I don't often agree with Alan Dershowitz. But he is absolutely right to note the double standards inherent in the near-universal praise for the the recent targeted killing of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi when contrasted with the near-universal condemnation of Israel's very similar targeting of top Hamas terrorists. Many of the same governments and organizations that now applaud the death of Zarqawi condemned the killing of Hamas' top leader Sheikh Yassin in 2004. Interestingly, Hamas itself has been consistent on the issue, and recently issued a statement praising Zarqawi and condemning his assassination (though of course they have no objection to the targeted killing of civilians by Zarqawi and by their own operatives).
In my view, targeting terrorist leaders is not only defensible, but actually more ethical than going after rank and file terrorists or trying to combat terrorism through purely defensive security measures. The rank and file have far less culpability for terrorist attacks than do their leaders, and killing them is less likely to impair terrorist operations. Purely defensive measures, meanwhile, often impose substantial costs on innocent people and may imperil civil liberties. Despite the possibility of collateral damage inflicted on civilians whom the terrorist leaders use as human shields, targeted assassination of terrorist leaders is less likely to harm innocents than most other strategies for combatting terror and more likely to disrupt future terrorist operations.
That does not prove that it should be the only strategy we use, but it does mean that we should reject condemnations of it as somehow immoral. Even more clearly, we should reject the double standards of those who claim that it is permissible to target Zarqawi but wrong for Israel to target equally odious Hamas leaders.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers!
This depends upon the level of immediate control exercised by the leaders. If the organization is an optimally functioning cell system -- which may or may not be the case here -- the removal of the leadership will have minimal impact on any actions already planned. In such a case, it is far more useful to capture the leadership rather than kill it.
When a terrorist organization is able to command volunteers for suicide missions at the lowest level, then it is far from clear to me that these fanatics are far less culpable than the leaders, who, in the present examples, appear to have far more respect for the hadith against suicide when it comes to their own self-preservation.
Also it took the US forces about a half hour to get to the house after the bombing, it would have taken them much longer to get there and to set up for a raid. He might have escaped during that period.
And there must have been considerable doubt that he would have given us any useful information. All in all, it's seems better that he is gone.
I agree with you that targeted killings are justified, but, I don't think they are exactly the same as engaging hostile forces in battle.
When most critics attack Israel for using indiscriminate force they do not mean indiscriminate force relative to their military objective, which would be a rather hard charge to pin on Israel. Rather what they mean is indiscriminate force relative to the political platform of withdrawal from the territories. I find it extraordinarily frustrating when the phrase "indiscriminate force" is used without a narrow and specific objective.
And the Israelis should think about targeting any large group of Hamas functionaries, a meeting of the legislature for example.
I'm not sure that is fair, of course, but I do believe it is inevitable.
Seems to me that the most moral strategy given that you're already in a war is to win it with as few casualties on either side as possible. That in turn argues for targeting the other side's leadership, as high up as possible. The grunts on the other side's front line have no power to stop the war; only the emperor/fuerher/dictator can do that. If we had managed to assassinate the top twenty or so Nazis within a week, any time after 1942, the European war would have been over pretty quickly.
There is no doubt Israel has a serious problem with Islamic terrorism, but it has and continues to deal with that problem as a law enforcement and legal issue, both in Israel proper and the occupied territories. But to say that the level of violence in Israel is even comparable to the in Iraq is just ridiculous. Israel has a functioning and effective justice system, Iraq does not. It regularly captures terrorists, tries them in civilian courts and sends them to prison for defined prison terms (not until the "war against terror" ends). When it resorts to extralegal means by targeting leaders of terrorist organizations for assasination, especially when such crude methods as missiles and bombs are used that kill innocent bystanders, is a violation of all the principles of a country that believe in the rule of law. Whether or not the criminals "play by the rules" doesn't even enter into it.
