On a DIME and a Prayer

Just so we are clear, no, I have not found religion. DIME stands for Dense Inert Metal Explosive. This wonderful little addition to the family of explosive devices that limit 'collateral damage' (aka dead civilians) is a nifty new device that appears to have been making its global debut lately (don't bother to look in the US papers for this story, go to the Guardian). We don't know for certain that the weapon is being used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) but it appears likely that something similar to a DIME is being used. What is it and why the hell do I care?

Well, for starters, it is a new weapon being devised at least by one country (the US) as a way to maintain a high powered explosion within a very limited area. Traditional explosives kill mostly through the massive change in pressure that occurs near an explosion, which gets your organs to churn- though shrapnel does a nice job too. This tends to cover a wide area, though, which means that if you hit an apartment to kill a guy you will likely kill his neighbours and maybe their neighbours too. DIME gets around this by somehow concentrating the explosion to limit the area where the pressure change occurs and by minimizing or eliminating the metal fragments. It does so by using metals that essentially vaporise and get superheated during the explosion (tungsten, I think), which then acts as a heated dust cloud slicing people up like a searing hot knife through butter but which loses its efficacy in a short distance.

Why do I care? Well, no one knows for sure if the weapon is being used but Palestinian hospitals are receiving dead bodies with missing limbs but with no evidence of shrapnel. The wounds also appear to have been cauterised in a sense and internal organs coated with dust. I care because inevitably someone is going to start asking whether this is legal under international law (much like the use of white phosphorus by US troops in Falluja). The basis of the question being whether the weapon crosses some sort of line of inappropriate forms of warfare.

Firstly, I have a real hard time grappling with the idea that there are appropriate forms of killing people- this mirrors my disgust with people who favour 'humane' forms of capital punishment, which is an oxymoron. But there is a valid argument to be made that if we can minimize the civilian impact by concentrating our killing to those we want to kill (this is tough logic for me to swallow so bear with me) then the weapon is a good idea. The problem with this is that it would seem, in the long run, to increase high tech combat among civilians.

The second point, however, is whether international law is of much use when this comes down to some tricky moral issues. Weapons that maim or impair soldiers such as lasers are generally viewed as illegal. So too are weapons that are indiscriminate or horrendous like nerve gas. Others, like white phosphorus, have specific contexts where they are legal and illegal. It seems in instances like this, though, that it all gets rather silly asking when, where, and how we kill. But all of this gets to my final point. Once one is committed to war is there a boundary of acceptable action that can be adduced in a legal sense that does not, in fact, rely on moral arguments, which ultimately make the type of war relevant?

What I mean is that if a country is being invaded, are there limits to what that country can do to protect itself? In contrast, if you are an occupying power (e.g. the US in Iraq and Israel in Palestine) aren't your actions already in suspicious waters? Can there then be a better way for one to minimize civilian casualties when the fight should not be occurring in the first place? Obviously, for Israel the ground is muddy. They feel that they are fighting a defensive war. This whole issue, though, is likely to follow the narrow confines of a legal debate (and in international law these confines are quite convoluted) that are, in reality, premised on moral arguments. The whole thing is really just confusing. The first response to a description of the weapon is (unless you are one of those gun nuts who gets off on 'big' weapons and masturbates to "guns and ammo") horror. Yet there is some logic in its appeal or design. I just wonder where the debate will go... So I muse on...