Welcome back to the Dirt Show.

I'm going to continue to talk about what's going on in the Middle East because nothing's

the same.

Everything has changed and we're seeing a real disaster unfolding in the Middle East.

Today, I want to talk about one aspect of the issue.

I want to talk about the role of civilians in wartime and the role of international law

in protecting civilians.

There are two concepts in international law designed to protect civilians.

One is called proportionality and the other is called the principle of distinction.

Distinction is obvious.

You have to distinguish between military people who are appropriate targets and civilians

who are not appropriate targets.

That was easy in the Second World War and not these were uniforms with big swastikas and

medals.

And civilians didn't and if a civilian was found engaged in war activities such as the

dozen or so civilians who came and landed on American shores, I was I was a kid when that

happened.

I remember it in a submarine and were captured.

They were treated like civilians that is they weren't given the benefit of prisoner of war

military status they were tried by a court marshal maybe an appropriate military tribunal

was subject to execution and were in fact executed had they been soldiers that were not of

an executed to sometimes the law protects soldiers more than it does civilians but in actual

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