This is in relation to the recent Israeli airstrike, (and may end up in GD). But I wonder what are the accepted rules - if indeed there are any - for attacking a military target if it is almost certain that there will also be innocent civilians killed as well. Suppose, for example, that the US found the location of Osama BL, but he had his family and other civilians nearby - could they bomb anyway?
I believe that NATO bombed a large civilian office building in Serbia, due to the presence of some media outlets that they decided were legitimate targets. OTOH, they came in for some criticism over that. So my question is - are there any clear-cut rules, and if so, what are they?
I don’t know if there are any clear-cut rules. Certainly in WWII wholesale bombing of civilian populations was routine.
That some governments like to place some military targets among civilian populations is nothing new either. Saddam did it during the Gulf War (I believe he deliberately even filled some bunkers with civilians so he could try and sway world opinion when the coalition forces vaporized some kids and old women which IIRC happened at least once). Supposedly the Hamas leader Israel was gunning for made it a habit of staying in well populated areas believing that would protect him and up till now it did. Israel has just decided it’d rather kill the guy along with a few dozen innocent people and face world opinion than let him live.
On the whole I think the general feeling is that a military target is a military target and thus fair game no matter where it is. If a government wants to protect its civilians then it shouldn’t erect a missile battery next to a school yard. Nevertheless some governments will think twice before hitting such a target depending on how they feel public opinion could hurt them.
It seems the operative doctrine is military necessity. If it is truly necessary for getting the military job done, then a case can at least be argued for it.
I had this discussion earlier today with someone. The Hamas-Israel case might be difficult to justify, as there could possibly have been some other ways that were reasonably effective which could have been used.
But Israel (especailly lately) seems to like overwhelming force and the “no-contact” methods of the US. This works in open country like Afghansitan, but poorly in a crowded city. What if the British had used this approach against the IRA?
In WW2, the methods available for taking out a strategic target were limited by technology. Bombing an area to destroy a base or factory was pretty much it, and pretty much guaranteed lots of collateral damage. The USAAF tried for a time to limit it by using daylight precision bombing, but this was costly in terms of aircraft and crews (especially w/o fighter protection). The British decided to try to limit losses in this regard by bombing at night, but this resulted in less bombs on the intended target and more unintended damage. That drove “Bomber” Harris’ philosophy of declaring cities themselves as targets. (If you can’t hit anything, then hit everything.) This in turn legitimized (in the minds of the Allies at the time, anyway) the fire bombing of Japan and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One could argue that the restraint the US showed in bombing North Vietnam until the Linebacker offensive was the inverse of the above; that by not pushing military necessity to the edge, the Vietnamese were allowed to render US efforts ineffective and inefficient. It was only when Nixon decided to follow much earlier recommendations to mine the harbors and bomb anything of military value regardless of its proximity to other facilities that the bombing proved effective.