COLLATERAL DAMAGE: There is a Deep Moral Divide Between Those Who Deliberately Target Civilians and Those Who Don't

By Gil Troy

The Montreal Gazette, August 10, 2002, B3

"War is hell" muttered William T. Sherman, the Civil War general who torched Atlanta and imposed much misery on Southerners rebelling against the United States of America more than a century ago. Sherman's delicate sensibility -- and martial brutality -- capture the absurd anomaly of a democracy at war. The only way to win on the battlefield is to crush your enemy, but "good guys" don't relish the resulting carnage.

For that reason, "collateral damage" is a most unfortunate contribution of Pentagon spinmeisters to the lexicon of war. This awful, dehumanizing phrase obscures thoughtlessly, distances implicitly, excuses categorically. It is, alas, an effective phrase as well, for it describes a widespread reality during wartime. Disasters occur, and democracies at war, "good guys" engaged in brutal activities, genuinely do regret the innocent civilians caught in a crossfire, lives foolishly destroyed by a supposedly smart bomb.

EXPRESSED REGRET

In this epoch of murder and mayhem, during these days when intelligence analysts casually debate whether World War III has begun, defensive and justified wars have been launched against terrorists in various parts of the world, particularly in Israel and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, and inevitably, "collateral damage" has resulted -- friendly soldiers and innocent civilians have mistakenly died. In the spring, in Afghanistan, a United States Air Force bombing raid resulted in the deaths of four allies -- four Canadian soldiers. Last month, another air force bombing raid killed fifty Afghan revellers attending a wedding. And two weeks ago, while "successfully" targetting a master Hamas terrorist, Salah Shehadeh, an Israeli air raid in Gaza City killed 14 civilians, including nine children.

In all three cases, the responsible military and political leaders expressed regret for the unintended loss of life. Moreover, both the Americans and Israelis began formal investigations to explain just what occurred, and how, if possible, to avoid future tragedies. The Israeli bombing was, of course, the most problematic. Military spokesmen explain that the army did not intend to kill civilians, but they admit that the bomb hit the "right" apartment, that they got the "right" man, a man who was responsible for the deaths of dozens and was planning the deaths of many more. And, when a tragedy occurs, while it is easy for Americans to express condolences to their Canadian neighbors or to their Afghan allies, it is much harder for expressions of condolences to traverse the Israeli-Palestinian divide.

Nevertheless, immediately after the Gaza City bombing, the Israeli press was filled with expressions of remorse from across the political spectrum. There were many sincere conversations, publicly and privately, about the great psychic, moral, spiritual, and physical cost of defending the Jewish state during this tragic period. There was much Monday-morning quarterbacking about the Israeli army's choice of timing and weaponry, debating how far the army should go in the future to kill a mass murderer who was planning to kill again.

This collective soul searching is neither tactical nor superficial. It is not done to win some PR points in a media war. It is characteristic of how Israel has operated throughout five decades of painful moral dilemmas and brutal lose-lose choices. It is essential to the functioning of any democracy at war.

MASSIVE CELEBRATIONS

By contrast, in their 23-month-long jihad against Israel and the Oslo peace process, Palestinians terrorists have repeatedly targeted Israeli civilians. Even more disturbing, some of the most brutal terrorist attacks have triggered massive celebrations. Shortly after a suicide bomber killed men, women, and children at the downtown Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria last summer, a Palestinian university -- an Najah National University -- mounted a celebratory exhibition, replete with representations of severed body parts suspended in midair. Last week, after the senseless bombing of Hebrew University killed seven, including five Americans, and injured dozens of others, including South Koreans, Arabs, Americans, and Israelis, thousands of Palestinians rejoiced in Gaza City and the Balata refugee camp near Nablus.

These and countless other incidents, including the Palestinian celebrations after the September 11 bombings, illuminate a dramatic moral divide. Targeting pizza eaters, commuters, and students is no mistake; the "damage" is not collateral but intentional. Rejoicing in the deaths and mutilations of men, women and children proves that a strategy is being followed -- and ratified. In that strategy we see a cruelty that is deliberate, intense, and should be unfathomable.

In our relativistic world, sophisticates snicker when President George W. Bush speaks of "good" and "evil." They are quick to point out all of America's imperfections, all of Israel's mistakes, and all of the "root causes" motivating the 9/11 murderers, the Daniel Pearl kidnappers, the Palestinian mass murderers. But even academics and intellectuals, Canadian labor organizers and European diplomats, should be able to recognize -- and condemn -- cruelty without relativizing it.

EMBRACE CRUELTY

And the fact that Hezbollah and Hamas, al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad, have embraced cruelty as a strategy is all the more contemptible. The deliberate infliction of physical pain and emotional distress on innocent individuals has become the calling card of the Palestinian suicide bombers, the Hezbollah kidnappers who know the fates of missing Israeli soldiers but withhold the information from suffering families, the Osama Bin Laden terrorists, in fact the broader Islamic movement. The entire world needs to denounce this descent into a particularly sadistic form of politics -- instead of rationalizing it and thus legitimizing it.

Whatever delusions from which it might suffer, a culture that regrets war can easily make the transition back to peace. A culture that celebrates cruelty becomes addicted to violence. Palestinians need to purge this poison from their body politic not only for the sake of their future victims, but for their own sakes as well.