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What's a civilian?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:32 / 30.08.02

Civilians and non-combatants are often cited as reasons for war - usually after they are dead - or reasons not to go to war - in the context of avoiding killing them.

But what is a civilian? There's a sense of innocence, but in many cases a civilian population can be as dangerous as a military unit. Frequently, civilians are in agreement with their government's position, or in receipt of profits from its activities. Non-combatants in the west are often commercial workers - whose companies actions in the developing world are a causus belli.

By contrast, in the Middle East, and specifically in the context of Israel and Palestine, non-combatants are insanely hard to identify - children carry guns and mothers and daughters are medics or even bombers.

So why the distinction between civilian and military casualties? Especially when soldiers are often conscripts...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:20 / 30.08.02

Because, harsh as it may sound (and, indeed, is)- that's the way war's conducted. And yes, I know, a conscript may well not want to be part of the army.

However, once you are, (and I know, this sucks) then you are state property for the duration. One of the things you sign (or get signed) up for is the possibility that you may be killed.

Don't get me wrong- I am SO not in favour of conscription.

Them is the rules. Unfortunately, however, the rules suck.

13:53 / 30.08.02

Isn't it just a term we use to indicate a group of people that we don't want to kill, or to be/have been killed?

Then it shades into such terms as 'enemy non-combatant' or 'potential hostile', to use a couple of recent examples.

20:12 / 30.08.02

I think, these days, that civilian is defined as someone not part of the official armed services, and not conducting armed warfare. However, civilians are still legitimate targets in the eyes of modern planners. "Civilian" targets such as power stations are recognised as being central to "military" behaviour and as such they are bombed enthusiastically. Civilians who get in the way are "unfortunate but unavoidable casualties" - i.e. we don't go after them specifically because there's no point, but we don't give a shit if they die.

Basically, civilians are people who are unlikely to get in the way of you doing what you want. As soon as they get in the way, they're legitimate combatants. Their status is defined by the attacker's goals, not any objective status.

11:17 / 02.09.02

I think the term civilian actually increasingly means those parts of the citizenry who don't give a damn about the larger conflict - which seems to be a growing number of people worldwide who just don't feel any connection whatsoever with what their governments do on their behalf...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:50 / 02.09.02

Yeah, but still: how far can you claim to be a non-combatant when your government and your system do things from which you profit?

18:25 / 02.09.02

I'm having a hard time embracing the idea that a civilian profits directly from the gains made by its government/army in the course of combat. For a start, we need to differentiate between civilians who are actually in the area experiencing conflict and those who are distant from it.

"Conflict civilians" would hardly profit from any gains made by their government. Their lives will have been disrupted, sometimes to a horrifying degree, and they can't fight against what is happening because the force that is doing the disrupting is heavily armed (this applies to both the enemy and friendly forces).

That is basically what I consider a civilian: Someone who can't fight back and has to endure whatever happens because they have physical and emotional ties to a particular location.

22:50 / 02.09.02

I think Nick is asking a very good question, but more significant is to what degree you can claim to be a non-combatant when the system/state benefits from your participation? A modern state derives its power and the ability to produce and support its military from the strength of its economy and industry. The notion of a Home-Front is more than just a flourish of language.

03:33 / 03.09.02

The Geneva Conventions
Convention IV is most pertinent to the issue at hand; however the 1977 protocols (which, interestingly enough, were not signed by the US) seem to have something to say about the matter, but I haven't looked through them yet.

Anyway, Convention IV seems to take the via negativa in defining a civilian. (unfortunately I lost the precise bookmark for the quote below):

2. There can be considered as military objectives only those which, by their very nature or purpose or use, make an effective contribution to military action, or exhibit a generally recognized military significance, such that their total or partial destruction in the actual circumstances gives a substantial, specific and immediate military advantage to those who are in a position to destroy them.

3. Neither the civilian population nor any of the objects expressly protected by conventions or agreements can be considered as military objectives, nor yet
(a) under whatsoever circumstances the means indispensable for the survival of the civilian population,
(b) those objects which, by their nature or use, serve primarily humanitarian or peaceful purposes such as religious or cultural needs.

Aside from being an express member of the military, International Law pretty much seems to consider you a legitimate target if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. One's transcendental status as a civilian isn't very important if the ship you're on is carrying weapons across the Atlantic, say.

The rules of "Civilized War" as codified in International law are, as someone infected with postmodernism will surely point out, no more than convenient fictions that will collapse under the all-powerful gaze of the philosopher. That being said, I think war is one of those things where rules of thumb (such as the Geneva Convention) are more pertinent than ruminations about each individual's level of complicity in the war machine that happens to control the slice of timespace one was born into (the liberal humanist version of original sin). I'm willing to dilate on this and any other interesting tidbit someone happens to dig up in the text of the Geneva Conventions tomorrow after I get some sleep.

To close, I'd like to o quote the eminent military historian Bill Bailey, "What's so civil about war, anyway?