By comparison, as much as the right and the President may pretend otherwise, Iraq is still a country at war (the security is so bad there, the President didn't even tell the Prime Minister of Iraq that he was coming until five minutes before he showed up). As I noted in an earlier thread, while it may be illegal to deliberately target the legitimate civlian leaders of sovereign nations in times of war, Zarqawi was no such thing. He was a leader of a guerilla movement, and as a foreigner, couldn't even claim to be a legal combatant under Geneva. He was a legitimate target for military attack. The only complaint I could see even the most hardcore anti-war leftist making is did the U.S. do everything possible to minimize the possibility of collateral damage. And that is even pretty weak, since I doubt that Zarqawi would have been taken alive and any civilians in that house would have been killed regardless.
Is it morally OK for Hamas to target Israeli leaders? Is it morally OK for al Qaeda to target US or Iraqi leaders? How do you distinguish all of these cases?
So in your view, is "Israeli rule of law" supposed to operate in Gaza? Were the Israelis supposed to go into Gaza, arrest those two militants, return them to Israel, and put them on trial? Just curious...
I guess I'm just obtuse, but I don't understand how those two Hamas militants can possibly not be viewed as a legitimate target for military attack, just as Zarqawi was.
The situation in Gaza is untenable and your implication is correct, an attempt to arrest any Hamas leaders in Gaza would most likely end in failure. However, that does not legitimate the extralegal assasination of Hamas or other terrorist organization leaders, especially when the method used are almost guaranteed to kill innocent bystanders. I might be more inclined to support methods that were less destructive (e.g., sniper attacks), but bombings and missile attacks are completely unjustified.
Besides, have they really done any good? It seems all they do is create martyrs and inflame hatred Israel among the Palestinians as well as the rest of the world. The solution to the Palestinian problem is no closer to being solved than it was forty years ago, and the situation worse today than it has been in more than twenty years (which of course I blame Bush for).
I don't know how they square their no death penalty laws with targeted killings.
You really don't. Hamas is at war with Israel, according to its charter. Given that, they are, as a combatant, justified in attacking the head of their enemy, absolutely. But with that said, you do have to draw a distinction between civilian and military, e.g., Hamas may be "justified" in attacking Shaul Mofaz, but not, say, the Education Minister.
What it boils down to is that war is brutal, and the longer it lasts, the more brutal it is. Efficiency, i.e., killing the head, will usually reduce net brutality.
One simply cannot claim that the Israelis are required to fight with one arm tied while Hamas is not similarly constrained (the latter, of course, demands the destruction of the former). If you insist that this is not 'war', then I must insist in return that whatever it is, the Israelis retain the right to find and kill the leaders of the people trying to kill them.
Actually, splitting hairs is what the law is all about. And as I stated above, even at the worst periods of unrest in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel proper, the situation has never been as dire as it currently is in Iraq. Something like 1400 bodies were delivered to the Bagdhad morgue in May. There is a full scale war occurring in Iraq along with complete lawlessness. Even the Iraqi police are of questionable loyalty. To compare the Iraqi government to the stable, functioning Israeli government is just ridiculous.
I'm sure you can find 1000 other distinctions. Maybe Yassin was killed on a Tuesday, and Zarqawi on a Thursday? The point is that your distinctions do not mandate different conclusions.
Freder,
The law is not all about splitting hairs. It is also about defining relevant issues. Assuming for the sake of argument that your statistic is true, is the body count the relevant issue? Suppose Palestinian suicide bombers can only kill 14 or 140 Israelis, with Israel having to devote extraordinary resources to keeping even more out. Does this convey moral or legal protection on those who dispatch them? What is the relevant issue?
Israel has pulled out of Gaza. Hamas, which controls Gaza, refuses to recognize the right of Israel to exist, or of its citizens to live there. It continues to shoot rockets at Israel and to send fighters not in uniform to kill Israeli civilians. Freder-- what may the state of Israel legitimately do to defend its citizens against Hamas and its leadership?
