[The Australian] Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Jim Molan - When I was involved in military operations in the Iraq war, working with the U.S. military, every offensive action I took had to be necessary for military reasons, not result in unnecessary suffering, was amenable to distinction between military and civil people and property, and did not cause destruction or suffering disproportionate to the expected military gain, even against legitimate military targets. Our adversary in Iraq consistently ignored all humanitarian law as well as the laws of war, particularly the blatant abuse of medical facilities and places of worship. Our adversary's major strategy was to blow the arms and legs off innocent women and children at times calculated to fit the need of the world's media networks. This was an immorality of strategy that was breathtaking, exercised not just once or twice, but over years. But the defender also has obligations. He cannot exploit the law by deliberately commingling his fighters with civilians, as Hamas admits it did. This violates the most basic principle of the law of war. Inherent in the principle of protecting the civilian population is a requirement that civilians not be used to render areas immune from military operations. A party to a conflict that chooses to use its civilian population for military purposes violates its obligation to protect its own civilians. It should not complain (but of course it will) when inevitably, although regrettable, civilian casualties result. As a soldier who has run a war against an opponent not dissimilar to Hamas, facing problems perhaps similar to those faced by Israeli commanders, my sympathies tend to lie with the Israelis. The Goldstone report is an opinion by one group of people putting forward their judgments, with limited access to the facts, and reflecting their own prejudices. It comes down to equality of skepticism: if you refuse to believe anything the Israelis say, then you have no right to unquestioningly accept what Hamas says. The writer was chief of operations of the Iraq multinational force in 2004-05.
2009-10-05 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive