In modern war is the distinction between civilians & military a false dichotomy?

Great Debates
1

In reading the Israel - Media bias thread in GD it did give me pause to consider if the distinctions made between combatants (miltary), and non-combatants (civilian population) is largely one of convenience.

In the end if it’s truly a “war” of cultures, nations etc. aren’t these distinctions a little precious? However irrational or paranoid we might think Al Qaeda’s notion of a cultural “all against all” perspective is, isn’t it more philosophically honest than than the compartmentalized distinctions the more economically developed and industrialized nations want to make between civilian and miltary populations?

If Al Qaeda is truly at war with our culture aren’t we all combatants? If Israel’s democratic government & it’s policies toward the Palestinians is an accurate reflection of the will of the Israeli people aren’t’'t Israeli civilians the real enemy and fair game (philosophically & morally) to be attacked & killed as “combatants”. The same distinction holds true for the reverse where Palestinian civilians are fair game for Israeli attacks in terms of collateral damage, direct attack and “salt the earth” policies?

Is the west, and the US specifically, being philosophically & morally disengenous in compartmentalizing groups into “combatants” and “non-combatants” when in fact they are all combatants. Just as the people killed in the 9-11 attack were combatants from Al-Qaeda’s perspective, does it make sense to draw these distinctions if the enemy does not?

2

Those scumbags don’t represent “all” of the Arab/Muslim culture; we are sophisticated enough to make the distinction, so we try our best to avoid the non-combatants. But it’s not 100% doable; these vermin “hide” like cockroaches amongst their own innocent and then cry “you are killing our women and children”.

Hiding under your mother’s skirt is going to get your mother hurt.

Cowards.

3

Ain’t been no difference in targets since August 6th, 1945.

SEE WHAT I MEAN?

4

Actually the conventional Allied bombings of places like Dresden and Tokyo, while ostensibly aimed at military and manufacturing targets, made little distinction between civilians and the military. Similarly, the Nazi bombing of London, using both bombers and V1 and V2 rockets, did considerable damage to civilian areas, and it’s hard to believe that it was merely accidental that civilians were killed.

As for the OP’s question, i don’t think it’s just a question of culture. You can also address this issue on the level of economic support and infrastructure. For example, one might argue that a factory producing non-military goods (say, canned food or television sets) does not constitute a military target. But what if the economic proceeds from that factory contribute in some way towards the nation’s military preparedness and strength? What if those canned goods are used to feed the military, or even non-military personnel who work in conjunction with the military?

Or what about the World Trade Center? And the whole New York downtown financial district, for that matter? It is, as so many people often remind us, the financial core of one of the world’s most important financial cities, and of the world’s predominant military power. In a war, is this a valid target, despite the fact that only civilians work there? After all, the financial transactions and exchanges that occur in that small area have a huge bearing on the American economy.

Ideally, we wouldn’t have war at all. But that’s not going to happen, so ideally we want to minimize deaths and casualties among non-combatants.

The problem is that, in debates like this, the situation is generally skewed in favor of the strongest. It’s essentially impossible for he enemies of, say, the United States to carry out a frontal assault. The difference in firepower is just too great. The US, on the other hand, can quite easily defeat a country like Iraq in a conventional war. This means that, when countries with such different capabilities face off, they each focus on their strengths. And, because it has the technology and firepower to rain massive attacks on cities like Baghdad, the US can conveniently use terms like “collateral damage” to describe its killing of civilians, pushing aside the moral quandaries associated with such deaths. What we end up with is a formulation that sees killing civilians as evil and bad, unless you do it while raining bombs on genuine targets also; then it’s just an unfortunate side-effect of war.

For the people who end up dead, it’s a distinction without a difference, of course.