Are you really describing the conflict in Iraq as low intensity? If so, you are missing the deep intractable jungle for the sylvan glade. It is hardly a "low intensity" conflict when it has cost the U.S. over 20,000 casulties and the Iraqis and untold number. When the president can't even tell the prime minister he is visiting until he is already on the ground of a supposedly sovereign country. Can you imagine the Foreign head of state showing up at the White House unannounced, the State Department not even being advised of his travel plans.
I'm not saying that the level of fighting in Iraq and Gaza is on the same scale, but they are both at the end of the day LIC.
I have never been in the military. I have worked for them as a civilian contractor and my wife is Active Duty Army (currently in Kuwait). I never want to give the impression that I was in the military.
While it might comfort you to call Iraq a LIC, which I guess by a strict textbook definition it is, calling it that is bordering on ludicrous as it is bordering on a full scale civil war.
Nonsense. The IDF is not military? Targetting militants isn't a military operation? On the one hand you say Israel mounts "extra-legal" military ops. On the other hand you claim it is a problem of "law enforcement" exclusively. Self contradictory babble. Make up your mind.
Who said that? No one.
Further, aren't confused anti-war types like you eager to point out that Zarqawi was typically responsible for no more than a small percentage of insurgent activity? Now suddenly ALL the deaths in Iraq are attributable to him?
Oops, sounds like self-contradictory babble again.
Nor do the Territories. Your argument collapses.
But wait - the US has a functioning and effective justice system as well, so how come your analogy is inapposite? I wonder.
Exactly. Laughable non sequiturs and point missing hand-waving galore. Maybe he is just being deliberately obtuse, so it's ok.
Did I say that? Don't think so. All I said was that he was a legitimate military target.
But to say that the level of violence in Israel is even comparable to the in Iraq is just ridiculous.
Maybe nobody said it explicitly, but Ilya's original argument was that the two situations couldn't be distinguished, so it seemed to me that his argument was just that.
But wait - the US has a functioning and effective justice system as well, so how come your analogy is inapposite? I wonder.
Well, if Zarqawi was holed up in a house in a U.S. territory, say Puerto Rico, I might be a little more upset about dropping two 500 lb bombs on him than I am in an active combat zone in Iraq. The status of Gaza and the West Bank are now so hopelessly confused, especially after the election of the Hamas government, that it is hard to discuss its status vis a vis Israel and sovereignty.
Nobody said it, period.
Just as nobody said Zarqawi and Yassin were killed on the same day either - so what? Is your response then to say, Welp, Ilya said they couldn't be distinguished, but in reality they were killed on different days (a fine but critical distinction!).
You invoke a straw-man, pretend it has relevance, then proceed to knock it down. Absurd logic.
LOL! In other words you can't understand how Israel (the occupying forces) and the USA (occupying forces) are held to different standards when both have carried out targetted assassinations in the territories they occupy. Which was Ilya's point to begin with. QED, pal.
First of all, the U.S. is no longer an "occupying force" in Iraq. Officially it ceased that function when the new government took over.
Secondly, Israel's status in the occupied territories is much more complicated than being simply an "occupying force" under international law.
Ilya's original post was rather disingenuous because he claims he can't distinguish between Israel's targeted killings and that of Zarqawi. If a law professor at a top tier law school really can't see any substansive difference between the two situations and at least acknowledge the distinction, even if he believes Israel's policies are legally justified, I really doubt the quality of scholarship at our law schools.
I know and you know that you know better. Just because locals are responsible for keeping some of the order, does not mean we are not in fact an occupying force.
That's one conclusion you could draw. (Just as dubiously), one can conclude that since a professor at a top tier law school finds no distinction between Yassin and Zarkman, the quality of scholarship among ex-civilian contractors with deployed spouses should be called into question.
Again, I'm not taking a stand on the merits of the comparison. But it does seem to me that Ilya's post doesn't do much to acknowledge that the moral propriety of attacking terrorist leaders in this fashion may depend on the wider circumstances.
