On Veterans/Remembrance Day, We Ignore the People Most Affected by War — Civilians

I'm reproducing this article I wrote for the Washington Post as we approach Remembrance or Veterans Day. You can read the original article if you have a Washington Post subscription here (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/11/on-veterans-day-we-ignore-the-people-most-affected-by-war-civilians/)

"By?Ray Williams

?November 11, 2014 at 10:21 a.m. EST

?Across the world on Tuesday, people are commemorating historic military conflicts and the soldiers who fought in them. Veterans Day in the United States is just one of many observed holidays. Canada and several European countries are recognizing Remembrance Day this week. The Polish are marking Independence Day. For Americans, it’s the second military-related holiday of the year, following Memorial Day in May. On all of these holidays, the focus is almost exclusively on armed forces casualties in battles since World War I. Conspicuously absent from their objectives is the remembrance of the many other lives lost in?these wars – the civilian casualties. While it is civilians who suffer most during armed conflicts, there are astonishingly few memorials or formal observances for their deaths.

?The European Council estimated?that of the almost 4 million people who died in wars between 1990 and 2003, about 90 percent were civilians.?Certainly, there is a lot of disagreement about the number of civilian casualties in wars: Estimates of the civilian toll from the Iraq conflict?range from?150,000?to?more than 500,000. Civilian casualties in?the Korean War?vacillate, as do those in the Vietnam War –?give or take a million. The numbers vary because some estimates include only those people killed by direct violence, while many more died?as a result of infrastructure destruction and other secondary effects. But even accounting for varied estimates, the numbers are incredibly high. Since World War I, civilian deaths have become?a larger proportion of war casualties. World War I claimed about?7 million?civilian lives and World War II estimates?rise well above 35 million?– though, it’s estimated that?China suffered between 20 million and 50 million?civilian casualties?alone.

?Following World War II, a series of treaties governing the laws of war were adopted. These Geneva Conventions were adopted, in no small part, because of concerns about the massive toll from military practices during that conflict. Although the Fourth Geneva Convention attempted to erect some legal defenses for civilians in time of war, it was amended in 1977 with Protocol I, which prohibited the deliberate or indiscriminate attack of civilians, among other provisions. Although?ratified by more than 170 countries, the United States has not signed on, nor has Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India and Turkey.

?Nations’ justification for civilian casualties as “collateral damage” is supported by what is known as the “just war theory.” Essentially, the theory is based on the notion that the ends justify the means – in this case, defeating the enemy justifies the killing of innocent civilians. Such an argument was used by Allied Forces when?firebombing a German city in World War II?and by the United States for?napalm bombs in Vietnam and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In a Washington Post op-ed, John Tirman, executive director of the MIT Center for International Studies, argued: “The United States, which should be regarded as a principal advocate of human rights, undermines its credibility when it’s so dismissive of civilian casualties in its wars. Appealing for international action on Sudan, Syria and other countries may sound hypocritical when our own attitudes about civilians are so cold.”

?In the lack of memorials, the inaccurate casualty counts and the failure to support Protocol 1, the United States and other nations have demonstrated an uncaring and?blind attitude about civilian suffering. While the deaths of soldiers often command the attention of the public and media, our awareness of civilian atrocities in Vietnam, China, Sudan, and Rwanda tend to fade quickly or receive passing attention. These attitudes?need to change, starting with how we observe Veterans Day. Today, let’s not only?remember the fallen soldiers and military survivors, but also the hundreds of millions of innocent civilians who died with no opportunity to defend themselves. That, then, would be true remembrance.?

Ray Williams was born a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp in Hong Kong during World War II."

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