the general direction of the target? Would that person be able to say that he never intended to kill or injure anyone? It wouldn’t stand up in court. Foreknowledge of the certain consequences of your actions places the moral responsibility for those consequences squarely on you.

I’d like to propose a formal statement to be signed by members of Congress and the President whenever they decide to fund or execute an act of war, aside from defending the country from a direct attack upon our territory.

STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

I, ________________, in my official capacity as ___________________, am authorizing or funding military action in foreign territory by the United States of America.

I understand and fully acknowledge the following:

Due to the power and range of existing weaponry and the limits of human perception and judgment, the prosecution of modern mechanized warfare inevitably results in the injury and deaths of innocent children, women, and men.

My foreknowledge of these unavoidable injuries and deaths of innocent civilians as a consequence of my actions makes me personally morally responsible for them.

Therefore, I swear (or affirm) that I have diligently, patiently, and in good faith exhausted all other possibilities for the resolution of the relevant conflict. I swear (or affirm) that I have, to the best of my ability, investigated the probable number of direct and indirect casualties resulting from this military action and found that this military action would prevent greater injury and loss of life.

In the event of a war crimes prosecution resulting from this military action, I agree to submit myself to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or other United Nations sanctioned tribunal set up for the purpose.

Signed, this ____ day of ____________, 20__

X_____________________________________

Human beings show an almost unlimited capacity for the rationalization of evil acts, so this document would be no guarantee of ethical decision making. It would, however, force those in power to contemplate, at least momentarily, the effects of their actions on the lives of ordinary people. Perhaps they should be required to read the statement aloud, in public. The initiators and supporters of war should have to acknowledge that they know the human cost of what they are doing. Parallel to this, the expression “collateral damage” should be expunged from the military and journalistic vocabulary.