Since the U.N. resolution authorizing the recent air and missile strikes on Libya ostensibly does so in the context of "protecting civilians," when we're rather transparently trying to ensure that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi does not defeat an opposing rebel force, it begs the question of who "civilians" actually are. Michael Crowley cites this awkward exchange between National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and CBS reporter Chip Reid, in which Donilon fails to give a coherent answer.
In his Pentagon briefing, however, AFRICOM Commander General Carter Ham's explanation was fairly clear, at least in how murky the distinction is:
Q: Don't you define, even now, rebel forces who are in Benghazi as civilians? If there were attacks on men holding guns, who are rebel forces, would you not protect them?
HAM: It gets a little bit into some very specific parsing of this question. Because, again, who exactly is this opposition? It's clear to me simply from watching the reports from many of the organizations who are represented in that room, that many in the opposition truly are civilians, and they're trying to protect their homes, their families, their businesses, and in doing that some of them have taken up arms but they are basically civilians trying to protect their civilian lives, businesses, and families.
There are also...those in the opposition that have armored vehicles and that have heavy weapons. To me, those entities, and those parts of the opposition I would argue, are no longer covered under that "protect civilian" clause. It's not a clear distinction, so we're not talking about a regular military force, it's a very problematic situation. What we try to do, and what we are charged with doing, is when there are threats to the civilian populous, we are obliged under the mission and under the security council resolution to try and protect them.
Carter added that "sometimes these are situations that brief much better at a headquarters than they do from the cockpit of an aircraft" but that coalition forces are trying to "be very judicious in their application of force."
So, the distinction between "civilian" and "non-civilian" seems to hinge on how heavily armed they are, although that difference is difficult to make when actually in the field. Ham emphasized that "we have no mission to support opposition forces if they should engage in offensive operations," which makes sense to me in the context of the U.N. resolution but less sense in the context of actually doing what I think this intervention is actually meant to accomplish.
