Are there really innocent civilians in war? Who would you define as innocent? A non-combatant or anyone not in the military? Children or grandparents? A Doctor, Aid worker, or tourist? Journalists? Politicians? Teachers? Religious figures? Perhaps, someone that protests and does not support the war?
Is someone really ‘innocent’ if they support one side of the conflict in an ideological or material way? Is someone innocent if they do not support the war but do nothing about fighting against it or resisting it? Were there innocent Nazis? Was everyone who supported, cared for, aided, or shared a relationship with a Nazi, guilty by association?
What if that person contributes to or supports in a material or ideological way, one side of the conflict over the other? Does that make them complicit? Less innocent? To be an innocent civilian casualty you may need to be a conscious objector, protesting and actively not supporting the conflict or gaining from it in some way: then get caught up on the wrong side and killed by friendly fire (fire from the side you actually support/represent).
If someone is completely against the war but stuck geographically, ethnically, or for religious reasons, where do you draw the line regarding their involvement or moral choice to participate (whether under duress or just due to moral weakness). Military age men/women capable of fighting who are refugees could select to fight for or against their own regime without running away from conflict that embroils their society. Instead of fight, they can flee if they do not agree with the actions of the regime. I know this is not simple, but it is just thought experiments to challenge you, the reader.
History as context
Was every Nazi member or family member a Nazi acolyte, or were their only choices to support or die? History has highlighted that a greater number of Germans in World War Two (WW2) supported the Nazi party far more strongly than people in Western society expected until the very end of the war. Did this ideological support define them as an innocent civilian? Most French people easily transitioned to support the Nazis until the tide of the war turned against them, but most people consider the French as allies for the entire war. Who you support can determine if you are innocent or not.
The bombing campaigns between Britain and Germany highlight dramatically the lack of consideration for anyone being ‘innocent’ in WW2. A complete surrender and end of hostilities would not have been possible without total war, and it is very naïve to think WW2 would have gone any other way if the conflict only occurred between the two protagonist militaries on an open field, at a set time and place, with rules they all followed. All sides were complicit from the outset in targeting innocent people of all ages.
The Nazis were German and for WW2, Germans were Nazis. A ‘non-Nazi’ German was not a distinction any allied force commander or the public on the allied side considered. In Germany, any ‘non-Nazi’ was either murdered, eradicated, or imprisoned prior to or during WW2, so they had little option but to support Nazis and pray secretly for allied victory at any cost.
Understanding rules of engagement
Rules of engagement (by Wikipedia) (ROE) are the internal rules or directives afforded military forces (including individuals) that define the circumstances, conditions, degree, and manner in which the use of force, or actions which might be construed as provocative, may be applied.
They provide authorization for and/or limits on, among other things, the use of force and the employment of certain specific capabilities. In some nations, articulated ROE have the status of guidance to military forces, while in other nations, ROE constitute lawful command. Rules of engagement do not normally dictate how a result is to be achieved but will indicate what measures may be unacceptable.
If one side[1] of a conflict has a history of targeting civilians, innocents, children, and elderly they do not have the moral high ground to protest when it happens to them. An argument about scale is about semantics. It is either ok for you to fight under your rules of engagement or it is not. If it is the way your “side” wishes to fight, you have no moral position to condemn the same actions against you, regardless of scale. Rules of engagement and not agreed to by both sides and although there are some common military conventions like the Geneva conventions, however there is no agreed convention for aerial bombing (and nothing up to date to include drones). In 1977, the Geneva convention was adapted to include protection for civilians however this was prefaced by stating that military forces must not locate or operate near densely populated areas, further stating that the defenders are liable to breach international law by doing so – not the attackers.
It is great to have lofty ideals of not being like the enemy, however no one wins a war being the nicest guy in the fight. You can have codes about prisoner handling, rules of engagement, internal policing mechanisms, ethics, training, and install your military with honour. However, if you are fighting someone who does not have these conventions, they are not bound to the same limitations you have placed upon your own forces and the reality eventually dawns you cannot win without forcing your enemy to surrender or destroying them. You will spin your propaganda in your favour at all times.
