Tuesday 23 July 2002

I may put in some cheesy picture here someday. I don't feel like it tonight.

Killing innocents

A good advice is "never live in the same house as a known terrorist".

The world is enraged. Israeli forces have blown up a building in which a terrorist leader lived with his family and various others. So far it seems 15 people were killed in the attack, and many more injured. It seems a majority of the dead were children. Condemnations are coming thick and fast from around the globe.

The target was the leader of the military wing of Hamas, one of the major Islamic organizations in the Palestinian territories. This organization has claimed responsibility for a large number of the suicide bombs and shootings against Israeli civilians. In all fairness, it is common that several such Islamic groups try to get the honor for each suicide bomb. But even a conservative estimate would have this man responsible for a hundred deaths or more. Much more, if Hamas' own claims were to be believed.

Does the death of 100 innocents justify killing a dozen children to get to the murderer? No, I truly don't think so. But the hundreds of innocents that he was going to kill unless stopped, that's another matter. What father would not kill another man's child in order to save two of his own? Sure, he would feel bad about it for the rest of his life. But if there was no other way...

***

Nobody knows for certain how many hundred civilian Afghans have been killed in the less successful search for Osama bin Laden. And even less TV footage do the people get who die in Chechnya, in the Russian war against terrorism. Do you really think the Swedes, or the Dutch, or the French, would react differently? If it were their own women and children who died in bomb blasts, while terrorist leaders gloated in public and promised more of the same? Pray that you'll never find out.

I also can't help but wonder about the mentality of people who choose to live in the same place – even the same house – as a world-class terrorist during a war. Well, I am sure he was not a terrorist to them. He was a hero of the resistance, and a loving husband and father, I assume. Still, the grown-ups and the older kids must necessarily have known that the enemy regarded him in the very different light. And he must have known it better than any one of them. And he still chose to live with his family in the middle of the city. Did he hope to hide behind the living shields of his family and friends? Or did he hope that their deaths would benefit the Cause? This does indeed seem to have happened. And if anyone could be cold-blooded enough to pull this off, it would be a man who for years encouraged mentally unstable young people to kill themselves along with innocent women and children.

It can be argued that killing this man will solve nothing: Someone else would step up and continue his task. This is probably true. And I trust the Israeli army will find and kill this someone too. There will not be an endless supply, I believe. Organizing a war of terrorism does require quite a bit of talent and intelligence, far more than actually going into a city and blowing yourself up. And while some masterminds are willing to die for the Cause, most seem to prefer to let gullible pawns do the dying.

No matter how we look at this, it is a grisly thing. And it is made no better by the loud hypocrisy from armchair moralists.

Edit: In later news, it seems that the children were indeed placed in neighboring houses, and died because of literal overkill by the Israeli Air Force: The large bomb used to obliterate the house also did enormous damage to the neighborhood. While there's still a difference from having civilians as a primary target, it does cast things in a somewhat different light.