of the military aim and the actual casualty figures would have justified a bombing raid in the first place. But the special value we attach to civilian life precluded it”. 74 This can also be used to support the idea that the intentional harm of non-combatants can be permissible as seen in the example of the US Airforce weighing up the military aims of the operation and the possibility of military and civilian casualties. The US Airforce then determined that the importance of the destruction of the heavy water plant was deemed to outweigh the possibility of non-combatant deaths. One of the largest criticisms of the doctrine of double effect, and the just war theory as a whole, comes from pacifists. Those who subscribe to the pacifist school of thought believe that few, if any, of the wars in modern history have ever met the criteria of the just war theory, pointing to the evidence that since the 1990s, there have been more non-combatant deaths then combatants in the major wars of this period. 75 Whilst this may be true for recent history, evidence from prior wars of the 20 th Century show that any situation where civilians are likely to be targeted and in harm’s way, the military and law is likely to permit civilian casualties if it means the destruction of a major military target that could potentially end the war and prevent further civilian deaths. This is applicable if the military has taken all necessary precautions to prevent any civilian deaths. Those who see the intentional harm of civilians as being impermissible cite the principle of distinction, also known as the principle of discrimination, as their reasoning for this belief. The principle of distinction requires that soldiers are to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in an attempt to prevent
74 Walzer, 2015. 75 Potter, 2015.
42
Made with FlippingBook HTML5