You have little choice but to fight harder and be more determined, more destructive, and more relentless than your enemy for them to consider their actions counterproductive and surrender. Rules of war need to be followed and agreed to by both sides or neither side can abide by them to win, and this type of war is not war, it is sport. If you bomb indiscriminately, take hostages, torture people, and operate with terror as your ‘modus operandi’ fundamental weapon, then you have no right to protest when it happens to you in turn. You can surrender or change policy anytime if the scale is unbearable for your society.
Conflict embedded in the community
Often one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter, and so it significantly depends on perspective. Often a terrorist fights the way they do because they do not have the infrastructure and capability of a conventional national military. That leads them to fight a more guerilla style campaign engaging the limited resources they have against a much larger force, often leading to the exploitation of soft targets within a country’s civilian infrastructure to avoid direct military conflict. Sympathy for this underdog approach fails to recognise the brutality of it and misery it causes.
When a terror organisation is countered by a large-scale modern military, the terror is returned tenfold. This raises a need for the small organisation to reconsider its true objectives as they begin to face extinction and untold misery for the society that harbours and supports them. Ultimately, the society that hosts terror organisations operating from within their neighbourhoods, are integral to the ongoing operations of the organisation and will suffer greatly during and as a result of their attacks. Calls for the suffering, bombing, misery, and destruction to stop ultimately need to be directed inward, to the country itself, for any lasting change. Assigning blame externally for conflict which is generated from people’s own neighbourhoods is not as effective as those same people standing up against that conflict in the first place. The US Civil War and Ghandi’s nonviolent resistance of British rule are but 2 examples.
An organisation cannot exist without the infrastructure of the society it exists in. Every military soldier is just a person, and that person has needs. They need to be housed and fed and have access to medical support and transport. They often have families who they need to support and wish to see. They may need days off, entertainment, restaurants and shops. Just as the rest of society’s people, they want love, care, and purpose. Every soldier represents their society and is integral to it. Even if a political/ideological side in a country includes providing hospital and school infrastructure, it cannot easily be separated from the military/terrorist actions taken in the name of that political side without consequence. If you as a person and soldier benefit from the medical facilities and schools, these benefits become susceptible to targeting when the political side elicits a response from the other side in conflict. The price you pay may not be immediate, but you will pay a high price when the military you support conducts actions that trigger a response. A military embedded in the community is inseparable from the consequences caused by that military.
Conflict separate from the community
Modern western militaries place their military bases outside of urban areas and those bases are typically distinguishable with their own infrastructure. For a large conventional war, these bases are separated from the civilians and industries that support them. This is a geographical, practical, and ethical choice for modern Western countries. In some countries, this is not geographically possible, but there is always choice.
If military/combat organisation base and operations – including the headquarters, training, bomb making, logistic support – are embedded within urban districts, then it should be expected that noncombatants and civilian families nearby are targeted. The respective militaries/organisations must bear the blame for this tactic and the society itself must condemn it before the death toll becomes painful. Persistent acceptance of this tactic could be considered to make the society itself complicit in the death toll.
Western media may blame the bomber and promote the ‘innocent’ death toll, however there is a need to consider the roles of the victims here. This is not victim blaming, as the sole blame does not lie with the people of the society in which the conflict is occurring. It is common for people to turn a blind eye to bad deeds of loved ones or those with whom they closely identify. But when society accepts embedded operation of militia in their neighbourhoods and daily life, the consequences will be extreme. It is likely and known that war can rain down on the threat posed by that militia when a conventional military country is threatened to excess and becomes exasperated with attacks on its own society by that militia.
Western media should make more of an effort to report that the local society supports the terror organisation materially and ideologically. If the country/neighbourhood at war wants the bombing to stop, it is their own side they must change. They have power to exercise, as a collective, which can force the militia to surrender, release hostages, or even stop military strikes. Calling for other countries to intervene in these conflicts has significantly less material impact, especially in the short term, to effect change to the conflict. While the rest of the world condemns the acts of the militia, they are materially able to continue their work uninterrupted in those neighbourhoods. When those neighbourhoods rise to disrupt the resources and capabilities of the militia, they affect not only ideological opposition but material impact to their ability to engage in conflict.
