He’s Got a Point

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, addressing the Italian Parliament, asked a rather probing question.

“What’s the difference between the U.S. airstrikes on our homes [in Libya] and bin Laden’s actions?” If anything, … bin Laden is an outlaw, while the United States is a country that should abide by international law. (source)

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 10:50 am and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

12 Responses to “He’s Got a Point”

  1. Eric T. Says:
    June 11, 2009 at 12:18 pm | Reply

    The diff, of course, is that bid Laden deliberately targeted civilians in the WTC. While US airstrikes have gone awry in various circumstances and hit civilians, sometimes due to negligence, it has never been policy to do so.

    One cannot equate pre-meditated murder with negligence.

  2. marcorandazza Says:
    June 11, 2009 at 12:33 pm | Reply

    I’m not sure that I agree that bin Laden “deliberately targeted civilians in the WTC.” It is a “civilian” target, however, I disagree with those who say that the WTC was attacked in order to inflict civilian casualties. If that was his intention, he’d have hit a football stadium on any given Sunday. The WTC was an economic target — and in any military campaign, you want to hit the opponent’s heart. The WTC was, in many ways, our economic “heart.”

    The WTC was a “military” target in that it was the “best” target to hit if you wanted to inflict economic damage on the USA. The Pentagon, well, it doesn’t get much more military than that.

    I think that Gadhafi has a point. When Reagan attacked Libya in 1986, he didn’t attack airfields and missile batteries. He attacked economic, political, and government targets — as well as Gadhafi’s home (and killed his daughter).

    I think that as Americans, we need to get a little bit of moral relativism in our perspective on when it is okay to kill people for political reasons. And, if we look at bin Laden as nothing more than a murderous savage, we are destined to learn nothing from 9/11.

  3. Andrew Says:
    June 11, 2009 at 2:07 pm | Reply

    “it has never been policy to do so.”

    You need to brush up your WW2 history. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were almost entirely civilian targets. And the bombing of Dresden contributed to an even greater loss of life, and the only military targets in Dresden were POW camps!

    It may currently be U.S. policy to claim that collateral damage is accidental, but you can’t pretend it has never been our policy to deliberately target civilians.

  4. marcorandazza Says:
    June 11, 2009 at 3:36 pm | Reply

    Right, but it is important to note that this doesn’t make us bad people… it makes us just like everyone else.

    • jesschristensen Says:
      June 11, 2009 at 7:55 pm | Reply

      Well, if Gadhafi’s point was that, as a country which expresses commitment to a set of certain fundamental ideals, we should strive to do better than bin Laden, and if “everyone else” is okay with attacking non-military targets, then being like everyone else maybe isn’t such a great thing.

      I agree that dismissing the 9/11 attacks as indiscriminate butchering is dangerous, and that bin Laden was strategically attacking an economic target (at least symbolically). But, that doesn’t mean that it is or should be okay or moral to do so. Even in “war”.

  5. jfischer1975 Says:
    June 11, 2009 at 6:25 pm | Reply

    Where is “international law” codified?

    • jesschristensen Says:
      June 11, 2009 at 7:27 pm | Reply

      With respect to humanitarian matters, The Geneva Conventions and with respect to war matters, the The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.

      In terms of aerial warfare, generally and with respect to civilian casualties, rules were drafted in 1923 (which the U.S. supported) but the rules were never enacted. Had it been enacted, the following would have been Article XXIV:

      (1) Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective, that is to say, an object of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent.

      (2) Such bombardment is legitimate only when directed exclusively at the following objectives: military forces; military works; military establishments or depots; factories constituting important and well-known centres engaged in the manufacture of arms, ammunition or distinctively military supplies; lines of communication or transportation used for military purposes.

      (3) The bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces is prohibited. In cases where the objectives specified in paragraph 2 are so situated, that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment.

      (4) In the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces, the bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings is legitimate provided that there exists a reasonable presumption that the military concentration is sufficiently important to justify such bombardment, having regard to the danger thus posed to the civilian population.

      (5) A belligerent state is liable to pay compensation for injuries to person or to property caused by violation by any of its officers or forces of the provisions of this article.

      So, not law now, but, maybe it’s time to revisit the subject. As President Roosevelt said in 1938, addressing the League of Nations:

      The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population during the course of the hostilities which have raged in various quarters of the earth during the past few years, which has resulted in the maiming and in the death of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children, has sickened the hearts of every civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity.

      If resort is had to this form of inhuman barbarism during the period of the tragic conflagration with which the world is now confronted, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no responsibility for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now broken out, will lose their lives. I am therefore addressing this urgent appeal to every government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities, upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents.

  6. Supremacy Claus Says:
    June 11, 2009 at 10:06 pm | Reply

    Anyone who equates 9/11 with the bombing of an enemy of the USA is a traitor.

    • Halcyon 0L Says:
      June 11, 2009 at 11:50 pm | Reply

      Anyone who tries to diminish the free exchange of ideas by loosely tossing around that word–the only death sentence in the constitution–betrays the principles of the First Amendment.

  7. Hugo B Says:
    June 12, 2009 at 6:50 am | Reply

    Supremacy Claus is either an idiot or a Master Baiter. This pot needs no stirring, Sup’…..

  8. Patrick Says:
    June 17, 2009 at 5:03 pm | Reply

    Supremacy Claus is a famous troll of legal blogs. Google him. Though we’re nowhere near as prominent as Marc, I banned him from Popehat, because he asked me to do so.

    That said, I agree with your point about what the targets and goals of the Air Force Libyan bombing were Marc, but wish you’d point out the context, retaliation for the Lockerbie Pan Am bombing (indisputably carried out by Libyan intelligence) and a bombing of a Berlin disco frequented by US soldiers (thought at the time to have been connected to Libya, but now thought by as many to have been conducted by Syria).

    We should have bombed Syria too, but Reagan was too much of a punk. He picked the target the rest of the Arab world didn’t care about.

    If you want to talk about targeting civilians, what were military and economic goals were served by blowing up a plane full of people coming home or traveling abroad for Christmas, or a disco?

    • Salam Says:
      July 2, 2009 at 10:49 pm | Reply

      Sorry Patrick; but you too are confused regarding history. The US bombed Libya in 1986 the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am 103 occurred in 1988. The US bombing in Libya was in response to the Berlin bombing but not Lockerbie.

      Bottom line, I think Marc intended to make the point that killing civilians is wrong, and that, the US should look at its own actions before judging and condemning the everyone else. In all truth, some of our actions as a nation have been, and still are downright wrong. That does not however, make us a bad nation, but we aren’t exactly the moral authority.

      While it is convenient to point to certain events in history to justify our actions as retaliation or some type of Casus Belli… remember that the very people who attack us also justify their actions using similar authority. To say that Bin Laden attacked America merely out of jealousy for our freedoms is ridiculous; he too has reiterated his own numerous justifications. Whether we agree with them or not is irrelevant. What is truly relevant is the point that I believe Marc was trying to make; any decision to take action resulting in foreseeable civilian death must be examined with moral objectivism and must be made without passion and emotion.

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