Back From Vacation - Blog Stuff

Not blogging has been interesting; on the good hand, I have more time - and TG has been really, reallyhappy about it. On the other I feel the fur building up in my brain as I relax and don't try and think about things, and worse, don't have my thinking challenged on all fronts. I have come to realize that I like blogging a lot most of all not because I get to write, but because I have to respond.

That goes to the core of what will happen with the new site. It's taken a little longer than it should have - the holidays, a change in vendors (evariste stepped in and bailed my a** out), and my own spread attention delayed it.

But it ought to be ready to launch at the end of this week, along with a work blog that I hope to keep up as well.

So let's talk about what will change.

Gaza and the Law of Armed Conflict

While much of the world engages in hand-wringing, placard-waving, teeth-gnashing, and rocket-launching over Israel’s “disproportionate” response to Hamas attacks from Gaza, it’s worth looking at what the doctrines of “proportionality” actually say.

Making the rounds is a two-year old quote from Lionel Beehner’s paper for the Council on Foreign Relations in which he summarizes the principle of proportionality as laid out by the 1907 Hague Conventions. “According to the doctrine, a state is legally allowed to unilaterally defend itself and right a wrong provided the response is proportional to the injury suffered. The response must also be immediate and necessary, refrain from targeting civilians, and require only enough force to reinstate the status quo ante.”

The precise wording of the doctrine can be found in Article 51, not Article 49 as Beehner writes, of the Draft Articles of the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. “Countermeasures must be commensurate with the injury suffered, taking into account the gravity of the internationally wrongful act and the rights in question.”

This is vague and open to interpretation, as Beehner admits. And it’s further complicated by the fact that the doctrine was laid out at a time when war was fought between sovereign states with standing armies rather than asymmetrically between a sovereign state and a terrorist gang.

Proportion, as defined by Beehner and the Hague Conventions, is impossible between Israel and Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces are more professional, competent and technologically advanced than Hamas and will inflict greater damage as a matter of course. And Hamas’s war aim is entirely out of proportion to Israel’s. Israel wants to halt the incoming rocket fire, while Hamas seeks the destruction or evacuation of Israel.

Beehner’s proportionality doctrine is therefore unhelpful. Each side’s ends and means are disproportionate to the other. And nowhere in that doctrine are casualty figures or the intent of the warring parties factored in.

In any case, no war has ever been fought tit for tat, and the Hague Conventions doesn’t say any war should be. The American response to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor went well beyond sinking an equal number of ships in a Japanese harbor, for instance. And European Jews certainly were not entitled to execute six million German civilians after the Holocaust.

The proportionality doctrine spelled out here is really only useful up to a point. “It’s always a subjective test,” Beehner correctly quotes Vanderbilt University Professor Michael Newton as saying. “But if someone punches you in the nose, you don’t burn their house down.” That much most of us can agree on. Israel should not – and will not – implement a Dresden-style fire-bombing of Gaza City in response to Qassam and Grad rocket attacks.

So aside from the obvious, we’re wading into murky territory that could be debated forever. Another doctrine of proportionality, though, clearly applies to this war, and it’s found in the Law of Armed Conflict.

The Law of Armed Conflict “arises from a desire among civilized nations to prevent unnecessary suffering and destruction while not impeding the effective waging of war. A part of public international law, LOAC regulates the conduct of armed hostilities. It also aims to protect civilians, prisoners of war, the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked.”

Proportionality, in short and according to the law, “prohibits the use of any kind or degree of force that exceeds that needed to accomplish the military objective.”

In other words, if a surgical strike is all that is needed to take out a Grad rocket launcher, carpet bombing the entire city or even the neighborhood isn’t allowed.

Hamas is still firing rockets; therefore, the IDF is not using more force than necessary to disrupt the firing of rockets. Israel, arguably, is using less force than necessary. And the IDF, unlike Hamas, does what it can to minimize injury to civilians. “Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas,” the Associated Press reported last week. “Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.” Israeli commanders are even warning individual Hamas leaders that their homes are on the target list so they can vacate the premises in advance.

Read the rest in Commentary Magazine.

What does Hamas aspire to?

Michael Gerson in The Washington Post:

There is no question -- none -- that Israel's attack on Hamas in Gaza is justified. No nation can tolerate a portion of its people living in the conditions of the London Blitz -- listening for sirens, sleeping in bomb shelters and separated from death only by the randomness of a Qassam missile's flight. And no group aspiring to nationhood, such as Hamas, can be exempt from the rules of sovereignty, morality and civilization, which, at the very least, forbid routine murder attempts against your neighbors.

Mr. Gerson has apparently fallen into the fallacy that the rulers of the Palestinian people desire for the "peace process" to work just as its Western proponents envision. That is the "two state solution" for which the objective is a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestinian state of the West Bank and Gaza, with the Bank being, finally, free of Israeli presence and most (or all) of the Jewish settlements that have been built there over the years.

Other thoughts on proportionality

I have not posted here in quite awhile, but Michael Totten's piece on what an Israeli "proportional" response would look like prompted me to add my two cents.

Michael is quite right, of course, and the charges of disproportionality thrown at Israel are hurled with no evidence that the accusers have ever actually studied Just War theory, of which proportionality is one tenet.

The top U.N. human rights official says Israel's military response to the firing of rockets at its territory by Palestinian militants is "disproportionate." U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says she is distressed at the enormous loss of life in Gaza and calls on Israel to prevent collective punishment and the targeting of civilians.

What Would a Proportionate Response Look Like?

