Why They Die: Civilian Devastation in Violent Conflict

Part Two

Part Two | Conflict Theory as Value Theory Why are civilians routinely killed in armed con›ict at a far greater rate than combatants? Does this fact re›ect a pattern of systematic atrocity in armed con›icts globally? These questions are central to our analysis of con›ict theory, and from them we have drawn new models for assessing cases of protracted con›ict. To address these questions, we should explore the interconnected repercussions that armed con›icts engender—no act of violence stands alone. All con›icts incur consequences—positive and negative, foreseen and unexpected, subtle for some and fatal for others. Violence sets in motion an unending sequence of occurrences that can never be fully anticipated. To act violently and to suffer violence are opposite sides of the same coin, and the story begun by an act of violence is composed of its initial deed and consequent sufferings (Arendt 1958a: 190). To those experiencing such suffering, the taints of criminality, degeneracy , and evil can quickly spread to all those living in proximity to the militant enemy. In Part I, we showed that the tumultuous clash of martial forces in armed con›ict routinely devastates its weakest participants. Such destruction can be linked systematically with the pattern in which both kinds of Others (militant and nonmilitant) are characterized by the ingroup. Model 1 represents cases in which the denigration of the militant enemy extends, like a taint, to the general population. According to this model, the ingroup characterization of the threatening Other is a causal factor in the positioning of the civilian Other. In other cases, the taint moves in the opposite direction from its origin in the essence of the civilian population to the enemy militants. This process is captured in Model 2, according to 123 which the ingroup characterization of the civilian Other is a causal factor in the positioning of the militant Other.Yet in some cases of protracted violent con›ict, both forms of stigmatization operate to mutual effect. This dual stigmatization process confers the mantle of a self-evident truth about the social-political “realities” of the enemy land, as if the pernicious character of both enemy civilians and militants is part of the natural terrain that engulfs them. Bolstered by these “realities,” the injunctions for conquest seem self-evident, axiomatic, and irrefutable. This correlation is captured in Model 3, according to which the ingroup portrayal of the relations between the militant Other and the civilian Other is causally linked to injunctions (commands, orders, directives, proclamations, decrees, or strategies) that target civilians. A special case of this model represents con›icts in which state-sponsored militaries engage in combat in heavily populated areas. Model 4 holds that for state-sponsored wars, the positioning of civilians in relation to enemy militants is a causal factor in civilian devastation. The four cases of devastation presented in Part I re›ect the workings of an anticivilian ideology that relies on instruments for disguise, deception , and fabrication. This ideology elevates categories of ingroup purity and outgroup danger to essential realities while suppressing the principles of a universal ethic for the protection of all the world’s civilians. The four case studies of civilian victims of con›ict—Crimean Tatars during and after World War II, Tutsi preceding the Rwandan genocide, Lebanese civilians during the Second Lebanon War, and Iraqi civilians in the current Iraq War—illustrate the impact of a dominant narrative that “exposes” an interdependency between enemy militants and their civilians and insinuates characterizations that serve the needs of the (ingroup ) con›ict protagonists. From the perspective of military commanders operating in a combat zone, such interactions are rarely innocent and inconsequential. In some cases, the bond established between enemy militants and civilians represents a deadly alliance that threatens the security of the allied forces and/or the members of the ingroup. As we showed in chapter 3, Levrentii Beria cast all Crimean Tatars as enemies of the Soviet Union and as threats to the general population. In another case, Hutu extremists castigated all Tutsi for their desire to subject Hutus to feudal domination (chapter 4). During the Second Lebanon War, some Israeli leaders denigrated all Lebanese civilians living in the southern portion of the country for their believed support of Hezbollah (chapter 5). And in yet another case, the 124 | Why They Die tactics deployed by U.S. forces in Iraq objecti‹ed Iraqi...