Army Leader Ethics.pdf - UNC Charlotte Army ROTC

140 ■ SECTION 5we to take into consideration when we plan an operation when there is noborder? Third, who are the combatants? Are they soldiers with uniforms? Thebasic law of a just war was based on the assumption that one has to differentiatebetween those who fight and those who are non-combatants. There are rules ofengagement based on the idea that it is possible to differentiate between thetwo. In the case of terrorists, however, civilians are killing civilians.Our job is preventing terror. Yet we face a tragic dilemma. Whatever we decidewhen fighting terror, some innocent people are going to get hurt. On the one hand,there are the Israeli citizens that the terrorists want to kill. On the other hand, theterrorists are hiding behind innocent civilians. It is very important when people’s livesare at stake that there is a moral understanding and precise rules for moral conduct.The duty of the state is to defend its citizens. Any time a terrorist gets awaybecause of concerns about collateral damage, we may be violating our main dutyto protect our citizens. We look for alternatives so as not to cause collateraldamage, or to cause the minimum amount of collateral damage, but the mainobligation is to defend our citizens. We also have an obligation towards thecitizens on the other side who are under our effective control. We have anobligation to hit the terrorists. And we have an obligation toward our soldiers, toprotect their lives. Who should be our first priority?Under the international law of war, military necessity justifies almosteverything. Yet Israel has limited its right to invoke military necessity by requiringadditional conditions, including: Purpose—that the action is really helping todefend our citizens; Intelligence and Proof—that what we are doing is reallysaving the lives of people in Israel; Effectiveness—that if there is going to be a lotof collateral damage, we have to look for another alternative.The case of Salah Shehada, the head of the military arm of Hamas, is a primeexample of ethical concerns in decision-making. Shehada planned terror attacks inIsrael, including the attack on the Dolphinarium discotheque where twenty-oneteenagers were killed, and he was in the process of planning a ‘mega-attack.’ Weknew that if we hit him, the mega-terror process would stop because he was themind behind it, the planner, the one who was really pushing the button. Shehadawas always surrounded by innocent people until one night in July 2002 we foundhim almost alone, and we delivered a 2,000-pound bomb on his apartment and hewas killed. Unfortunately, the intelligence about those in the surrounding buildingswas wrong, and innocent people were killed. Yet when the decision was made, itwas the right decision from an ethical point of view because the scale included amega-attack threatening the lives of hundreds of Israelis, balanced against a terroristwith some collateral damage. But in this case the collateral damage was too high.A month later, in August 2002, we had all the leadership of Hamas—SheikhYassin and all his military commanders, all his engineers, all the minds of terror—