Wars without ends don't easily justify means

The debate over Israel's alleged "war crimes" at the Atlantic lead Jeffrey Goldberg to bring up an interesting point: would we criticize American troops for killing hundreds of Somalis in the battle of Mogadishu?

First off, this seems to be false equivalence. It was not American bombing that inflicted thousands of casualties, nor was the decision to undertake operations that would directly lead to civilian casualties made at the operational level by American commanders. The deaths of American troops resulted from a "kill or be killed" decision made at the tactical level by individual soldiers. Somali gunmen firing from between the legs of civilians were a direct threat to the American soldiers who returned fire. The US did not set out seeking to destroy civilian infrastructure harboring militia members - firing at civilians was an inevitable necessity for individual American troops hoping to protect their own lives. Now, during the bombing one could make a similar argument, although less directly - those Qassam rockets were not going to kill IDF airmen - but the errors being made are slightly different. American troops killed hundreds of Somali civilians because of a lack of foresight by commanders who assumed a quick and easy operation could be conducted without engaging in a protracted urban firefight. Israel, on the other hand, has planned Cast Lead for months and deliberately targeted civilian-housed arms, militant, and Hamas infrastructure. Civilian casualties were treated as a lamentable consequence, but certainly not an unforeseen one. Indeed, some commentators have argued Israel is deliberately paying less attention to collateral damage to ensure the thorough destruction of the military wing of Hamas.

Morally, Israel's actions are lamentable even though they do not likely fall under the commonly enforced definition of war crimes. Legally, they are within Israel's rights and thus justified in that sense. But strategically, they are increasingly misguided. Israel is operating towards ambiguous ends that, as stated so far, seem vastly outstripped by the damage Israel is incurring. Means must be proportional to ends, too, and if Israel is pursuing legally proportional means to a strategically impossible ends, then they are not proportional in strategic terms. Nor, if the perception Israel is waging a pointless war at great human cost, will those deaths be viewed as ethically proportional even if they are in legal terms. International norms and international law are not necessarily synchronized, and not always (as is usually assumed) in favor of military action.