The media, their bias reporting, and conflict
The death of children, woman, and families is always highlighted by the media and often given a separate body count. The victims blame the attackers of the opposing side, however, the victims use these ‘tragedies’ to gain sympathy, support, and funding to progress the cause of the side they are on. It is a tactic with inhumane and often unbearable results, but it is ignorant to think the tactic of ‘sided’ sympathy to suffering is not a deliberate maneuver. Some may view this as a harsh assessment, but I encourage you, the reader, to consider this: why is the suffering of one side more important to be covered by the media than the other side, when both sides lose children, and aid workers, and teachers, and “innocent people”?
Tragedy body counts and shocking war stories are part of the media business model. Every bombing, and every attack, includes body counts that determine if the story is a headline or on the twelfth page. Footage or photos will determine the stories’ place amongst the headlines and traction online. To get attention, every attack needs to be different, and more extreme, or it blends into the war and no one reads the story. Propaganda is an integral part of every war, and you will get far bigger headlines for twelve children dying in a school bombing than you will for 132 soldiers dying in a pitched battle in the mountains. More recently, 150 people dying in tornados proved to be far less newsworthy than one aid worker or political figure dying in a drone attack.
Every country scores the death of their own citizens far higher in the news than other the death of other countries’ citizens. When a plane crashes, the media tells you there were 145 killed including 4 Australians, and then we focus on the Australian because they are relatable to us via our shared national identity. Twenty thousand people die a year in motor vehicle accidents in Thailand, but it is never a bigger story than eight people dying in a shooting in the United States. Why? Because the shooting is more newsworthy, unexpected and able to be linked to a larger agenda (i.e., gun control politics) – plus, there is usually live footage or a story about the perpetrator that the media can sell to you, bumping their views and revenue.
The news media and even our own sense of interest and sympathy is measured in ways we cannot admit to ourselves. We care far less about things that do not affect us directly, interest us immediately, or get our attention quickly. The propaganda of news business is real: you tune in to hear about tragedies, and so the higher the body count of children, the more news outlets sharing those stories you get. It is incredibly sad that children die, even worse, that they are killed in cold blood. It is detestable that the death of children is used as a marketing tool, in both depraved media gimmicks, and the machine of war. Both sides in conflicts and wars exploit death tolls, and the media helps them do so without remorse.
Post event media access is controlled, and the propaganda machine is always in favour of the quantity of women and children killed, but the live evidence is rare. Media will also only report what they get access to and must report what they see, however they are rarely people with military or explosive training, or anything to actually help them interpret what they see.
I have been to bombings before the bodies are moved and I can tell from photos what type of explosives were used and what type of damage was done to the victims. Victims are rarely in one piece and body bags can be misleading. Reporters rarely get this type of extensive military training and are easily fooled, because they are hyper-focused on securing a money-making headline. It is a widespread problem for war reporting, to go against the larger military, because the information against them is easier to obtain than being embedded with the terror organisation. No reporters work inside the Taliban or with the North Vietnamese, so the reporting is very skewed. No one reported the North Vietnams war crimes, child killings, torture, mass murders, or cruel injustices against their own people. It is undeniable that both sides committed atrocities, however, the available footage showed a bias toward the side that was easy to access and scrutinise (via footage).
In Iraq, news media paid militia to re-enact a short battle they did not get footage of, only to cross paths with a US patrol who then opened fire on the militia, killing some of them. The media is complicit in crimes, duplicitous in their ethics, and their agenda is to sell more than it is to report. I witnessed children as young as 10-12 holding and using AK47’s. When a child points and shoots at you, you no longer feel that they are innocent. They may be groomed and manipulated, but the effect of the bullets they wield is real, and they do not care about your values when they are aiming that barrel at you.
War viewed from the participant not from the spectators can show the true nature of the commitment to war. War in the media is just propaganda and spectator management. One of the Ukraine’s greatest achievements was having a President that knew how to use the Western media to get attention, to get funding, and to get military support in the modern world. When Israel retaliated against the Hamas attacks on October 7th, the Ukrainian President stepped up his agenda because he lost the headlines for his war. This is not wrong; it is just smart propaganda.
