War Crimes, Syria, Israel, and Indiscriminate Rocket Fire

Note from Brant:  Rex Brynen has kindly allowed us to repost his excellent summary of 'war crimes' that he originally had up over at Facebook.  He also recommended this link for many of legalisticisms that people may want to dig into.

At the risk of upsetting just about everyone on all sides of every conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere, some clarity on what is--or is not--technically a "war crime":

1) Attacking a military commander or rocket launching site in a way that results in civilian casualties. Usually not a war crime, if the force use was appropriate to the military advantage gained (a very fuzzy/elastic concept) and the civilians were not deliberately targeted. Whether it is a sensible thing to do is another issue.

2) Imposing an embargo on key economic goods for the purposes of collective punishment of a civilian population. Usually yes. An embargo is permissible for other purposes, however.

3) Declaring a naval blockade, and stopping ships in international waters. Perfectly legal. However, the actual policy being supported by the blockade might be illegal (see #2).

4) Firing inaccurate rockets at civilian areas. Definitely a war crime. If they were accurate rockets fired at a military target it would probably not be a war crime, even if civilians were hit too (proportionality/military advantage).

5) Syrian army firing at FSA in a residential building that also contains civilians. Usually not a war crime (see #1).

6) FSA firing at Syrian troops in a residential building that also contains civilians. Usually not a war crime (see #1).

7) Indiscriminate Syrian aerial or artillery bombardment of rebel-held civilian neighbourhoods. War crime (see #4).

8) Denying Palestinian right to self-determination. Immoral, politically-short sighted, a violation of other aspects of international human rights law, but not a war crime per se.

9) Settlement activity in occupied territories. Yes, a war crime (Rome Statutes, Art 8.2.b.viii)

10) Deliberately using civilians as human shields. Yes, a war crime.

11) Conducting military operations in built-up areas where there are lots of civilians around. No. The difference between this and #10 is hard to discern in practice, of course, since it hinges on intent.

12) Hiding rockets in the basements of houses. Not a war crime. Bombing those houses is also not a war crime. Shooting those rockets is a war crime if they aren't really aimed, or are aimed at a civilian target. It is not a war crime if they are aimed at a military target or a strategic economic target.

13) Deliberately bombing UN facilities. Yes, war crime. Ditto Red Cross facilities, hospitals. Deliberate targeting of religious establishments and cultural institutions is a war crime too--UNLESS those installations have lost their protection by being used for military purposes (like weapons storage or firing positions). In that case bombing them is permitted.

14) Accidentally bombing UN facilities, etc. No, unless one could show some willful disregard for the presence of such facilities.

15) Car bombs and suicide bombers. Depends on the target (and hence proportionality/military advantage). See #4.

In general, international law clearly allows military forces to kill civilians. However, it places limits on that killing: it must not be deliberate, the use of force may not be indiscriminate, and the use of force (and collateral damage caused) must be proportionate to the military advantage gained.

Finally, the extent to which actions are or are not technically "war crimes" is a separate issue from the morality (and legality) of the larger purpose for which military force is employed (although that can get fuzzy if notions of aggression vs legitimate self-defence are introduced).

By: Rex Brynen

Israel and Iran, Again

Yep, it's been awhile since we ran an article about Israel's concern with Iran's nuke program. Are we getting closer to open warfare? Or is Israel waiting for Assad to implode in Syria before doing anything so as not to give the world a distraction from what's happening there?

It is often hard for Americans to grasp the idea of an existential threat to a nation. While one existed for Americans during the Cold War, since then the notion that any single actor with any single act could effectively obliterate Americans or their lifestyle is very hard for many people to get their brains around. But that is exactly the threat that Israelis face from even a "limited" Iranian nuclear attack. And though it is reasonable to debate whether the Iranians would actually use such a weapon against Israel given the likely consequences for them, from the Israeli perspective, given Iranian threats and actions, the risks of guessing wrong about the intent of the leaders in Tehran are so high that inaction could easily be seen to be the imprudent path.

This summarizes the carefully worded case made last week in the Wall Street Journal by Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. His article was nothing less than a case for war, and, over lunch on Friday, Aug. 10, he underscored to me how much thought and care was put into its drafting. (Oren is, for the record, my longtime very good friend.) The response to the article included the unlikely endorsement of its core points by Khalid Al Khalifa, the foreign minister of Bahrain, who tweeted it with the words "Time Is Short For Iran Diplomacy." It also was seen as one of the most important of last week's signals that Israel's discomfort with the Iran situation is growing greater, signals that included on-the-record statements by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and off-the-record statements to journalist Ari Shavit (widely assumed to have been from Defense Minister Ehud Barak) that both underscored and amplified Oren's case for ramped-up pressure on Iran.

