‘Missile Strike Carried Out With Yemeni Cooperation’—The War Against Terrorism: A Different Kind of War?

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Major Dr. Bård Mæland and Professor James Turner Johnson, co-editors of Journal of Military Ethics, and Professor Asa Kasher, associate editor, for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this commentary.

Notes

¹In this commentary two other very interesting issues arising from the article will not be discussed: the fact that the operation was carried out by the CIA who controlled the Predator and the legitimacy of the war against terrorism.

²Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Articles 4, 27–34. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions I, Article 52. The Geneva Conventions are cited in Hadjiconstantinou, 1999 459–616. The Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions, as well as the Geneva Conventions, are available on-line from http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebCONVFULL?OpenView, accessed 25 May 2003; Internet.

³Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions I, Article 48.

⁴Geneva Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, Articles 19–21, 24–25; Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea, Articles 22–35. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions I, Articles 12 and 23.

⁵Apart from the principle of double effect, the principles of discrimination and proportionality are sometimes overridden by military necessity. In that case, winning the battle is crucial (e.g., when the survival of the state is under serious threat or when there is an evident genocide threat). Yet, we will not discuss the issue of military necessity because it is clearly not the case here. For more information regarding this very important and much discussed issue, the reader is referred to Yoder (1996: 27–29) and Christopher (1999: 157–178).

⁶Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions I, Article 51.

⁷We must not forget the accidental bombing of an Afghan wedding party which was considered to be a Taliban gathering (Pfaff 2003).

⁸Soldiers will still be able to defend themselves using lethal force (Truesdell, 1996: 19) and the deployment—when possible—of non-lethal weapons at a first stage of an attack combined with the use of lethal force at a later stage will give them a wider range of options; therefore, in urban environments the rights of the civilian population will be protected in a better way.