Fighting in the Middle East a Test of Ethics

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DEBBIE ELLIOTT, host:

As the United Nations wrestles over the draft agreement, fierce fighting continues in the region. Since the fighting started three weeks ago, hundreds of civilians have been killed in Lebanon and dozens in Israel.

Earlier, I spoke with two leading experts about the large number of civilian casualties and what it means legally and militarily.

Sir Adam Roberts is an expert on the laws of war. He teaches at Oxford University and was at BBC Studios in Oxford.

Retired Major General Robert Scales, the former commandant of the Army War College was here in our studio.

ELLIOTT: Professor Roberts, we'll start with you. Israel has come under a lot of criticism for the civilian casualties that have been caused by its bombings in Lebanon. But Israel says Hezbollah guerrillas have been hiding among the civilians.

Under the laws of war, does this justify the attacks on Lebanese villages and population centers?

Professor ADAM ROBERTS (War Studies, Oxford University): Well, there's no doubt that there is a problem. Now, it doesn't mean that the killing of civilians in response is justified. What it does mean is that there's a very great need for care and discrimination as much as is possible.

I think what has to be absolutely clear about one point in discussing this, which is not every horrific killing, even of civilians, is necessarily a war crime. It's a war crime when it's deliberate killing of civilians or when it's completely culpably careless killing of civilians or when it's deliberate destruction of humanitarian relief efforts. But it isn't a war crime just because there is killing as such.

ELLIOTT: General Scales, let's look at the case of Israel and its targets in southern Lebanon, where civilians are killed, but Israel says it's because Hezbollah is hiding behind civilian populations.

What do you think of Israel's tactics here?

Maj. Gen. ROBERT SCALES (Retired): Well, I think the most important thing is the fact that these wars are fought to shape perceptions, to mold opinions, to influence the attitudes of people, not just in the region but globally. And if that's the strategic objective, then extraordinary measures should be taken to avoid killing civilians because it's the humanitarian right thing to do, but also at the strategic level, it has enormous consequences for the state.

So when you use something like air power, which has always been a blunt instrument - even so-called precision munitions are still munitions that if they're delivered in the wrong place are precisely wrong - you run the risk of excessive casualties among the civilians and not much of a strategic payback in terms of your ability to lessen the power of Hezbollah.

And it's a dilemma that the Israelis are dealing with every day.

ELLIOTT: How do you avoid that?

Maj. Gen. SCALES: The first way you avoid it is to limit the use of very, very large instruments of killing. If a soldier sees the target, if someone shoots at him and he engages that target with either his own weapons or supporting fire, he can be relatively assured that that's not an innocent civilian, that it's Hezbollah. That the lowest collateral damage, increases damage to the enemy, but at the same time it also puts your own forces at risk. It's a balance.

ELLIOTT: Professor Roberts, when you have one entity, Hezbollah, which is continuing to fire rockets into Israel that are aimed at civilian targets, and then on the other side you have Israeli bombs that are also killing civilians, although not directly aimed at them on purpose, you know, what is the difference when you talk about the laws of war between what Hezbollah is doing and what Israel is doing?

Prof. ROBERTS: I think the first thing to say loud and clear is that the Israeli government does accept that the restraints involved in the laws of war, including the idea of proportionality, including the idea of discrimination in targeting, these restraints apply to Israeli operations in Lebanon and elsewhere. On that side, there is that degree of awareness of and commitment to the laws of war which one does not find on the side of Hezbollah.

But having said all of that, I think it's also true that many of the individual Israeli operations in this war raise very serious problems to do with whether the laws of war are being effectively implemented.

I'm thinking particularly of the attack on the power station, the attack on Qana, the attacks on some relief convoys and activities. These have caused really serious concern, and I haven't seen yet full and clear Israeli explanations of what they were trying to do in these particular episodes.

ELLIOTT: General Scales, does the continued bombing by Israel somehow become an advantage for Hezbollah when the world starts to look at it in this way?

Maj. Gen. SCALES: That's a great question, Debbie. You know, this is a diabolical, adaptive enemy who has learned how to take on a first rate military power by improvising. So if one has to assign guilt to all of this, Hezbollah started the fight and Hezbollah is the one who is very callous about expending the lives of his neighbors. And so in that sense, part of Israel's dilemma, I believe, is driven in many ways by the actions of this very, very cruel and diabolical enemy.

ELLIOTT: Which has a stated goal of destroying Israel.

Maj. Gen. SCALES: Well, of course. And Israel has no choice but to fight back and to defeat Hezbollah. But having said that, Hezbollah has really learned how to take on a first-rate power and they're doing it by using civilians in many ways, if not as shields, at least as their means of protecting themselves from overwhelming firepower of the Israeli Air Force.

Prof. ROBERTS: And the perception, the way Israel has fought this war, has enabled Hezbollah to present itself as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty in a situation where Lebanon's own armed forces are notoriously weak, and the ability of the Lebanese government to rule the south of the country is, as is well-known, virtually non-existent.

ELLIOTT: Gentlemen, to both of you, what do you think the lessons are so far from this war?

Prof. ROBERTS: I have to say that I view the situation that we see with gloom. And I think that one of the lessons will be that there is a need for combining toughness on the part of Israel and an ability to defend itself with a degree of prudence and realism that we haven't always seen. And whether it was right to wage a war in Lebanon - a hugely hazardous war - on the basis on the kind of provocation that had occurred last month, which was, frankly, on a pretty small scale compared to what followed it, whether that was right is going to be one big question arising from this war. And the other one is the question that Robert has referred to, this really difficult question of whether it is right to rely on air power or whether an operation like this does really require boots on the ground and a much more careful and discriminate approach.

ELLIOTT: General Scales?

Maj. Gen. SCALES: I think the lessons, from a soldier's perspective, are as follows. In many ways the Israelis are learning the same lessons that we learned in Afghanistan and Iraq. And that is to determine how the military of a Western nation deals with a hardened insurgent and Islamic radical insurgency. Then I think those of us who wear the uniform, or who ever worn the uniform, need to step back and take a good hard look at how we prosecute this war in terms of training, people, material, doctrine, and most importantly, equipment, to make sure in the future those armies, those Western armies, all of us, do it better.

ELLIOTT: Robert Scales is a retired major general and former commandant of the Army War College.

Thanks for being with us.

Maj. Gen. SCALES: Thank you, Debbie.

ELLIOTT: And Sir Adam Roberts is a professor of International Relations at Oxford University and an editor of the book Documents on the Laws of War.

Thank you, sir.

Prof. ROBERTS: Thanks very much, Debbie.

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