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War Crimes? [message #70275]

Mon, 05 October 2015 10:24

Kitzyma

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Registered: March 2012
Messages: 238

There seems a lot on TV nowadays about 'war crimes'. Bearing in mind that people who bomb hospitals use the term to accuse others who use barrel bombs, the concept appears to mean anything one side disapproves of. Also, if you think about it carefully, the definition of a war crime often appears to be totally illogical.

Why should chemical weapons be worse than burning someone alive with napalm or conventional weapons? Why is a chemical weapon worse than blowing people's legs off with land mines, especially when the mines can lay hidden and killing/maiming people for years after the war is ended? The UK killed thousands of women & children by fire-bombing cities such as Dresden. The US used napalm on Vietnamese villages. If they weren't war crimes, why is it a war crime for Assad to use barrel bombs that indiscriminately kill civilllans?

There appears to be an idea nowadays that wars can be 'clean', with 'surgical' strikes. But in reality wars are dirty, messy, and nasty. This is especially true in civil wars, or insurgencies, or fighting against terrorists, where it's difficult or impossible to distinguish between combatants and 'innocent' civilians. Furthermore, it makes it more likely that people will enter into wars if they have the illusion that wars can be 'clean' and can won by sticking to rules.

Of course, it's also the winner of a war who ends up having the final decision regarding whether a particular group was 'terrorist' or 'freedom-fighter'.

War isn't a game, such as boxing, with rules. Even if it were, then the rules can only be meaningful if both sides stick to them. If a terrorist group is breaking 'rules' by using a hospital as a base, isn't it stupid for the other side to keep to the 'rules' by not attacking that base? The only point in fighting a war is to win. If you don't intend to win then you're just throwing away lives for nothing. How can you win a war with one hand tied behind your back when the other side use any means they can to win?

One hears the argument that by sticking to the rules when the other side doesn't, we will show our moral superiority. I'm sure that will be a great consolation when we lose the war.

The consequences for losing a war can be much worse than the consequences of breaking the rules. Before the insurgency, Assad no doubt tortured and killed many of his opponents, but was he really much worse than the current Saudi regime? Would the average Syrians' lives (especially gay ones) not be even worse under the rule of radical Islamists?

Also, Assad no doubt saw what happened to Gadaffi and he realised that something even worse could happen to him, his family and his friends if he lost his war. Isn't it human nature and not surprising that he'd do pretty well anything at all to ensure that he doesn't lose?

So, my belief is that:
it is moral weakness and intellectual laziness to believe that wars can be fought without civilian casualties;
if one really wants to feel morally superior one should try to avoid war completely;
the illusion that wars can be clean and fought within rules makes it easier to enter into wars;
once it's been decided that war can't be avoided then anything necessary for winning should be considered;
losing a war is the worst war crime of all.

[Updated on: Mon, 05 October 2015 14:53]

		War Crimes? By: Kitzyma on Mon, 05 October 2015 10:24
		Re: War Crimes? By: timmy on Mon, 05 October 2015 11:30
		Re: War Crimes? By: ChrisR on Mon, 05 October 2015 17:57
		Re: War Crimes? By: Mark on Tue, 06 October 2015 02:13
		Re: War Crimes? By: ChrisR on Tue, 06 October 2015 03:39

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