Sense of Proportion and International Law
An excellent discussion at National Review Online:
No army in the history of human civilization has ever hamstrung itself with these kind of restrictions in wartime, but let’s leave that aside for the moment and assume the IDF should be the first. Maybe Israeli commanders will be swayed by the legion of bloggers, Arab street radicals, and United Nations apparatchiks. What, precisely, should be the limits and rules of proportionate war? If critics expect to be taken seriously, they will need to advise.
But a set of obligations only constitutes "international law" if a country has agreed to be bound by it. Israel and the U.S. have not agreed to be bound by Protocol I. Consequently, there is no law violation in failures by Israel or us to meet its impossible terms (impossible, that is, if the objective of a military campaign is to be victory). No number of loopy "disproportionate" reports by CNN, MSNBC and their stable of human-rights experts can change this. We should understand, moreover, that these are not simply reports; they are very purposeful efforts to advance a leftist antiwar agenda. If adopted, they would prevent the U.S. and Israel from pursuing vital national interests — especially national defense. We ought to be attacking the premise of these war-crimes smears rather than trying to finesse the matter for the purportedly greater good of harmony within the "international community." A community is a place where everyone is bound by the same law. We don't have one.More from Michael Totten: