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War Crimes?  [message #70275] Mon, 05 October 2015 10:24 Go to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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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]

Re: War Crimes?  [message #70276 is a reply to message #70275] Mon, 05 October 2015 11:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

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Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Except in Vietnam, where the USA lost and committed war crimes by using Napalm and other chemical agents, war crimes have always been defined by the victor. The victor is never prosecuted, it seems.

In WW2 the blanket bombings of cities British and German were each war crimes. But can you imagine an airman on either side refusing to do his job?

If War Crimes are real, why do we not somehow stop ISIS? Or do we fear them too much to do that? Come to that, do we have the right to?

Assad is not a pleasant individual. Do we accept least worst? And who are "we" to accept it?

Did we make Iraq better or worse by reducing it to a lawless nation amidst rubble?



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: War Crimes?  [message #70277 is a reply to message #70275] Mon, 05 October 2015 17:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ChrisR is currently offline  ChrisR

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Registered: October 2014
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Perhaps you've not seen the Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon" from 1967. I don't know if it's available online but it's worth watching. Basic plot is 2 planets have been warring for centuries using computer simulations, but people electronically "killed" have to report to disintegration stations within 24 hours to be, well, disintegrated. Nice, clean, doesn't disrupt society.

In the absence of homeland devastation, the US, NATO, and now, ironically, Russia have all decided it's okay to mess up somebody else's sandbox. Makes for great television.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee is credited with saying it best: "It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."
Re: War Crimes?  [message #70278 is a reply to message #70277] Tue, 06 October 2015 02:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mark

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Registered: April 2013
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Well, Kitzyma, as you said, "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'."

Or, as the famous old saying goes, "History is written by the victors."

Heck, since Timmy brought up WW2, look how it ended - with the U.S. nuking not one but two Japanese cities.  The explosions themselves indiscriminately killed every man, woman, and - yes - child either from the initial blast or from radiation poisoning (which, if you know anything at all about lethal radiation poisoning, you know it's a horrible way to go); most of those who died were civilians.
Re: War Crimes?  [message #70280 is a reply to message #70278] Tue, 06 October 2015 03:39 Go to previous message
ChrisR is currently offline  ChrisR

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Location: Western US
Registered: October 2014
Messages: 136



And if it hadn't been for a precedent-setting emperor, and a loyal staff at the imperial palace, there would likely have been a third, fourth... who knows how many cities. The War Cabinet was still opposed to surrender, but could not overrule the Emperor. (Although a subset of that Cabinet attempted a coup so Japan would stay in the war.)

War is indeed ugly. The only two choices a nation should have are get in it and win it or get out and let the cards fall. The problem with groups such as ISIS is that they really do neither. I'm not sure we know how to wage that type of war.
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