We hear more about the middle east than Ukraine here in Australia because of the protest action by Palestinian groups against Israel. But these protests are not against Hamas or Hezbollah, and the militias and terror organisations embedded in the fabric of their society. The surest way to end the war and the bombing is for the society to move against the embedded militia in their own neighbourhood, and to have enough will and commitment to call for them to surrender, stop attacking, and causing the retaliation. Hamas and Hezbollah are prepared for their own societies to suffer great loss, just as the North Vietnamese were prepared for the same against the US in the Vietnam War. Their agenda has little care for their own society’s suffering. Who is the true enemy of the ‘civilians’ here?
Individual belief versus group survival
WW2 was a total war, which is when the conflict effects the existence of your society, your way of life, and your culture. The military and political commitment to the conflict by both ‘sides’, and how this commitment effected every person’s way of life, is a prime example of total war. Total war cannot be defined by your personal doctrines and measurement of humanity simply because those doctrines are less material than the greater picture: one side must defeat the other. Attempts to transmit your own beliefs and ideals onto the war/conflict of another society is naïve. In those societies, total war is in effect and the need to defeat the other side is more material than what one person believes is right or wrong.
Limited war is a political – and borderline delusional – concept that has no meaning for the people getting shot at and dying. As a concept that has only existed since the nuclear age dawned, limited conflict is something designed to limit escalation of conflict to the involvement of nuclear powers. To fight with political restrictions and limitations if often dressed up as more humanitarian. Nuclear war is a threshold into which no sane person wishes to cross. War between nuclear powers is something we all want to avoid. Non-nuclear powers still fight and usually one side is supported by a nuclear power. This is the most complicated political and military game in the history of warfare. Avoiding escalation. Non-nuclear powers fighting for their own existence can still embark on total war if they are fighting for the survival of their society. This is what war is: if you want any chance of lasting, meaningful victory that re-shapes the political and cultural landscape of a country.
Ukraine and Israel are countries at war defined by their countries need to exist. For many Palestinians, Lebanese and other Middle Eastern neighbours, Israel is a lifelong enemy that does not have a right to exist. For Russia, Ukraine is Russian, and independence is viewed as a threat to Russian sovereignty that goes against historical beliefs of that territory, whether outsiders to that state view them as legitimate or not. For Israel and Ukraine, just like Afghanistan and Vietnam, it is total war, and any limitations placed on them will be perceived as a restriction to victory. The world outside of those sides involved places their views on a conflict, superimposing moral and ethical measurements completely misplaced when viewed from the insiders’ perspective of war. The total war state applies no matter what the individual view or belief, and whether those individuals are bystanders fighting for survival, or soldiers fighting for their life on the ground.
The innocence chain
What is the innocence chain? I made this up! A rifle is fired by a person, or a drone is sent, or a bomb is released from an airplane. That bullet, drone, or explosive warhead kills people. It typically kills who you aimed it at when it’s a rifle or drone, however explosives kill or maim whoever is in the vicinity, once the detonation occurs and the infrastructure collapses. Who is guilty and who is innocent in these cases?
If a soldier (terrorist or not) is heading off to shoot, kill, bomb, and maim others intentionally, he/she needs to be fed, and have their clothes and equipment prepared. They need moral support and love, and something to fight for, often something more than religion or politics. In the seminal book – The Face of Battle by John Keegan (and most soldiers I have ever known), when you fight, you fight to not let your mates down and you try to survive because you have someone you love depending on you. I can personally comment on the irrelevance of your foreign minister’s commitment to the UN when you are cold, hungry, and getting shot at, walking past dead bodies. When you have to go out each day, again and again, with the sound of missiles flying overhead and the stench of corpses in the street, the conflict before you is your entire focus, not the speeches given by politicians. This exposure is so profound on your mind and body, and so impactful to your survival instinct, it renders you permanently anxious such that for the rest of your life, the sound of a whistling kebab in a local takeaway causes the anxiety to return for no logical reason.
The soldier who fires the rifle is doing their job and easily considered not to be innocent in the action of killing. They are also not guilty of any crime if following their rules of engagement and following lawful orders. However, that soldier is only able to pull the trigger because they are fed by, clothed by, provided the bullet and gun by, taught to shoot by, and provided medical aid by someone. Sometimes, it is many people responsible for each of these supplies, and not just one. And then, there are multiple people providing these services to multiple soldiers. Thus materialises the ‘innocence chain’ during which it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish one link from another in the chain of guilt and innocence. Who were the people doing the killing, and at what point of the chain does it become people just ‘doing their job’.
The soldier was once a child who went to school and was taught and educated in their way of life. Is the person/s responsible for educating the child to follow their beliefs, to defend their country or religion, and to have values and a commitment to purpose, truly innocent of the choices the soldier makes/made to be a soldier? Parents influence and educate children geographically, religiously, ethically and develop a person’s values in life. Are parents, grandparents, religious figures, podcasters, brothers, and sister’s innocent of the soldiers’ actions when they pull the trigger? When someone makes a bomb that ends up killing or maiming hundreds, they have been taught how. How much guilt do we place on the instructor who provided information on electronic wiring for the bomb? And what about the ideology or cause that the bomb is being made for, who do you blame for an idea? People are often motivated by, and a part of something bigger. Is this motivation or ideology guilty, or is it the people that wielded it to push their own agenda? Where in the chain can someone claim innocence?
Children are innocent when they are in the playground and riding their bike. However, children are also groomed and manipulated. The UN listed Hamas with Israel as violators of Human Rights. We hear every day about the death of children in Israeli bombings and the scale is immense, but we need to remember that (verified by the UN) thirty-eight children were murdered on October 7th and 42 children were taken hostage. Unfortunately, the argument between Hamas and Israel is not about killing children and how this is wrong, it is about the scale of the deaths. If a side choose to fight a war prepared to kill children, you lose the right to condemn it when children within that side are killed. Hamas also runs military training for children from 12 years and up. This is not Scouts, it is military training with weapons, obstacle courses, religious indoctrination, and chants! Are these children innocent?
Israel is not innocent either and does its fair share of indoctrination. It has no authority to have the high ground in killing children and indoctrinating children. What this demonstrates is the cause of this war and the ongoing suffering will continue to go for many years with blame on both sides readily available. One thing that WW2 showed is that no amount of civilian or infrastructure bombing will turn the home team against its own side or reduce the will of the people to resist and fight back. It did not work for Germany bombing Britain and it did not work when the US bombed the North Vietnamese. It did destroy infrastructure and military capability, which is essential for victory, but the noncombatant causalities are just collateral for the overall total war aims.
If you know, support, love and encourage someone who is a soldier, and are proud of them, and believe in what they are doing – or just fed them and washed their clothes so they could fight – your responsibility lies in enablement. If you are a politician or religious leader that motivates and influences others through your speeches, your responsibility lies within the inferences of your words. You may not pull the trigger yourself, but you had influence or material support in it being pulled.
The innocence chain is blind to sides. Everyone, no matter the belief, is to some extent responsible in the chain. If you sit in factory making bullets or bombs and just ship them off with no knowledge of what happens to them, you are partially responsible when one of those bombs kills an 8-year-old girl and her two brothers. In turn, when that factory gets blown up and all your colleagues are killed, you cannot claim to be an innocent victim since you drew first blood – right?
When is someone outside of the innocence chain? Saying that the people sending bombs and shooting guns are the only guilty people is ludicrous. So, where do you draw the line? The politicians that make the decisions and send people to war are not innocent, but in every war crime committed they remove themselves from responsibility. They are not innocent.
Every doctor that works in a war zone works on one side or the other and the medical staff are from the same society as the military. There is rarely a benevolent medical center open to all victims, and if one does appear, it is equally vulnerable to targeting as if it has chosen a side to provide medical aid for. Are any of these medical providers innocent when they save soldier’s lives, for those soldiers to go out and kill again? Are you innocent when you have surrendered or are too in injured to fight anymore, only after you have killed twenty-three combatants and stopped firing because you ran out of bullets?
