The Gulf War: Not so clean.

This article argues that the 1991 Persian Gulf War was not fought to acceptable moral and ethical standards by coalition forces. The most influential surprise of the war-the one that may dictate how future wars are fought--is the fact that air power proved far more successful over firmly entrenched occupying forces than commentators and original war plans had anticipated. Questions of moral responsibility are still being raised as Iraqi civilians continue to die, not only as a result of civil violence following the war, but also because of the allied bombing that devastated the civilian infrastructure during the war. Just-war theorists, as well as the U.S. Army Manual for Land Warfare, agree that attacks on sites that produce war materiel and sustain the war effort are bound to produce some civilian deaths. More than anyone might have expected, the U.S. strategy resembled the "total war" described by James Turner Johnson in "Can Modern War Be Just?"