War Crimes? Pffaww...
It's a good rule of thumb never to let the military conduct its own misconduct investigations. If you don't follow that advice, you'll end up with results like this one:
The Israeli army on Monday said it will not press charges against officers who ordered the use of cluster bombs during last year's war in Lebanon, brushing off international criticism that the weapons unnecessarily put Lebanese civilians at risk.That's one heck of a conclusion. By almost every account, even the limited use of cluster bombs is a serious violation of international law. There's a reason for this: there is little accuracy involved in the dropping of cluster bombs, making civilian casualties nearly inevitable. With munitions that release an array of smaller submunitions, the bombs are highly indiscriminate and often remain unexploded until children or other non-military targets come into contact with them.
Announcing the results of a more than year-long probe, the army said investigators determined Israel's use of cluster bombs was a "concrete military necessity" and did not violate international humanitarian law.
And, according to UN sources, Israel dropped 4 million cluster bomblets, of which 1 million are assumed to be still unexploded. It's no surprise then that on a regular basis in southern Lebanon there are heartbreaking reports of little kids having their arms or legs blown off by still-active submunitions.
3 comments:
Jeb,
This may seem nitpicky, and I don't want to take away from the central point you make, which is right on, but do you mean four million cluster bombs, or four million cluster bomblets? The distinction is important, as four million separate cluster bombs, in addition to causing incredible amounts of damage, would likely be beyond the capacity of the IAF to drop within the time frame of the '06 Lebanon war. I'm assuming you're talking about the number of individual bomblets that the cluster bombs contained, but it's something that you might want to clarify.
Hey Matt -
You're completely right. Thanks for pointing that out - I've edited the wording. How's DC these days? I imagine it's cold. Providence was nasty when I left, and Seattle's a much more tolerable 40 degrees.
The Israeli use of cluster bombs was, in all likelihood, inexcusable (I can't really conceive of exactly what type of tactical situation would leave one with no choice other than to use that particular type of weapon).
But one might also mention that the tactics of their enemy in that conflict were no more humanitarian. Hezbollah routinely placed rocket launchers and munitions caches adjacent to or inside of civilian homes. This was done to ensure a propaganda victory against the IDF (for HB likely viewed a military victory against the IDF as improbable at best) who, in targeting those rocket emplacements, would also destroy a civilian family.
Two wrongs certainly don't make a right, but it is often worth noting (particularly in the Israeli-Arab mess where objectivity is exceedingly rare)when there are two wrongs, not just one.
Post a Comment