The notion of war being a metered response, or anything less than a full-out effort to annihilate an enemy, is one that is relatively new to the world. Maybe it began back of the days of the big empires; when the Romans thought it was just too expensive to worry too much about small populations far away. Maybe it was a factor in the American Revolution.
In the 19th century, The Geneva and Hague Conventions tried to institutionalize the limitation of and response to collateral damage and the effects of war on civilian populations. Following the unprecedented carnage of World War One, the League of Nations was started as a sort of community of effort to promote peace, or at least limit the damage of war. By the time the United Nations was formed in 1945, the rules had become pretty clear. Nations had to follow the rules when they went to war. They couldn't attach each other willy-nilly; they had to have formal declarations and had to exercise restraint where it came to civilian populations.
The superpowers that emerged after World War Two found these rules cumbersome, and found ways to engage enemies that fell under the radar. Covert war was often as grizzly as big wars, but was mostly smaller in scale, and disinformation strategies made it so nobody could even figure out who the good guys were. But, what had developed, at least in theory, was a framework for determining the legitimacy of war.
The first big test of this theoretical framework was the establishment of Israel. Israel was the poster child for the brand new UN, and the child grew up on the moral high ground while the world looked on sympathetically.
Fast forward past the 1976 and 1973 wars and The Camp David Accords. The United States has a black eye because of its decade of quagmire in Viet Nam, and things are coming to light about the CIA's involvement in Central America and elsewhere. After Watergate, nobody was too surprised by much of anything. The Iran Contra hearings came and went, and it was getting harder to find moral high ground.
So along comes a new generation of leaders in Israel, and they are more hawkish and imperial, and it starts getting harder to remember that they are on the moral high ground. Elsewhere in the world, it begins to look like the Age of Aquarius and the Berlin Wall falls and the Soviet Union breaks up. Covert wars have fallen out of favor, but new wars result as power vacuums and instability become the wake of the departing Soviet governments. And these are no-holds-barred wars fought by forces not recognized by the international community, and who do not follow the rules.
By the time the 21st century rolls around, the international community has become powerless and its rules of warfare have become meaningless. The United States just blows off the UN and the rules and invades Iraq, killing civilians, destroying the infrastructure, engaging in torture, rape and murder. All justified to a thin majority who supports it in the name of terror.
Now Israel and Hezbollah are pounding the crap out of each other in what could build into a conflagration of biblical proportions, and I'm looking for that moral high ground. Civilians are getting killed on both sides. This morning the IDF suffered a catastrophic success that killed 37 children in Qana.
I'm not finding moral high ground here. I'm not seeing legitimate warfare with the appropriate restraints and protections of civilian populations in Iraq. But I guess I knew all along that I wouldn't. I'm now quite as old as the UN, but I'm approaching my half century mark. And from Viet Nam to Munich and hostages and hijackings to WMDs and preemptive strikes, I can see that there is no such thing as legitimate war. There is no moral high ground.
In the 19th century, The Geneva and Hague Conventions tried to institutionalize the limitation of and response to collateral damage and the effects of war on civilian populations. Following the unprecedented carnage of World War One, the League of Nations was started as a sort of community of effort to promote peace, or at least limit the damage of war. By the time the United Nations was formed in 1945, the rules had become pretty clear. Nations had to follow the rules when they went to war. They couldn't attach each other willy-nilly; they had to have formal declarations and had to exercise restraint where it came to civilian populations.
The superpowers that emerged after World War Two found these rules cumbersome, and found ways to engage enemies that fell under the radar. Covert war was often as grizzly as big wars, but was mostly smaller in scale, and disinformation strategies made it so nobody could even figure out who the good guys were. But, what had developed, at least in theory, was a framework for determining the legitimacy of war.
The first big test of this theoretical framework was the establishment of Israel. Israel was the poster child for the brand new UN, and the child grew up on the moral high ground while the world looked on sympathetically.
Fast forward past the 1976 and 1973 wars and The Camp David Accords. The United States has a black eye because of its decade of quagmire in Viet Nam, and things are coming to light about the CIA's involvement in Central America and elsewhere. After Watergate, nobody was too surprised by much of anything. The Iran Contra hearings came and went, and it was getting harder to find moral high ground.
So along comes a new generation of leaders in Israel, and they are more hawkish and imperial, and it starts getting harder to remember that they are on the moral high ground. Elsewhere in the world, it begins to look like the Age of Aquarius and the Berlin Wall falls and the Soviet Union breaks up. Covert wars have fallen out of favor, but new wars result as power vacuums and instability become the wake of the departing Soviet governments. And these are no-holds-barred wars fought by forces not recognized by the international community, and who do not follow the rules.
By the time the 21st century rolls around, the international community has become powerless and its rules of warfare have become meaningless. The United States just blows off the UN and the rules and invades Iraq, killing civilians, destroying the infrastructure, engaging in torture, rape and murder. All justified to a thin majority who supports it in the name of terror.
Now Israel and Hezbollah are pounding the crap out of each other in what could build into a conflagration of biblical proportions, and I'm looking for that moral high ground. Civilians are getting killed on both sides. This morning the IDF suffered a catastrophic success that killed 37 children in Qana.
I'm not finding moral high ground here. I'm not seeing legitimate warfare with the appropriate restraints and protections of civilian populations in Iraq. But I guess I knew all along that I wouldn't. I'm now quite as old as the UN, but I'm approaching my half century mark. And from Viet Nam to Munich and hostages and hijackings to WMDs and preemptive strikes, I can see that there is no such thing as legitimate war. There is no moral high ground.