War is the business of killing the “enemy”, in order to impose your
will on them.
Therefore, “humane war” is an oxymoron.
War itself is a crime. There are few exceptions. I would exempt the war against
Nazi Germany, since it was conducted against a regime of mass murderers, led
by a psychopathic dictator, who could not be brought to heel by any other means.
This being so, the concept of “war crimes” is dubious. The biggest
crime is starting the war in the first place. This is not the business of soldiers,
but of political leaders. Yet they are rarely indicted.
These philosophical musings came to me in the wake of the recent UN report
on the last Gaza war.
The investigation committee bent over backwards to be “balanced”,
and accused both the Israeli army and Hamas in almost equal terms. That, in
itself, is problematic.
This was not a war between equals. On one side, the State of Israel, with one
of the mightiest armies in the world. On the other side, a stateless population
of 1.8 million people, led by a guerrilla organization devoid of any modern
arms.