A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #462 - MEN AT WAR - Collateral Effects or Extermination Plans? (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

«of one of the most guarded and controlled natural areas» --- Two wars 
have shaken European debate for years now, although, on closer 
inspection, only one seems to match the definition of war - that between 
Ukraine and Russia - while the other, on the African shores of the 
Mediterranean, is merely another Israeli genocide against the 
Palestinians, under the pretext of Hamas terrorism which, for its part, 
is not exactly innocent. Europe debates the danger it faces, and the 
West seems concerned, squeezed between hypocritical arms dealers and 
politicians who issue pacifist statements while trading with the warring 
parties. Europe contemplates its navel, thinking itself the center of 
the world, and cares little - it, which believes itself a beacon of 
justice and democracy - about the terrible, warlike events occurring 
just beyond its sphere of influence. In fact, at this moment all 
continents are riven by armed conflicts, to the point that, adding 
together the populations involved and the number of victims, the figures 
surpass - for the first time - those of the Second World War. Without 
counting latent conflicts that suddenly flare up and then subside, the 
UN reports at least 56 active armed conflicts across 92 countries, each 
involving two or more independent states or territories under the 
implicit protectorate of great powers. In many cases they are civil wars 
in which each side may be backed by different international powers, 
under the sway of major arms manufacturers.

In all these wars, many of the dead are evidently members of the 
fighting armies, although civilians - depending on the shape of the 
theater - may suffer heavy losses, often labeled "collateral effects/ 
damage." The term is used to allude to the "unintentional" effects of 
military actions, but generally refers to "innocent victims," i.e., not 
soldiers who, when they die or are wounded, would be "guilty victims," 
since they are presumed to participate voluntarily and are therefore 
partly responsible - or at any rate knew the risks, etc. "Collateral 
effects" would concern men, women, and children who are caught in the 
middle against their will and suffer physical consequences - deaths, 
injuries, disappearances or displacement - and psychological ones - 
anxiety, depression, trauma - not to mention environmental and crop 
destruction, hunger and poverty; all effects which, according to their 
gravity, weaken one side more than the other, as the Zionist government 
knows well when it forbids food aid from entering Gaza. From all this it 
follows that such effects are not so collateral after all.

Leaving aside the hypocrisy embedded in the term, we must distinguish 
clearly what happens in reality, without being ensnared by justificatory 
and propagandistic rhetoric - including by Italian journalists - 
according to which Putin is an aggressor while Netanyahu is not: a 
judgment justified by the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, which 
nevertheless forgets that Israel has historically invaded Palestine. As 
for "collateral effects," between Russia's bombing of Kyiv - striking 
civilian apartment blocks, markets, or train stations deemed military 
targets - and what has been happening in Gaza for two years - 
indiscriminate Israeli bombardment on the pretext of Hamas tunnels - 
there is little difference, least of all in the rationales, perhaps only 
in the body count. In fact, faced with the lack of credibility in 
justifying crimes as "collateral," the Zionist government appears to 
have been forced to hint at "mistakes" - which, however, occur daily: 
killing people waiting in line for food; striking a crowd or a hospital 
with a drone, waiting minutes for rescuers to arrive, then hitting the 
same spot again to kill as many "collateral" people as possible. This 
happened again on 25 August 2025 at the Khan Younis hospital in Gaza 
City, resulting in 21 dead, including five journalists who had rushed to 
help the wounded - adding to the more than 270 journalists killed, 
directly and deliberately, since the invasion began. Is killing those 
who report Israel's atrocities in Gaza a "collateral effect," or a 
deliberate plan to eliminate those who try to describe a new holocaust 
in real time?

The Western concept of "collateral effect/damage" was much debated 
during the twentieth century, starting from the effects of the two world 
wars, with philosophical references to the Enlightenment and, even more, 
to the legal debate on "just war," a hallmark of modernity since the 
late-fifteenth-century revival, from Roman roots, of the ius belli, 
which, among other things, set moral limits on harm to non-combatants. 
The modern debate on "just war" begins in the Spanish sphere with the 
conquest of the Americas, over whether it was lawful to wage war on 
indigenous peoples and subject them to the Crown. In that context, the 
right of conquest - historically justified by the proclamation of 
Christianity - was morally limited by the need to recognize the humanity 
of the Indigenous - also children of God. From this flowed Queen 
Isabella the Catholic's decree which, while prohibiting the enslavement 
of American peoples, imposed their "tutelage" until they left the savage 
state and converted (a line of reasoning partly reprised for African 
slavery).

From that debate the modern, Western-shaped international law draws two 
principles: necessity and proportionality. Any act of war must not 
inflict excessive harm on non-combatants or target them in order to 
achieve military objectives; and the response to a belligerent act must 
be proportional to its intensity. We know these principles are often 
violated, even if adopted by the International Criminal Court, which not 
all states join. In any case, the historical path of the "just war" 
concept yields a strong reminder - except for those who refuse it 
entirely - that law in bello does not coincide with morality in bello, 
not even in cases of self-defense (for example, Palestinian legitimacy 
to rebel against Zionist oppression does not morally justify rape or 
playing football with a foe's severed head!).

Thus far we have assumed that "collateral effects" are perceived from 
the outside and justified by their authors as unexpected, adverse 
(unintentional) events. In fact, the line between military and 
non-military targets is blurred; it is possible - as often in WWII and 
today in the Russia-Ukraine war - to classify targets as primary or 
secondary, making it "legitimate," for instance, to bomb an arms factory 
to destroy its depots. In that case, bombing by day, when civilian 
workers are present, would be prosecutable for failing to foresee 
"collateral effects," while doing so at night would not. This is 
precisely what happens in Gaza City - if not very often - when the 
Zionist army texts Palestinian residents to evacuate because bombing 
will begin an hour later. At this point one must ask - legitimately, it 
seems to me - whether it is still useful to speak of "collateral 
effects," i.e., unintentional, and what purpose the term serves, 
especially considering that when an army occupies enemy territory, local 
civilians bear the brunt and violence - including sexual - as the UN 
Secretary-General has just denounced. (To be continued)

Emanuele Amodio

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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