Asymmetric warfare really does depend on the blending of the lines between combatant and “innocent.” The fluid battlefield doesn’t really offer backwaters and safe havens to those who gain from the outcome of a battle and given the right ideological arguments, one might believe that the American and British are exporting terrorist casualties to Iraq by fighting terrorists in Iraq instead of Iowa.
I say that because it seems to be important to remember that while we define this conflict with the paradigm of nation-states at war, the other side defines it with the paradigm of religion, oppression, and liberty from tyrants and the godless. Nothing new there, but guerrilla war in the 21st Century is very different than in the past. Our quaint notions about the Laws of War don’t matter to the guerrilla, and they have the resources to exploit that loyalty. They also have the perspective that they are at war with the people of the nation, not the government of the nation-state. It makes a difference when trying to decide who is a combatant and who is an innocent.
I think that there are two perspectives on this and I’m going to try and explicate both of them from the rhetoric.
Perspective one: The Traditional view.
Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization that is non-governmental. They oppose the interests of the United States on ideological grounds, specifically the beliefs of radical militant Islam. Their stated goal is the removal of U. S. troops from the Arabian Peninsula, the destruction of the State of Israel, and the establishment of a Theocratic state governed by Islamic law. They employ suicide attacks and use terror as a weapon to degrade the will of the U. S. government and the American people to contest the conflict. They are fanatical at the core, but if the leadership is removed, then the drones will fall into line with their local governments. It is in the interests of the United States to support local governments as long as they are not actively aiding the terrorists, to urge these states towards representative government and free markets, and to generally ‘modernize’ their countries and make them members in good standing in the global community. The United States does not believe this is a religious war, nor does it believe that Islam is a religion of hate or violence, and it encourages the Muslim community to reject these few militant’s calls for violence against Christians and Jews.
Perspective two: the Modern view.
The United States is an industrial and economic empire which uses it’s military might and economic strength to take what it desires. The American’s are unaware or uncaring of the strictures of Islam and disgrace all of Islam by basing their invasion army in the Holy Land. Their corporations take money from the world and give nothing back, so that our peoples have no jobs, no futures, and no hope but in God. They support and back our governments, giving them arms and turning a blind eye to their oppressive ungodly regimes. They are large and forceful and powerful, but they are not invincible. They are soft and gratuitous, they have no honor. Their weakness is their economy. We cannot defeat their armies on the battlefield, but we can defeat them in their homes. Where they present a surface, well will ignore them; where they present a gap, we will exploit it. We will cost them, not it blood, but in dollars until they lose face in the eyes of the world and their dollar is worthless, while we store up gold and oil. They will cry out in anguish to God when their cities are in chaos, but He will not hear their cries, because they have prostituted themselves to the idol of greed. There are no innocents, only invaders and the beneficiaries of the invaders.
This isn’t supposed to be a rah rah speech for al Qaeda, rather it is just trying to paint a picture that innocence is simply a construction of a point of view that we choose to hold. The reality is that both the U. S. and the U. K. have representative democracies that assert government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and therefore the people are never not culpable in the deeds of the government. When we invade another country it is, however abstracted, by the power and consent of the people that the government acts, or it is the case that the government has acted illegally and it is the duty of the people to amend their consent.
I realize that it is a hard sell to say that the rank and file of the Anglo-American street is either complacent in their duty as citizens or complicit in the deeds of their governments, but it seems to me that claims of innocence are more sentimental than rational.