The Horror of War and the Stench of Hypocrisy

The “Wall Street Journal” recently ran what might be called a “war is hell” op edit page. The top half was devoted to Peggy Noonan’s reflections on WWI which ended forever “gentlemen’s wars”—first on the Western Front where Germany unconscienceably invaded neutral Belgium and “raped” its civilian population (though the numbers were paltry by WWII standards), and then on the Eastern Front which was a bloodbath of both soldiers and civilians on both sides.

The bottom half, with a Neo-Confederate flavor, was devoted to James Bovard’s account of Phil Sheridan’s 1864 “scorched earth” campaign in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, designed to prevent further Confederate attacks on Washington, that inflicted immense suffering, not only on Confederate sympathizers but neutral Mennonites and freed slaves.

I cite this to put in just a little American historical perspective the reported 1,000 “civilian deaths” in Gaza. The global media equates “Palestinian deaths” with “civilian deaths” with “innocent non-combatant deaths” which of course is not true. As to the deaths of true civilians, I consider all children by definition innocent, even though both Hamas and Fatah indoctrinate children as young as three with the religion of suicide bombing. Also, Israeli soldiers who have entered Gaza houses report not finding a single one that was not a mini-arms depot.

The more recent and perhaps relevant perspective is, for example, the U.S. “Shock and Awe” campaign in Iraq where Americans are said to have inflicted 6,600 civilian deaths during the initial “invasion” phase.

The best way to save civilian lives in both Gaza and Israel is to end the war—and defeat Hamas—in a way that prevents a recurrence any time soon.

Postscript from David Bernstein in the “Washington Post”: “The Gazan Ministry of Health counts everyone not in uniform as a civilian. Most Hamas fighters don’t wear uniforms. The UN is sometimes sourced for the figures, but the UN gets its figures from … the Gazan Ministry of Health. Contrary to early reports that 80% or so of the early casualties were civilians, Al-Jazeera published names and ages, and about 3/4 were men of fighting age (16-50), compared to a rough estimate of 20% of the Gazan population (40% to 50% of which is fourteen and under). Some of those men were undoubtedly civilians, but it strains credulity to believe that 80% of the casualties were civilian but just-so-happened to be overwhelmingly fighting-age men.”