Ice Skating In Hell

Amnesty International report: Hezbollah guilty of war crimes (Yossi Melman, Haaretz, 9/14/06)

Amnesty International has accused Hezbollah of "serious violations of international humanitarian law, amounting to war crimes" during the recent Lebanese war.

In a report published in London Thursday, the human rights group condemned the "deliberate targeting" of Israeli civilians by Hezbollah.

In a way, this is too bad. Amnesty is accusing Hezbollah of war crimes for deliberately targeting civilians, but it also accuses the US and Israel of war crimes because, though civilians aren't targeted, civilians are killed in attacks on legitimate military targets. This faux equivalence reduces the perceived legitimacy of both the use of force by nation states against their enemies under arms -- which Amnesty intends -- and Amnesty itself. The distinction that Amnesty occludes is at the heart of the just use of force. It's as if the violent intruder and the defending homeowner were both criticized for their use of force.