had attacked and conquered France… mobilized the French economy for their own strategic ends, forcing French workers to serve the German war machine, turning French factories into legitimate military targets, and putting the adjacent residential areas in danger. 72 This creates a distinguished scenario, where the occupying forces are responsible for the deaths of civilians under their control because they turned what would be commercial and civilian factories into legitimate military targets for the Free French Air Force. Furthermore, this portrays that the deliberate harm of non- combatants can be permissible in war. Another example comes from occupied Norway. The target was a heavy water plant that would have aided the research of the atomic bomb by Nazi scientists. For this operation it was decided to utilise a commando raid over an air strike to avoid killing civilians, despite it having a very low chance of success. Although a second commando operation was a success (during which no civilians were harmed) after an initial operation where 34 commandos were killed, the facility was rebuilt and the United States Air Force conducted a bombing raid on the facility which resulted in 22 civilian casualties. 73 In this scenario, the US Air Force knew the significance of the target and that its destruction would give the allies a major advantage and cause a major setback to Germany. Moreover, the nuclear bomb was a weapon that would ultimately end the war. However, they also understood that the option resulting in the fewest civilian casualties also had the slimmest chance of success, as it had previously failed and resulted in 34 military deaths. The decision to conduct a bombing raid can be justified under the doctrine of double effect as “The importance
72 Walzer, 2015. 73 Walzer, 2015.
41
Made with FlippingBook HTML5