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The Obama Administration Admits Its Rule on Civilian Casualties Is Unworkable in Fighting ISIS
(Wall Street Journal) Alan M. Dershowitz - Last year the Obama administration issued, with considerable fanfare, a new military policy designed to reduce civilian casualties when U.S. forces are attacking enemy targets. This policy required "near certainty" that there will be no civilian casualties before an air attack is permitted. When Israel acted in self-defense this summer against Hamas rocket and tunnel attacks, the Obama administration criticized the Israeli army for "not doing enough" to reduce civilian casualties. Now the Obama administration has exempted itself from its own "near certainty" standard in its attacks against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Its statement came after a Tomahawk missile last week struck the village Kafr Daryan in Syria, reportedly killing and injuring numerous civilians including children and women. In every attack on terrorists who operate from civilian areas, there will be civilian casualties. The Obama administration's theoretical "near certainty" policy has proved to be unworkable and unrealistic in actual battle conditions involving human shields and enemy fighters embedded in densely populated areas. There must be a single universal standard for judging nations that are fighting the kind of terrorism represented by ISIS and Hamas. This standard must be both moral and realistic, capable of being applied equally to all nations committed both to the rule of law and to the obligation to protect citizens from terrorist attacks. The writer is a law professor emeritus at Harvard University.