By: Brant

Israel Prepping Another Lebanon War?

The Haaretz Daily Newspaper is quoting an Israeli division commander that Israel is preparing for the next Lebanon war. Now, they'd be fools not to prepare, but this sure sounds more imminent.

Six years after the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War, the IDF is saying openly that Israel is preparing for another Lebanon war.

The commander of the IDF's 91st Division, Brigardier-General Hertzi Halevy told journalists on Thursday, "We understand that there is more than one factor, whether this is Lebanese, or whether it will come from somewhere else, that can ignite the border here."

The 91st Division, part of the Northern Command, and responsible for the front with Lebanon, sees developments in Syria as one of the factors that could upset the calm that has prevailed in the region since the war. The collapse of the Syrian regime may also bring with it an increase in Jihadi or Hezbollah operatives, who may try to carry out targeted attacks in the area.

Already, Northern Command intelligence says certain areas of the border between Lebanon and Syria are "lawless zones," which enable the transfer of more advanced weapons into the region. The IDF has stated that there are some 60 thousand missiles in Lebanon, ten times more than there were in the country during the first Lebanon war. Hezbollah has the capability to launch a large quantity of rockets in a short period time, and this could cause significant damage on the Home Front.

In IDF simulations of what a third Lebanon war would look like, ground maneuvers in villages that are considered bastions of Shiite Hezbollah become particularly important. "The next war will be different, and therefore we should stop it as quickly as possible, in order to make things easier for the home front. This means carrying out a very strong attack against Lebanon, and the damage will be enormous," says a senior officer in the Northern Command.

Want to wargame the last one? There's a project from one of Dr Sabin's students on the 2006 war in Lebanon that we previously featured in Random Friday Wargaming. There's also a 2012 "hypothetical" scenario in Millennium Wars Advanced: States of Conflict.

By: Brant

Another Iranian Test-Fire

This one appear to be legit, and actually has real missiles being fired, rather than photoshopped into place.

Iran said on Tuesday it had successfully tested medium-range missiles capable of hitting Israel in response to threats of military action against the country, Iranian media reported.
Israel says it could attack Iran if diplomacy fails to force it to halt its disputed nuclear energy program. The United States also has military force on the table as a last resort, but U.S. officials have repeatedly encouraged the Israelis to be patient while new sanctions against Iran take effect.
The Islamic Republic announced the "Great Prophet 7" missile exercise on Sunday after a European Union embargo against Iranian crude oil purchases took full effect after another fruitless round of big powers talks with Tehran.
Iran's official English-language Press TV said the Shahab 3 missile with a range of 1,300 km - able to reach Israel - were tested along with the shorter-range Shahab 1 and 2.
"The main aim of this drill is to demonstrate the Iranian nation's political resolve to defend vital values and national interests," Revolutionary Guards Deputy Commander Hossein Salami was quoted by Press TV as saying.
He said the tests were in response to Iran's enemies who talk of a "military option being on the table". "The maneuvers are an answer to the rude words spoken against Iran," Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

By: Brant

Is Egypt Losing Control of the Sinai?

Netanyahu likens it to the "Wild West".

Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has turned into a "kind of Wild West" exploited by Islamist militants with Iranian help to smuggle in weapons and stage attacks on Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
The open desert border between Israel and Egypt was relatively quiet for three decades after they signed a peace treaty in 1979. But the Jewish state says that since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising last year, Cairo has lost its grip on the desolate Sinai and tensions are rising.
Earlier this month, Israel said a rocket fired from the Sinai hit its Red Sea resort of Eilat, causing no injuries. Last August, cross-border infiltrators shot dead eight Israelis and Israeli soldiers repelling the attack accidentally killed five Egyptian guards.
"The Sinai is turning into a kind of Wild West which ... terror groups from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda, with the aid of Iran, are using to smuggle arms, to bring in arms, to mount attacks against Israel," Netanyahu told Israel Radio.
"We are acting against this reality and we are in ... continuous discussions with the Egyptian government, which is also troubled by this," said Netanyahu.
Iran denies supporting militants against its arch-enemy.

View Larger Map

By: Brant

US DoD Funding for Israel's Iron Dome?

