Attempts to legitimise warfare should be met with scepticism, argues Andrew Clapham. Plus letters from Prof Keith Hayward, Blaine Stothard and Margaret Vandecasteele
Samuel Moyn is right to emphasise how humanising war has distracted attention from questioning whether there should be a war in the first place (How the US created a world of endless war, 31 August). We could go further and argue that the permissive interpretation of the rules that he highlights has actually led to a dehumanisation in war.
The last 20 years have seen torture, multiple targeted killings by drones controlled from a safe distance, apparently self-explanatory categories such as “law-of-war detainees”, “law-of-war targets”, and the destruction of objects contributing to what has been called the “war-sustaining economy”. It is as if once one accepts one is at war, we accept that sticking a “law-of-war” label on all the killing and destruction makes it inevitable and acceptable.