Month: August 2006

by Charles

As noted in my previous post, I’ve been critical of Donald Rumsfeld’s performance as Defense Secretary. But my opposition does not extend to cheap shots. An example is the hatchet job by Robert Burns of Associated Press, making stuff up about Rumsfeld’s Tuesday speech at the American Legion National Convention. Thankfully, McQ at QandO exposes the rank bias that Burns is guilty of, comparing Burns’ interpretation of Rumsfeld’s speech with Rumsfeld’s actual words.  [Update:  In typical fashion, AP changed its content without announcing any changes.  See the QandO update.]

The worst part of Burns’ misleading reportage was that it was unquestioningly spread to other news sources such as CNN, ABC, Fox and who knows how many other outlets. Mainstream media was already burned with fauxtography in the Israel-Hezbollah War, yet here we are again, witnessing a mainstream media reporter peddling faux news. Predictably, the Democratic Party took the Burns’ hit piece and ran with it, never mind the actual text of the speech. [Update: Allahpundit has found more interpretation problems concerning Rumsfeld’s speech.]

It’s hard enough fighting an information war against al Qaeda and its sympathizers. The challenge is all the greater when a sometimes hostile media twists and distorts the words of the very people who are directly engaged in fighting this War Against Militant Islamism.  Concerning the Information War, Rumsfeld is dead right:

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by hilzoy

One of the things that always worries me about blogs is this: it’s incredibly easy for one incident to grab a lot of attention, and end up absolutely eclipsing everything else the participants have ever done. In some cases, this is perfectly appropriate: I do not know a lot about Jeffrey Dahmer‘s childhood, his relationships with his friends, or his work history, but I’m not sure what possible revelation could make me think that his being a serial killer and cannibal had just been blown out of proportion. In others, though, it’s not.

I mention this because I was reading this post by Digby, who is one of my favorite bloggers ever, and it contains this from CNN:

“Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded Marine expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq, made the comments Tuesday during a panel discussion in San Diego, California.

“Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot,” Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. “It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.

“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil,” Mattis said. “You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.””

About which Digby says:

“This is just in keeping with Bush administration policy that all the most outrageous of his commanders and failed advisors must be promoted and commended.”

I just finished reading Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco, which has a description of Mattis that makes him sound a lot more complicated, and a lot more impressive, than the CNN article would indicate. (He also comes off pretty well in Cobra II, although the time period that book covers means that he has less of a role.) How that squares with the incident CNN reports (and which Ricks also notes) I have no idea. In Ricks’ book, the impressive part comes first, and so when I arrived at the episode CNN describes, I didn’t think “oh, a bloodthirsty neanderthal”; I though: how on earth did the guy I read about earlier end up saying that? I can imagine various possibilities — for one thing, Mattis generally comes across as someone who thinks: you have to be very fair and very smart in wartime, and you have to think about the morality of what you do, but that said, sometimes you also have to kill people. He also comes across as someone who genuinely likes being in the Marines, and who also likes fighting. It’s not impossible to think of ways in which a person like that might say something like what CNN reports, especially if you imagine that he really did mean the “some” in “It’s fun to shoot some people.”

I mean: I do not, myself, understand why someone would enjoy shooting any people. It’s a mystery to me, the way it’s a mystery that some people enjoy putting money into a machine that periodically spits small fractions of it back to them when cheesy pictures of fruit line up. But since there are people who genuinely like warfare, the armed forces is a good place for them, and I think a lot would turn on whether they recognize the importance of keeping that peculiar taste within extremely clear and well-structured limits. (The way it’s really important for someone with the sort of go-for-the-jugular competitiveness that a world-class athlete would need to keep that feature of her personality confined to her sport, and out of, say, her marriage.) As I said, I don’t know Gen. Mattis, so I’m in no position to say whether he does recognize that or not. But Ricks’ description suggests that he does, and so, in the interests of context and fairness, I will summarize and excerpt some of what Ricks says below the fold.

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by Charles

This may no longer be an issue in the present situation because so many civilians have fled southern Lebanon.  But if not there, the topic remains relevant because it is likely that one party or another will use human shields in future engagements.  In the Israel-Hezbollah War, Hezbollah has been clearly violating Article 28 of the Geneva Conventions for protecting civilians:

The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.

If Hezbollah does not allow civilians to leave, they are committing a war crime because it is illegal to take hostages.  There also provisions under Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions, although Israel (and the United States) is not a signatory.  However, the U.S. and Israel have accepted many of its provisions under customary international law.  When Hezbollah launches rockets from an apartment building into Israeli territory, that building has become a base for military operations.  Same principles apply for mosques, hospitals, schools, etc.  Each time Hezbollah launches a rocket, they are committing a terrorist act because their target is a zip code, not a military target.  So far, over 3,000 terrorist rocket attacks have occurred.  It is a legitimate act of self-defense to take out those launchers and rockets before militant Islamists launch again.  If civilians die in those counterstrikes, the fault lies with Hezbollah for putting their own people in peril.  Former professor of human rights Yoram Dinstein:

Customary international law is certainly more rigorous than the [Geneva] Protocol on this point.  It has traditionally been perceived that, should civilian casualties ensue from an attempt to shield combatants or a military objective, the ultimate responsibility lies with the belligerent [party] placing innocent civilians at risk.  A belligerent…is not vested by the laws of international armed conflict with the power to block an otherwise legitimate attack against combatants (or military objectives) by deliberately placing civilians in harm’s way.

The above is cited from his 2004 book The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict.  Admittedly, Dinstein have may a bias toward Israel since he was a professor at Tel Aviv University.

Israel doesn’t have a spotless record in the matter of human shields either.  Just a month ago, the IDF used Palestinians as human shields for an incursion into Gaza:

After seizing control of the buildings, the soldiers held six residents, two of them minors, on the staircases of the two buildings, at the entrance to rooms in which the soldiers positioned themselves, for some twelve hours. During this time, there were intense exchanges of gunfire between the soldiers and armed Palestinians. The soldiers also demanded that one of the occupants walk in front of them during a search of all the apartments in one of the buildings, after which they released her.

IDF also illegally used Palestinian human shields in the Battle of Jenin.  According to Louis Rene Beres, professor of international law at Purdue University, human shields also fall under the category of perfidy, which is not permissible under international law (but ruses are okay).  So what is the proper response under international law when the enemy uses these perfidious acts?  In a September 2004 issue of Military Review, Daniel Schoenekase defines the different types of human shields–proximity, involuntary and voluntary–and raises questions about other groups such as civilian workers at a munitions factory.  Schoenekase puts forth "targeting principles" when the enemy uses human shields to prevent counterattacks:  military necessity, discrimination (distinction), humanity and proportionality.  Commanders must evaluate the following before giving the green light to striking a human-shielded target:

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