I attended the talk led by Jens David Ohlins, and it was by far the most informal talk so far. Ohlins was sitting in a chair, not standing and presenting, and it made the talk more approachable. This led to a dialogue between Ohlins and several of the people who attended. The talk was opened by asking us to text the name of some international criminals so it would appear on a polling question in the front of the room. Names like Kony, Osama and Hussein showed up. Ohlins prompted us on a current United States international cirme scandal, in which the United States attacked an Afghani Hospital, killing 22 civilians and injuring many. He wanted to know, in war times, is this illegal? Most people would immediately say, no, you can’t just kill innocent people, but I found out that in war times, it is law that civilians may be killed as collateral damage, as long as the deaths are proportionate to the target. In this case, is seemed clear that this wasn’t quite proportionate.

However, this brought up the moral question, what is proportionate? Ohlins asked us about the atomic bomb, and the United State’s use of it in Japan. Killing thousands seemed justified because it essentially won the war, but what if they killed 5 people for just one soldier? Or what about 200 people for Osama Bin Laden. Its hard to guess what the threat of a high level criminal is worth in civilian lives, and continues to be a grey area in international law. Personally, I think war is ugly, and will always be ugly. Unfortunately, innocent people die in the line of fire, be it accidental of not, and I don’t always think its “collateral damage”. Also, it is hard to judge because you view the other side as the enemy, and you want your own country to win. You just have to hope that eventually, this conflict will come to and end.