The Pentagon wants to ship more money to Israel for the Iron Dome.

The Pentagon will press Congress for more money for Israel’s Iron Dome system designed to intercept short-range rockets and mortars, a boost for Israel as the Obama administration tries to dissuade the Mideast ally from launching a potential unilateral strike on Iran.

The announcement from the Pentagon on Tuesday also comes as Obama has faced election-year criticism from Republican presidential candidates and GOP lawmakers that administration support for a longtime friend has been inadequate.

“Supporting the security of the state of Israel is a top priority of President Obama and Secretary (Leon) Panetta,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said in a statement. “The Department of Defense has been in conversations with the government of Israel about U.S. support for the acquisition of additional Iron Dome systems and intends to request an appropriate level of funding from Congress to support such acquisitions based on Israeli requirements and production capacity.”

The Pentagon cited the effectiveness of the system, which in recent weeks intercepted more than 80 percent of the nearly 300 rockets and mortars fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza at southern Israel.

Here's the official DoD Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary George Little on Iron Dome


By: Brant

Israel Attacks Iran, and... ?

Foreign Affairs has an entire issue devoted to the Iranian nuclear standoff, sans Persian Incursion review. But one of the better articles is about "What Happens After Israel Attacks Iran". An excerpt:

Indeed, the analysis in Israel about the possible effects of a bombing campaign against Iran is limited to a small, professional elite, mostly in government and behind closed doors. This intimate circle that does consider scenarios of the “day after” concentrates almost exclusively on what an Iranian response, direct or through proxies, might look like. This is not surprising, given that Israel must worry first and foremost about the immediate military implications of an Iranian counterattack. But in doing so, Israeli policymakers are ignoring several of the potential longer-term aspects of a strike: the preparedness of Israel’s home front; the contours of an Israeli exit strategy; the impact on U.S.-Israel relations; the global diplomatic fallout; the stability of world energy markets; and the outcome within Iran itself. Should Israel fail to openly debate and account for these factors in advance of an attack, it may end up with a strategic debacle, even if it achieves its narrow military goals.

Israeli officials have thought extensively about how the first moves of a military conflict between Jerusalem and Tehran might play out. Ephraim Kam, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and deputy head of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), reflected the general consensus in the security establishment when he wrote in the Institute’s 2010 strategic assessment that Iran may respond in two possible ways to an Israeli operation: missile strikes on Israel, either directly or through allied organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas; or terror attacks, likely on Israeli targets abroad by Iranians or those proxy groups.

A direct Iranian response would involve a missile barrage from Iran onto Israeli territory, similar to the volley of rockets launched at Israel by Iraq during the first Gulf War. Only one Israeli citizen died then, and it seems that Israeli officials estimate that the damage of a similar Iranian strike would be greater, but still limited. This past November, Ehud Barak, referring to possible direct and proxy-based Iranian retaliation, said that “There is no scenario for 50,000 dead, or 5,000 killed -- and if everyone stays in their homes, maybe not even 500 dead.” Barak’s calm also reflects Israel’s previous experience in preempting nuclear threats. Iraq did not respond when Israel destroyed its nuclear facility in 1981, disproving the doomsday predictions made by several Israeli experts prior to the strike, and Syria remained silent when Israel bombed its nascent reactor in 2007.

Israeli policymakers also do not seem particularly concerned about the prospect of a proxy response. They recognize that Hezbollah, as it did in 2006, can target Israel with a large number of rockets. Yet in an interview with Ronen Bergman in The New York Times late last month, several Israeli experts argued that, regardless of a potential battle with Iran, the probability of an extended conflict with Hezbollah is already high. According to this logic, an attack on Iran would merely hasten the inevitable and might actually be easier to sustain before, not after, Iran acquires nuclear weapons. In addition, the new constraints now operating against Hezbollah -- the ongoing revolt in Syria chief among them -- might even limit the ability of the organization to harm Israel in a future conflict. Indeed, over the past several months, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has emphasized the group’s independence, saying on February 7 that “the Iranian leadership will not ask Hezbollah to do anything. On [the day of an Israeli attack on Iran], we will sit, think, and decide what we will do.”

It's long, but a very, very good read.

By: Brant

Redux of Persian Incursion... With the US?

Time's BattleLand blog asks a necessary - but provocative - question: if Israel can't bomb the Iranians out of the nuke business, could the US?