“If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” – President-elect Barack Obama

Now that Hamas’s long war against Israel is matched with a short war in Gaza, protests are erupting everywhere from the blogosphere and Arab capitals to the United Nations, and they began on the very first day. Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald Would a Proportionate Response Look Like? calls the Israeli retaliation to more than a year of rocket attacks a “massively disproportionate response.” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay “strongly condemned Israel’s disproportionate use of force.” The Israeli counterattack is, indeed, disproportionate, but it could hardly be otherwise. “At last count,” J.G. Thayer wrote, “one Israeli and two Palestinians (sisters, ages 13 and 5) died from rocket attacks. So a proportionate response, one presumes, would have required Israel to kill a single Palestinian and two of its own citizens.”

There were, I suppose, other “proportionate” responses available aside from killing one Palestinian and two Israelis. The Israel Defense Forces might have launched thousands of air strikes against targets in Gaza to match the thousands of Qassam rockets fired at the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon. It’s unlikely, however, that this is what Israel’s critics have in mind.

So what do they have in mind? What would a legitimate and “proportionate” response actually look like? Surely they don’t believe Israel should scrap its sophisticated weapons systems, build Qassam rockets, and launch those at Gaza instead.

The “disproportionate response” crowd doesn’t seem to mind that Israel struck back at Hamas per se. They aren’t saying Israel should only be allowed to negotiate with its enemies or that any use of force whatsoever is wrong. They’re clearly saying Israel should use less force, inflict less damage, or both.

One problem here is that it’s not at all clear how they think Israelis should go about doing it. The weapons used by each side can’t be the same. No one has ever said Israel ought to put its superior weapons systems in cold storage until Hamas can develop or purchase something similar. Presumably Israel is allowed to use its superior technology as long as the casualty count on each side is proportionate.

But how would that work in practice? A single Israeli air strike is going to kill at least as many people as Hamas can kill in twelve months. Does that mean Israel should be given a “license” of one air strike per year to use in the war? If IDF commanders want to take out a target where they expect five Hamas leaders or fighters to be killed, do they have to wait until five Israelis are killed first? If the Israelis endure rocket fire until one civilian is killed, do they get a “kill one Palestinian terrorist” coupon?

Read the rest in Commentary Magazine.

Dec 2008: What's Coming in Afghanistan

StrategyPage discusses US plans for Afghanistan:

It would take about 18 months to get all the new forces to Afghanistan. That would then result in a Western force of about 100,000 troops (62,000 U.S. and 40,000 NATO). In that time, the Afghans are expected to expand their own security forces (police and army), arm and train some tribal militias, to produce a total force of nearly 300,000 local and foreign troops and police.

Canada, and some other NATO members, object to the U.S. plan to provide weapons and training to form more reliable anti-Taliban militias. The U.S. and Britain believe these militias are an acceptable risk.... Many NATO nations are appalled at the amount of corruption in Afghanistan, with tribal leaders often keeping most of the aid provided to their tribe, for themselves. These nations prefer to put more effort into cleaning up the government, police (which are notoriously inept and corrupt) and improving the army (which is pretty good, but small). But the Americans and British have worked with these tricky tribal situations often in the past. As the Brits like to put it, "who dares, wins." The Americans have decades of experience with the tribes, having been there since the 1980s, during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Europeans don't always trust American combat experience, it being an article of faith in Europe that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a mistake, and winning that war was a fluke. Those lucky, but ignorant, Americans! The anti-militia crowd will lose this argument, but you'll see a lot about it in the media. Allies squabbling, whether real or imagined, makes for exciting news. But the basic American strategy is to play the game the Afghan way. The tribes are in it for the long haul, and will change sides if they sense they are losing. The Americans and Brits want to use superior firepower, mobility and cash reserves to flip as many tribes as possible, as quickly as possible, to hand the Taliban a very obvious, and well publicized "defeat."

I still think Pakistan is the key problem, owing to sheer numbers. Still, this strikes me as the best approach within Afghanistan. Hopefully, the interim strategy will also take some pointers from this source.

Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan: 2008 report

Back in October 2006, I wrote "Special Report: Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan, 2005-2006." In recent days, Australia's special operations commander, Maj.-Gen. Tim Mcowan, DSC, CSM talked about recent Australian special operations efforts in Afghanistan, including both Australian SAS and commando groups.

Some stirring accounts of bravery, as you might expect. See also items #32 & 33 re: the effectiveness of targeting terrorist leaders.

New Weapon in Afghanistan: Viagra

No, really - and it's working.

When you think about the structure and mentality of Islamic societies, the concept makes complete sense. Kudos to the people on the ground who thought of this... and what an interesting statement about global brands.

Gaza and CNN

Michael Oren, The New Republic:

"CNN International's coverage of yesterday's fighting in Gaza concluded at midnight with a rush of images: mangled civilians writhing in the rubble, primitive hospitals overflowing with the wounded, fireballs mushrooming between apartment complexes, the funeral of a Palestinian child. Missing from the montage, however, was even a fleeting glimpse of the tens of thousands of Israelis who spent last night and much of last week in bomb shelters; of the house in Netivot, where a man was killed by a Grad missile; or indeed any of the hundreds of rockets, mortar shells, and other projectiles fired by Hamas since the breakdown of the so-called ceasefire. This was CNN at its unprincipled worst, grossly skewering its coverage of a complex event and deceiving its viewers. Yet Israel should not have been surprised."

Of course not. It's not like dead jews have ever meant anything to people like CNN. Then, too, the "news" organization who admitted covering up Saddam's atrocities in order to keep their media "access" going can be expected to be hiring themselves out as paid propagandists to Hamas, in return for a similar favor.

Tim Russert: Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot...

The New York Times Magazine, of all publications, honors a guy I miss already, and who I'll miss more as the years roll on. Calling Tim Russert the John Madden of politics is just about note perfect.

The headline says "Role Model...." If only the NYT actually treated him so.