Issue 415 A Civilian Harm Department September 10, 2014

This idea comes from a Foreign Affairs piece called "Concept on Responding to the Needs of Civilian Victims of War" by Sarah Holewinski (opinion section).  Basically, it is all about trying to reduce harm to civilians in the battlefront.  So how does it work and should we even have such a layer of bureaucracy?

The concept:  So Mrs. Holewinski's idea is as follows:

1. Appoint an internal advocate for addressing civilian harm mitigation.

2. Create a team in the Department of defense that focuses on civilian harm to do the following:

     a. Guide war planning

     b. promote acquisition of nonlethal weapons

     c. review the military’s doctrine and training programs

     d. influence the aid the U.S. gives other countries that are actively engaged in combat

     e. review how to minimize long term impacts of U.S. operations on civilian populations such as              environmental degradation and damage to civilian infrastructure.

3. Debrief returning troops about military/civilian interactions to gather information about civilian casualties and analyzing what did and did not work.

Well that’s it in a nutshell.

What I think:  I think it is mostly naive.  Needlessly hindering our soldiers can cost them their lives.  Guns and bombs once shot may go off course and then hit just about anyone including our own troops.  So the idea to have this new waste of bureaucratic red tape guide war planning is pathetic.  Also, the military is already doing their best to reduce harm to civilians in the first place (that’s why they have precision weapons like laser guided bombs rather than destroying entire cities).  So an advocate is entirely unnecessary.  As to the teams to debrief the troops, while admittedly a good idea with respect to gathering intelligence data on the changing attitudes of the civilian population, it is already done by civil affairs groups and psyop forces.  Basically, all this is being done already in some way, shape, or form rendering it all unnecessary.

Conclusion:  While it is admirable that people like Holewinski want to reduce harm to innocent and non-involved people in war time, the fact is it cannot be done save turning our soldiers into assassins who kill nothing but their targets.  But war is not that kind when it comes to determining who the enemy is, especially in an age where terrorist organizations can stand up to the might of several nations and them not wearing any uniforms.  A war is meant to be horrible and destructive, and to fight it any other way I believe is to sanitize war to the point that it invites more wars.