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned that attacking Iran’s nuclear sites would, “at best, it might postpone it [Iran joining the nuclear-weapons club] maybe one, possibly two years.” If he’s right – and most U.S. experts concur with his view – the U.S. probably can wound, but not kill, Iran’s nuclear dreams with military force.

But U.S. military experts say Washington could do far more to damage Iran’s nuclear program than Tel Aviv. Israel “has a much smaller air force and further to fly,” says Michael O’Hanlon at the Brookings Institution. “I worry most about its ability to robustly deal with Iranian air defenses.”

Jeffrey White, a former analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, says it’s not the initial punch that would set a U.S. attack apart from an Israeli one, but the ability to keep it going. “We have a lot more capability than Israel does, in terms of the number of aircraft, the kinds of attacks we could carry out, and the kinds of ordnance we could put on the targets,” says White, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.

“But more important that anything is that we could sustain attacks. We’ve got B-1s, B-2s, carrier aviation, we might be able to launch out of the gulf states, we’ve got cruise missiles to knock down the air-defense system before we launch,” White says. “We have all kinds of capabilities that Israel doesn’t have.”

But an Israeli attack would not be puny — it could involve, as the Times noted, as many as 100 aircraft. “They could get enough aircraft up there to hit a number of targets,” White says, “but it would probably be a one-shot deal.”

That’s because its smaller military would have to dedicate itself to the blowback sure to come: “The Israelis are pretty creative, but my tendency is to think of it as a one-time event, and then the forces used in that operation would be reconfigured to prepare for anything coming out of Hezbollah or Hamas,” White says. “The real difference is our ability to sustain these attacks,” White says. “I’m thinking it would be an air campaign of attacks lasting days, versus a single operation.”

And it might – if the U.S. were serious about stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – have to be repeated again and again.

Two things jump out at me here:
1. That repetitive strike paradigm sounds a lot like what we did to Iraq in the '90s.
2. Discussions about striking the nuclear infrastructure focus on how far back we can set them. Has anyone considered that a strike might stiffen the resolve of the Iranian people to complete the project and actually accelerate their progress?

By: Brant

Are Israelis Making Iranian Nukies Go "Boom"?

According to The Daily Beast, the Israelis have "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" (not) admitted to killing Iranian nuclear scientists.

Six weeks ago in Washington, on the sidelines of a major U.S.-Israeli meeting known as the “strategic dialogue,” Israeli Mossad officers were quietly and obliquely bragging about the string of explosions in Iran. “They would say things like, ‘It’s not the best time to be working on Iranian missile design,’” one U.S. intelligence official at the December parley told The Daily Beast.

Those comments were a reference to a string of explosions at a missile-testing site outside Tehran on November 12. The explosions killed Maj. Gen. Hassan Moqqadam, the head of the country’s missile program. But the manner in which the message was delivered—informally and on the sidelines of an official discussion—also speaks to how Israel appears to seek to create the impression of responsibility for acts of violence and sabotage inside Iran without quite taking formal responsibility.

What do you think?

poll by twiigs.com

By: Brant

US-Israel Drill Delayed

There was supposed to be a joint US-Israel drill starting this Spring, but they've delayed it 'til later in the year.

Israel and the United States opted to delay a major joint military exercise because of regional tensions and instability, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday.
"The entire world understands that we had to postpone this exercise because of political and regional uncertainties, as well as the tensions and instability prevailing in the region," Lieberman told public radio.

If the exercise was postposed for "political and regional uncertainties, as well as the tensions and instability" in the Middle East, one wonders how it was scheduled at all.

By: Brant

Random Friday Wargaming: Persian Gulf: Battle for the Middle East

It wasn't just part of the great GDW "Third World War" series, but a great game in its own right. Persian Gulf: Battle for the Middle East was actually pretty good for modding into any one of a variety of potential or actual MidEast crises over the years.


There's that great GDW collage cover art again.





CSW has a discussion board for the entire series.

Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Israeli Army Base Attacked... By Israelis?!

Yep, some right-wing settlers staged a "protest" that included an attack on an amy base.

Radical Jewish settlers attacked an army base and staged protests in a closed military zone on the Jordan border overnight, sparking a sharp condemnation on Tuesday from the Israeli premier.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, around 50 settlers forced their way onto a key army base in the northern West Bank and vandalised military vehicles there following rumours troops were about to evacuate settlement outposts, the military said.
Several hours earlier, some 30 settlers broke into a Christian baptismal site in a closed military zone along the Jordanian border to stage a protest.
Both incidents were swiftly condemned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who ordered the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) "to act aggressively" against anyone attacking Israeli troops.
"This incident must be completely condemned. The security forces need to concentrate on defending our citizens and not on such outrageous lawbreaking," he said in a statement.

