Intention or effect?
There is! God’s law! .. Then God can arrest him.
I’m going to try to avoid going into the weeds. I’m not a lawyer. And I’m not a national security expert. Just a priest and a brother in a religious community. I was trained to teach civics and history. I am of a generation that expected to serve in the military and did get some Army and USMC training — so I’ve thought about this a bit. And I’ve done considerable work on a range of social ethics matters. You get the idea, a Christian and a citizen, like you, trying to make sense of things.
With most of humanity and the church — I dislike war. Hell, I dislike people loudly arguing on the street corner. So, I’m all in with doing what we can to avoid war and the inevitable deaths of the military and civilians (always mostly women and children).
And, I know we can’t always avoid war. I’m glad the British didn’t listen to those wanting them to make a treaty with Nazi Germany in order to end that war and save lives. My guess is that most Germans are glad too. Okay, so I’m not a pacifist.
In a new book Pope Francis said some international experts claim that "what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide". So, apparently the Pope thinks that should be investigated. We should also note that other international experts say that it’s not genocide.
And there have been accusations that Israel has committed war crimes. Well, we know that’s true. Israel has said it’s true. Israel’s Military Advocate General’s group is investigating about 100 soldiers for war crimes. It’s also important to note that there’s never been a war in which there were no war crimes. That’s another reason why we might hesitate getting into a war in the first place. It also takes us into that gray and murky world in which we measure better and worse. That’s the place where the leaders of nations and professional military officers work. Many of them faithful Christians. So, then we have Hamas engaged in war crimes — embedding among civilians, working in schools and mosques, and taking hostages. Something almost all experts agree is true. Though Hamas says it’s not true.
All the deaths and suffering are tragic, awful, an offense against God.
Intention and effect
But beyond acknowledging the wrongness of all war, humanity has also engaged in an effort to limit the horror by establishing laws about how wars are fought. So, in the military of all the western democracies, including Israel, there are laws and norms and systems to take into account those international standards. And we might also note no nation has acted on that as well as they might. We don’t get to live in a perfect world. Still, having the standards is better than not having the standards.
I gather that the standards are largely about intent rather than effect. We are dealing with ethics moved into law. And the law says that what is at issue is not that they died but how that came to be. Was the intent to follow the law?
Now you and I might find that cold. But it is what we have to work with. It’s not about some feeling of compassion, anger or dismay I have. It’s about whether the law as written was followed or at least reasonable efforts were made by the lawyers asked to advise on the law and the military officers responsible for acting on that advice to follow the law. For example, is their intention to minimize civilian losses? In any case, the law assumes there will be many civilians killed and injured even when the law is followed.
It’s much the same in regard to making a judgment about genocide. “Section 1091 of Title 18, United States Code, prohibits genocide whether committed in time of peace or time of war. Genocide is defined includes violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Again we have the matter of intention. We know that Nazis intended genocide because we have the records of the formal government meetings. So far, we’ve seen no such records in regard to Israel. A few government officials saying they are in favor of genocide is not a statement of a government’s intention. We might say that we can see “intention” in the effect. That doesn’t seem to be how the laws about genocide and war crimes work.
A UN statement on genocide says, “The definition of Genocide is made up of two elements, the physical element — the acts committed; and the mental element — the intent. Intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” While the UN statement has some moral weight we know that it is only when a nation has a related law that there is the possibility of enforcement.
Of course many people and groups have a desire to skip the legalities and act as though they are the competent authority to make the decisions. It’s a mindset that in itself is lawless and in the end undercuts the law. It’s wanting the law to be what I want it to be instead of what it is. I’ll quote from “A Man for All Seasons” below. I’m sure you’ve already had that come to mind.
This abide,
Brother Robert, OA
From a “Man for All Seasons”
Or you can see the clip on YouTube