Most ethical arguments determine a non-combatant is someone unable to or not involved directly in the conflict. A non-combatant is not always innocent of being involved in the conflict. They often feed, drive, support, love, clothe, shop for, hide, motivate, encourage, and support the soldiers that do fight. When everyone turns up to the leader of a terror organisation’s daughter’s eighth birthday party, they are supporting the family, the cause, and the action taken. Are they innocent? Only if they actively condemn the actions of the local militia, local terror group, or country’s military. Then they could be considered innocent. Many prisoners of WW2 and political prisoners were forced to manufacture bullets, tanks, and bombs. Although they were innocent, they had to be exploited for military infrastructure, because failure to generate military infrastructure would be to lose the war. And thus, even these prisoners were not entirely innocent.
That is why in total war, the only path to victory is commitment to conflict: that is why it is called total war. One side at total war cannot be defeated by another side, unless they are also at total war. Nuclear powers could be at near total war, short of nuclear weapons, which would be devastating enough. That next step across the threshold into nuclear war is a world ending Armageddon. There is no limited nuclear war, it is a total annihilation scenario as no one can fire one missile and not get a response. Gradual escalation is delusional as there is no time to negotiate and scale back ones those missiles are flying.
Aid work in continuing conflict
Aid work can prolong suffering and prevent the conclusion of a conflict. Aid workers in a war zone are brave people, but brave is not always smart. Suffering is integral to war. One side must destroy the other and cause so much devastation economically, materially and socially that they surrender. Aid work and supplies only prolong the conflict and cause longer term suffering. Part of the self-defence invented to sustain one side has to include supporting the civilian population, and not neglecting them, hoping foreign aid will keep them supplied with medicine and food. There were no aid workers in Nazi Germany, North Vietnam or embedded with the Taliban. Unfortunately, aid work can be misguided and not only prolongs conflict, but it also precludes ultimate victory for one of the sides which otherwise could have ‘won’.
A military and political structure cannot wage war in their own neighbourhood without a plan to protect the civilians in the society they say they represent. Outsourcing this to the international community and aid organisations is another ethical failing. It is a part of the same empathy-leeching tactics employed when militias house conflict headquarters in schools, inflating casualty figures, calling for support internationally and always playing the victim whilst not stopping their own offensive operations. It is because these militia operations know full well they will be retaliated 100-fold, but they can leverage the international support to bear the cost of supporting civilian casualties with aid.
Application in the real world
Palestinians voted for and support Hamas, but they are not the countries army. Hamas is a militia and a political party that has been around for 30 years. Not everyone in Palestine supports Hamas or votes for them, however they are the dominant political party. Most powerful and dominant militia can only survive because the society they are embedded in support them materially, ideologically, and economically. Hezbollah is a Shia militia that is backed by Iran but located in Lebanon. Not all Lebanese are Shia. The Lebanese have their own military; however, Hezbollah is either equal to or stronger than them in capability and therefore very difficult and costly for the Hezbollah to be removed by Lebanon, if they wanted to. Hezbollah has limited support in Lebanon, however the Lebanese people and will of the politicians is not strong enough to shut them down or remove them. Due to this, Hezbollah operate, live, work and are embedded in parts of Lebanon, operating military workshops or headquarters in schools and hospitals, funded by Hezbollah.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are listed as Terror Organisations under the criminal code in Australia due to their crimes internationally. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are funded by Iran. Iran is predominately funded by its oil sales. China is the main trading partner of Iran (90% of oil). China is Australia’s largest trading partner for iron ore (80% of all exports). Would this be a good time to remind you, reader, of the innocence chain?