Alright Brian - how the hell do you wargame this one?

By: Brant

Persian Incursion Continues to Get Attention

Here's Michael Peck on NPR Weekend Edition with a short chat about the game.

By: Brant

Monday Video: Druze Battalion

Start your week with a techno-Israeli BANG!



By: Brant

Monday Video: Israeli Military

With a MidEastern BANG!



Make sure check out the Merkava catching air at the 8:18 mark. Some poor private got stuck changing a lot of torsion bars...


By: Brant

Random Friday Wargaming: Second Lebanon War - 2006

Another project out of King's College in London, Second Lebanon War - 2006 is a student project that's a solitaire game with the player as the Israelis.




It's freely available (along with a host of others) over at Professor Sabin's site at King's College.

No discussion board at CSW, but feel free to talk about it here...

Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Israel's Submarines

A significant part of their nuclear deterrent, and what ensures their counterattack capability... and yet, does anyone out there know of any wargames in which the Israeli sub fleet is included?

Just like Israel’s submarine fleet is secretive, so are its commanders. Colonel Oded, 44, has recently completed his tenure as the fleet’s commander, ending a chapter of more than 20 years where he performed almost every command post in the fleet. “If a layman would see submarine troops from the side, he would not understand how we can withstand it,” Oded says in a rare interview. “It’s a group of people who perform missions at very certain locations and feel like home there. People wake up for their shifts, eat breakfast and follow a routine in the least trivial locations one can imagine.”

When I ask Oded whether his troops’ passports would be filled with stamps, had they theoretically stamped them at border control, he smiles and says nothing. Indeed, we can imagine that these virtual passports would have been full of stamps. The Navy’s submarines, as opposed to other vessels, never dock at foreign ports, including friendly ones. This is the nature of the service: The submarines only dock in Israel.

By: Brant

Random Friday Wargaming: Elusive Victory: The Air War over the Suez Canal, 1967-1973

Taking to the skies this week, our random Friday wargame is Elusive Victory: The Air War over the Suez Canal, 1967-1973 from GMT. Designed by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood and Terry Simo, and covering a wide swath of air conflict, Elusive Victory has taken home a Charlie for Best Post-WWII Boardgame.





You can discuss it at the ConsimWorld Forum here.

Order your own over from GMT Games on their website.

Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Cue the Updates to Persian Incursion!

Iran's got a new nuclear site! Someone update the target folders from Persian Incursion!

Iran is preparing to install centrifuges for higher-grade uranium enrichment in an underground bunker, diplomatic sources say, a development that is likely to add to Western worries about Tehran's atomic aims.
Preparatory work is under way at the Fordow facility, tucked deep inside a mountain to protect it against any attacks, and machines used to refine uranium could soon be moved to the site near the clerical city of Qom, the sources said.
The Islamic Republic said in June it would shift production of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity to Fordow from its main Natanz plant this year and triple output capacity, in a defiant response to charges that it is trying to make atomic bombs.
Tehran only disclosed the existence of Fordow two years ago after Western intelligence detected it and said it was evidence of covert nuclear activities. The facility has yet to start operating.

By: Brant

Oy Vey! Da BBC Wit' Da False Em-PHA-sis!

Really, the BBC is going down this road?

Check out this headline:

BBC News - Gaza: Children die in Israeli attack, say doctors

Read the article...

Gaza: Children die in Israeli attack, say doctors

Several Palestinians were also injured in Tuesday's attacks

Two were under 18, while four were members of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, according to the ruling Hamas militant group.

Israel apologised for the civilian casualties but said it would defend itself against rocket fire from Gaza, which has increased in recent days.

Militants fired a barrage of mortars into Israel on Saturday.

So the headline is "Children die!"
The reality is that 2 were under 18. But 4 members of the group were from a known terror group advocating for the abolition of Israel. Not noted, however, is whether those under 18 were 17 and members of Islamic Jihad, or 7 years old and playing jumprope in a nearby parking lot.
Oh yeah, and the Israelis were returning fire against an enemy known to use human shields and set up their launchers next to schools, mosques, and hospitals.

Really, BBC? This is the best you've got?


By: Brant