For example, Ilya says: "Despite the possibility of collateral damage inflicted on civilians whom the terrorist leaders use as human shields, targeted assassination of terrorist leaders is less likely to harm innocents than most other strategies for combatting terror and more likely to disrupt future terrorist operations."
As I think we agree, Ilya is making a relevant point, but this very logic implies that the degree to which we can morally justify "collateral damage inflicted on civilians" depends on things like the magnitude and intensity of the terrorist operations we will disrupt as a result.
Accordingly, I think Ilya's penultimate conclusion is too broad. He says: "That does not prove that it should be the only strategy we use, but it does mean that we should reject condemnations of it as somehow immoral."
The more accurate conclusion would be that these strategies may or may not be immoral, but that can depend on things like whether we have an adequate justification for the incidental killings and injurings of civilians.
Which, finally, makes Ilya's ultimate conclusion too hasty. He says: "Even more clearly, we should reject the double standards of those who claim that it is permissible to target Zarqawi but wrong for Israel to target equally odious Hamas leaders."
But it may or may not be a "double standard". In particular, it might be the same standard being applied in light of different circumstances.
Or not--again, I'm not taking a stand on that issue. I just don't think that Ilya can make such an argument in the abstract.
Nor Israel in Gaza. The targetted assassinations there should be hunky dory then. But they aren't, which was the point, again.
Of course, the Palestinians can claim till they are blue in the face that Israel (or Iraqi insurgents of the US for that matter) is still an 'occupying force' in Gaza, but that doesn't change one whit of the fact that the IDF and Israel no longer have a presence in those territories to qualify as 'occupying' them.
As for your last paragraph about Ilya not being able to see the "substantive difference", welp, I confess that I am mystified as well, as your explanations are anything but coherent.
Zarqawi is a MILITARY commander, with deep involvement in actual fighting, including videotapes of him killing people! He lacks even the fig leaf of political cover that Gerry Adams and Sheikh Yassin have. IMHO, killing Zarqawi is analagous to firing a depth charge at a U-boat. Are you trying to kill people when you fire a depth charge? Yes. Does that make it assassination? No. It is combat against a military target.
The difference with Israel's targeted killings is that they explicitly target people who at least claim to be political rather than military leaders, and who are not known to have recently participated in combat, and who have some evidence of potential political/electoral support. Is this justified? Well, I think so, but I think reasonable people can disagree, since many reasonable people think targeted killings only perpetuate a cycle of retributive violence.
It's all about splitting hairs, Freder.
However, I don't think this is the best argument one can come up with against Israel's targed killings. While it may be the way people argue for the illegality of Israel's actions it seems to me that the 'legal' issues are more of a distraction than a help in this case. Unlike in well developed legal systems violating international law isn't considered an automatic bad, I believe the NATO intervention in Bosnia violated international law but if I'm mistaken the point stands that people decide whether they find an action good or bad and then if they don't like it use international law as a way to critisize it. Moreover, the way international law is used in these situations disgusts me. I agree with Freder about the important of technicalities, but, as we have seen with previous posts here these technicalities make the israeli palestinian conflict very murky (does the land count as government land or privately owned land etc.. etc..).
So putting aside the legal questions I think someone could make a very good case that Israel's targed assasinations simply do more harm than good. Israel has been engaging in this policy for many years and it doesn't seem to have stopped the bombings nor is it clear it has even reduced them. The palestinian resistance organizations are simply too strong and too large for these strikes to do really serious harm to their capabilities. Thus, one could argue, the main purpose of the strikes is to get vengence and vent Israeli anger. In fact one might even claim that these strikes further stir up palestinian sentiments and thus block a future peace deal.
The situation in Iraq with Zarqawi is quite different. Zarqawi is a singular sort of figurehead whose continued presence was a major PR victory for the insurgents. Unlike in Palestine, rather than further angering most of the people Zarqawi's death was cause for great celebration and arguably increased confidence in the american's/Iraqi government's ability to keep the peace. Besides, the israeli's have been at this for years without ending the violence (though the wall whatever its problems does seem to be helping) it is reasonable for us to at least try and see if it works.
