Cozy Corner

Innocents die all the time. Sometimes, for factors outside human control; other times, through neglect, either personal or at the state level, and other times, through direct action, again, at the personal or state level.

What is acceptable? What isn't? And really, who is accountable?

In the case of deaths that an individual causes - like, say John Mark Karr and JonBenet Ramsay, it's easy to assign blame, and to assert accountability. (And there, now I'll get a dozen hits from the Cult of JonBenet.) But you know that's not where I'm headed.

Now what about deaths where a group of actors cause them, but another group stands by and does nothing? Seems to happen a lot in Africa these decades; but who is holding folks accountable for standing by and doing nothing? Again, not where I'm headed; but we need to make sure we remember Rwanda, and Darfur.

Let's look, specifically, at the Lebanese innocents killed this last month. We can argue till we're blue in the face about the exact number of civilians killed (noting that a dead Hizb'allah terrorist looks like a dead Lebanese civilian), but let's face it, some died. Who is accountable? What is acceptable?

UNICEF, I think , has it both right and wrong. In an exchange with one of their staffers, she wrote to me:

UNICEF's position in all conflicts is that children should be treated as "zones of peace," neither targeted, recruited to fight, nor otherwise made victims of an adult conflict.

I'll admit, I half agree with her. But let's look at accountability. Who killed the civilians in Lebanon? By my reckoning - and, by the reckoning of, at least, American criminal law, as well as the Geneva convention - Hizb'allah did. In fact, every time Hizb'allah fired a rocket from behind a civilian, or built a school over a ammo dump, Hizb'allah killed someone.

Israel, on the other hand, saved them. Every time Israel chose not to target a location, or dropped a leaflet, or made a phone warning, or hijacked a radio station, Israel was saving innocent lives. Lives that had already been targeted by Hizb'allah for death.

No amount of innocent death is acceptable. There is no magic number where you can say "nine kids dead, that's okay; but that tenth one? Nope." The death of every innocent should ignite a spark of outrage.

But the murderer wasn't the one on the other side of the war. The murderer was right behind the victim.