Hamas has vowed to fight for Israel’s destruction. A December 2023 poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy Survey (an internal Palestinian organisation) found that three out of four Palestinians supported the October 7th attacks on Israel. Additionally, 52% of Gazans and 85% of West Bank respondents, which is 72% of Palestinians, voiced satisfaction with the role Hamas played in the War with Israel. (Reuters News Dec 13, 2023). Palestinian protestors are often mute when it comes to condemning the Hamas attacks on October 7th, 2023. They are mute on calling for Hamas to surrender and everything is focused on Israel attacks and the mounting ‘civilian’ death toll. I, even as a massive sceptic of reported figures, agree that the death toll is horrific. However, the only way to stop Israeli attacks is for Hamas and Hezbollah to surrender (or at least stop attacking) or they will continue to fight a total war.
The continuation of the war can be blamed on Hamas, and all the protesting around the world against Israel is not going to stop them. There is no mutual agreement both sides will be happy with. Like all wars, they can stop when one side surrenders or is defeated. Some Palestinians might be wanting this, but Hamas and Hezbollah are not surrendering, so is it really Israel who should be blamed for the war continuing? Hamas and Hezbollah continue to threaten Israel and launch attacks. They do not appear to be backing down in any way and continually step up the rhetoric. Palestinians are not vocal in condemning Hezbollah and Hamas and calling for them to surrender. Thus, the Middle East wars will continue as they have done for thousands of years in one form or another.
Ukraine does not want war and will stop fighting as soon as Russia does, however, Russia has no intentions to stop. Especially not in accordance with any Western agenda. They will stop when they determine that their objectives have been met, so they do not appear to have lost what the west calls a war (Note: Russia may consider this conflict as more of a reclamation). This war will be over when Russia chooses for it to be over. Russia bombs non-combatants, shops, schools and is fighting a war for political control over land and industry. It is however a limited war from their perspective. For Ukraine it is total War but one they must fight themselves, with Western weapons. To avoid nuclear escalation, Ukraine is on its own in the fighting.
Why don’t people protest war and conflict not specifically their own countries? Ukraine and Palestine together as a united front against war and suffering? Because Ukrainians care little about Palestine and Palestinians do not care about Ukrainians, ultimately. People are very specific about what they protest and only when it directly effects their perspective, especially when it is grossly unfair against them. But those who protest never condemn their own side when they commit acts of terror, comparably as horrific. As average Australians it is hard to understand the conflicts in the Middle East or Europe. These conflicts often have a deep history, , involving grievances, generational suffering, and religious fervour, often going back multiple generations, pre the existence of Israel as a state, pre WW2 and WW1 arbitrary boundaries created at the end of wars as spoils.
It is made harder by simplistic media and self-serving politicians driven by politics and/or money more than providing unbiased information. The ‘information’ we are given about conflicts abroad is tainted by our media and politicians always superimposing Western, or even personal values and culture onto a situation generationally and historically vastly different. Australia should stand by our values, culture, and liberal democratic ideals before aligning with any side in any conflict. Supporting our allies for the future of Australia to continue on the path we have developed for the last one hundred years is crucial. We should not deviate too dramatically by supporting or buying into a hyper-political or religious based structure that does not align with our own country’s growth and success, founded on being a secular liberal democracy.
Final Comment
Civilians on both sides will continue to suffer, to die and many non-combatants will be killed. If you go the war to give aid, reporting from inside Gaza, you are stepping into a mine field and are not innocent. Civilians will die and this is accepted by both sides as either collateral or deliberately targeted. This is no different to most geographical and religious wars in the history of the world. For absolute victory in total war, there is no innocent civilians, only collateral damage. The massacre of civilians is a war crime, but the prosecution of them is very difficult, complicated and completely pointless when the combatants don’t even consider any international court relevant to their operations. Internal policing of war crimes is a matter for the political and military structure to manage by each country. This must happen to regulate the morality of the fighting and to not accept people becoming like the enemy. I am all for rules of war, but they only work when both sides follow them, which is not what war allows for.
[1] A “side” in conflict varies, depending on the nature of the conflict and the focal issue catalysing. In almost all cases, the sides are drawn according to ideological differences however historically many wars were fought over economic issues with one side trying to gain economically for their country, to seize resources, including people to rule over. What is important is that there are ‘sides’ everywhere, even within a country. What varies is the will and capability of the wise, and the resources they can manifest into reality, to progress their respective agenda. `