In short while I'm not convinced one could certainly argue differences in the situations make killing Zarqawi justified but Israeli assasinations merely further the cycle of violence. Maybe someone with more evidence can shed more light on the truth of the later claim.
I think you are referring to Kosovo, In Bosnia NATO was invited in pursuant to the Dayton accords.
Why not wait for someone else to make the point, and then continue to ignore Dershowitz?
So if Zarqawi had claimed to be a political leader we wouldn't have been OK? But didn't he in fact claim just that? Does Zarqawi even make a distinction between political and military leadership? Does Hamas?
No, the Israelis are targeting military leaders.
logicnazi,
Israel has been engaging in this policy for many years and it doesn't seem to have stopped the bombings nor is it clear it has even reduced them.
Well, it's clear to me that it dramatically reduced them. And I believe it is clear to the Israeli government as well: A two-thirds cut in terrorist attacks is pretty strong evidence to me. Please note the date - November 22, 2004 - before the wall went up. StrategyPage is an excellent source for informaiton about all things military.
Yours,
Wince
Not much outrage!? Is that how you remember the Moscow theatre siege aftermath. It seems there was nothing but outrage and complaints about how badly Russian security forces bungled the operation.
After 38 months, the casualty totals begin to approach those suffered in ten hours on Sept. 17, 1862, at Antietam, or about half the losses in three days at Gettsburg.
Correction, American casulties are reaching levels experienced in those two horrendous battles. Is this meant to make us happy that we don't fight such bloody battles anymore or sad we are not willing to throw away human life so needlessly?
The U.S. has purposely not counted or reported Iraqi casulties (except when it suits them), offering varying explanations for not doing so. The absolute indisputable minimum number of Iraqi deaths directly attributable to acts of war or terror(that is documented, verified, deaths reported in western media) is approaching 40,000. The actual number is probably several times higher and doesn't include the excess deaths caused by the general lawlessness, lack of medical care and disease. The casulty rate among Iraqis, both civilians and participants in the war, is probably heartbreaking.
During the last years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the CIA operated the Phoenix Program, which essentially consisted of paramilitary ambush or similar "special operations" designed to kill strategically identified Viet Cong or NVA officers.
Phoenix, when it became known, was widely denounced as an "assassination program." I recall thinking at the time that although I opposed the war, I could not see a significantly increased moral violation just because we knew the names of the persons we were trying to kill.
By contrast, the aftermath of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have involved highly-publicized missions to kill individual enemy leaders. Public opinion is generally very supportive, even as the Iraq war becomes less popular.
Palestinian militant killed in Gaza raid
Palestinian militants vowed today to avenge Israel's assassination of the Hamas government's top security chief... The security chief, Jamal Abu Samhadana, was a key player in ongoing Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel... Abu Samhadana, 43, was an explosives expert and a suspect in the fatal 2003 bombing of a US convoy in the Gaza Strip.
This guy is a "civilian political leader"? Hmmmm. Sounds like a valid military target to me, if ever there was one.
This is the same fallacy that attempts to charactize the nature of the danger to Israel by the number of deaths of Israeli civilians.
For every "successful" terrorist attack, there are literally 100s of attempts. In addition to the horrible deaths and maimings they've suffered, Israelis has been forced to change their way of life to keep that number as low as they can. Israel is as moral as any fighting force in the history of the world at minimizing civilian casualties.
What critics do not understand (or tendentiously ignore) is that terrorists INTENTIONALLY place themselves in areas that are crawling with civilians to (1) protect themselves, the wusses and (2) to make Israel look ruthless. Terrorists in Iraq do a similar thing to coalition forces. Neither Israel nor the U.S. has anything to apoplogize for.
For more information on the staggering lies of the Palestinians, aided by gullible media and abetted by media collaboration, see
You mean the way the Philadelphia PD burnt down a city block to get rid of the folks from M.O.V.E.?
We have elevated it to a strategy.