Will Collier has an excellent post up at Vodkapundit that asks the question; how do we fight the War on Terror ?
It’s not just an academic question. The opponents of classical liberal civilization have become adept at using the West’s principles against us. The Geneva Conventions, for instance, were originally designed to protect both civilian populations and members of lawful armies from mistreatment. Terrorists from Lebanon to Somalia to Afghanistan, with no small amount of help from jurists and journalists in the West, have learned to turn those principles on their heads, regularly using civilian populations as shields from attack, only to turn and claim “atrocity” when attacks are carried out against terrorists hiding amist civilians. They have also used the West’s legal systems as defenses, claiming rights to which they are not entitled under the letters of prior treaties, but accepting no responsibility for their own barbaric treatment of captured Western soldiers or civilians.
Like Will, I think the answer ultimately comes down to a question of whether we’re willing to accept the probability of things like civilian casualties as an inevitable by-product of fighting an enemy that does not respect either the Geneva Convention or the Laws of War. They are tragedies when they occur, but, as in Qana, the guilty party is the terrorist who hides among civilians, not the army that targets him.
