“Civilians are not collateral damage,” the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean tweeted (or whatever it’s called now on X, formerly Twitter) on October 27. “Patients are not collateral damage. Health staff & health facilities are not collateral damage. Children, women & men sheltering in health facilities are not collateral damage. International Humanitarian Law must be respected.”

WHO is obviously referring to events in Gaza. Unfortunately, the statement goes both too far and not far enough.

The “too far” part:

On a quick read of “international law” — specifically Protocol I and the 1997 Additional Protocol of the 1949 Geneva Conventions — the claim that people in hospitals can’t be “collateral damage” seems unsupported. Article 19 does order that such facilities “shall not be attacked,” but if the attack is on a nearby “legitimate” military target, then per Article 51(5)(b) the attackers merely need avoid  “anticipated civilian damage or injury” that’s “clearly excessive” in relation to “anticipated military advantage.”

The “not far enough” part:

There is no moral, nor should there be any legal,  Get Out of Jail Free Card for those who injure or kill non-combatants.

War is an intentional activity and “collateral damage” is therefore by definition not “accidental.”

When YOU squeeze the trigger on a rifle, pull the lanyard on a howitzer, or press a button that drops a bomb or launches a missile, YOU are morally responsible — and should be held legally responsible — for the results of your actions.

It’s on YOU to know where that munition is going and who’s on or near that spot.

If the results of your action include the deaths of, or injuries to, non-combatants, that’s also on you.

Your action may be intentional, reckless, or negligent, but whatever else it may be it is NOT accidental.

The obvious objection to imposing something analogous to a  “felony murder rule” on actions taken during war is that few would willingly participate in such activities if they expected to be held to account for their crimes. That’s a feature, not a bug. War is a bad thing. Making it harder to recruit people to conduct it is a good thing.

Regimes (both actual and would-be) try to claim special exemptions from basic morality for themselves and their agents when it comes to the lives and livelihoods caught in the middle of their fights. But shiny badges and fancy uniforms don’t change the moral equation. Nor should they.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“US officials,” Nahal Toosi, Lara Seligman, and Paul McLeary write at Politico, “are worried that violence in Israel’s neighbors will spiral into a larger regional war.” More specifically, they’re worried that such a war will result in US casualties among US troops across the region.

For some reason, though, the Biden administration is flooding the region with MORE troops — a second carrier strike group and (presumably US-operated) air defense systems — instead of withdrawing the thousands already there to the relative safety of the country they enlisted to, allegedly, defend.

Why are US troops even there? There is no “why.” They’ve ALWAYS been there, since the beginning of history … October 7, 2023. That’s when a group no one had ever heard of launched an inexplicable attack on a brand new country with no previous regional beefs that might explain any of the craziness.

The previous beginning of history, September 11, 2001, set the previous clock ticking when another group no one had ever heard of launched an inexplicable attack on the United States.

The US regime hadn’t bankrolled and launched that group in the 1980s to give the Soviet Union “its own Vietnam.” Its leader hadn’t issued a 1996 declaration of war demanding the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East. The group hadn’t attacked US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 to drive the point home, or the USS Cole in 2000 for emphasis.

None of that ever happened. A Big Bang occurred at 8:46 Eastern Time on 9/11, erasing everything that had gone before and making anything that came after totally, completely, and obviously justified.

Another Big Bang occurred on October 7, so here we go again.

Such Big Bangs occur frequently throughout history. Think June 28, 1914, or September 1, 1939, or December 7, 1941, or February 24, 2022.

These Big Bangs are always described as “everything changed” moments, after which we’re expected to forget anything — incidents, grievances, and especially moral codes — associated with a time before, so that those demanding such amnesia from us can get away with doing whatever they please until the next Big Bang resets the clock again.

In reality, these “everything changed” claims are “nothing must be allowed to change” demands. They’re an attempt to erase our memories so we won’t notice our rulers doing the same things over and over while promising us different results.

Perpetual war is our lot until  we defy our rulers’ magic resets by allowing ourselves to remember, confront, and learn from history.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations,” George Washington wrote in his farewell address as first president of the United States, “is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.  … it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”

Four years later, in his inaugural address as the country’s third president, Thomas Jefferson announced “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” as an “essential principle” of his administration.

That was all a long time ago, and many things have changed.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who wants very badly to appear in history books alongside Washington and Jefferson, can’t seem to get his head around their best ideas.

He seems to think that being president involves “standing with” Israel, a Middle East ethno-religious garrison state that’s been known to spy on the US (see, for example, the case of Jonathan Pollard), kill US Navy personnel (34 of them aboard the USS Liberty in 1967), assassinate American journalists (like Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, shot while covering an Israeli Defence Forces raid in the occupied West Bank ), murder American students (like Rachel Corrie, run over by an IDF bulldozer in Gaza while protesting the destruction of a Palestinian pharmacist’s home), and kill American civilian mariners (like Furkan Dogan, killed by IDF pirates on the high seas).

As a governor and as a presidential candidate, DeSantis can’t seem to make it for more than a few days at a time without pulling some kind of  silly “stand with Israel” stunt.

Sometimes it’s signing legislation requiring all state contractors to swear a loyalty oath. Not to Florida or to the United States — to Israel.

Other times it’s lighting the state’s capitol building up in blue and white to show “solidarity” with Israel.

And always, always, ALWAYS it’s pledging bigger welfare checks, more military support, and undying loyalty if elected president.

Not loyalty to the United States, mind you, nor loyalty to American voters or American taxpayers.  Loyalty to a foreign power — an overly demanding welfare queen of a foreign power, and arguably an openly hostile foreign power.

Nor is DeSantis alone in his weird obsession. These days, pretty much every major party presidential candidate makes at least one visit to Israel to promise unlimited American blood and treasure in support of its rulers’ interests, your interests be damned. And when those promises come back to bite us, they assure us that’s because Israel’s enemies “hate our freedom.”

Never mind all that Federal Election Commission business — where American presidential campaign are concerned, the Foreign Agents Registration Act seems more applicable.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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