Should war have rules?

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#21

Not unless you want to … :wink: :smiley:

And there is a great but less apparent similarity there with war, which after all is the cause of most wars.

It’s no coincidence that the arseholes in America who have threatened the global economy because of their clever dick sub-prime loans which were supported by American banks which oppose federal regulation in a stock market which opposes federal regulation are all going to be bailed out by the federal government while the poor bloody home buyers will get sweet FA because they, as people trying to buy homes which many of them will lose, don’t matter and the same people, along with other American people as distinct from corporations, will fund the federal bail out of the institutions of capital through taxes on their wages.

Meanwhile Bush the Idiot and his cabal haven’t quite grasped that America is no longer the unassailable world power because it is a borrower rather than lender of global capital and its ability to project military power around the globe is accordingly limited and decreasing, as will become increasingly and distressingly apparent to Americans of the Sarah Palin variety over the next few decades as they get their noses rubbed in the dirt they drop around the planet.

#22

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve argued on this site that most wars are fought for economic reasons. Following the most basic law of economics i.e. Supply and Demand.

e.g. The Cod War.

#23

So, if someone decides to wage war on someone else while that same someone else does not want to fight a war, but is forced into defending himself, why then should said soemone else have to follow some rules of war if he turns out to be the Victor - in a skirmish, a battle or the war? After all, he his having to waste his resources in fighting to defend himself. Why shouldn’t he be able to annihilate the aggressor, or enslave him? Why should he, as the victim, have to observe some ridiculous rules being imposed upon him?

#24

Problem with that is ostensible justice - it is entirely possible for both sides to believe in good faith that they have right on their side and are fighting a just war.
In any case, the whole point of the various Geneva and Hague conventions is to improve the lot of noncombatants - the wounded, civilians, etc. It shouldn’t matter who started it to them.

#25

But if they elected or supported the government which started an unjust (we’ll ignore that debate for the purposes of this argument) war, as did about a third of the German population with Hitler, why should they be exempt as targets?

Obviously those individuals can’t be identified by the enemy and bombs etc don’t discriminate, but if civilians are part of the problem there is no reason in theory why they should be immune from war’s effects.

The same as conscipts who don’t support the war still get wounded and killed.

#26

If I’ not mistaken, the Maxim gun was first used in the Ashanti wars in today’s Ghana.

Jan

#27

Youre turning into Herman2 (old ver)… Be careful, you realy shoudnt take those medications with alchohol or narcotics…

#28

Yes, but in total war, is there such a thing as the non-combatant. Bevan Boys comes to mind.

#29

That’s a simple one to deal with - the likes of the Bevin Boys were able-bodied men who were actively contributing to the war effort. What is the contribution of a two year old child? You could I suppose argue that they will grow up to contribute, but that’s in 15 or so years time - by when the war will almost certainly be over. Until then they are merely a useless mouth, consuming resources which could be dedicated to the war effort and providing no material benefit to it.

#30

To be sure.

But then the soldier might refuse to go to war for fear of his family being anihilated.

#31

Bringing it down to a personal level.

Scenario:

I’m cut off from my unit in enemy territory.

As I try to make my way back I’m suddenly confronted by an enemy fighter. I’m quicker than him.

He’s only a kid but he’s armed with an automatic weapon, and I only have a knife.
I don’t want to hurt him, he’s very young and terrified. But if I let him go he might step off a coupe of yards and gun me down.
So, I stick him.

Why didn’t I simply take the weapon from him?..Well, I didn’t think of that in the heat of the moment.

How should I feel about this?

Have I committed a crime?

#32

I remember having impassioned debates about this sort of thing during the Vietnam war with people who were anti-war or pacifist.

My position was always that a ten year old with an AK47 pointed seriously in my direction was going to be treated exactly the same as a twenty year old like me. (Whether I could have done so is a different question. I suspect that my natural hesitation to shoot a child in such a situation could have got me killed by a child, which demonstrates that it is entirely justifiable to shoot the kid first.)

My opponents always took the position that it was appallling and immoral and the worst sort of brutality to kill or shoot a child, independently of their well reasoned and, as I worked out later as they knew at the time, justifiable opposition to a bad war in which we were wrongly involved.

I still think my position was and is acceptable. Kill or be killed. Everyone who takes up an equaliser has to expect to be treated equally.

Strange thing about the pacifists (as distinct from the anti-war people who weren’t pacifists) is that they had a disturbing tendency to threaten physical violence against me and my mates when they thought they were losing those debates. Apparently violence is acceptable to stop violence, but it’s not acceptable to shoot a kid to stop him shooting you. Bugger that for a joke!

#33

Threatened you with violence?..the bastards!!:smiley:

Apparently violence is acceptable to stop violence, but it’s not acceptable to shoot a kid to stop him shooting you…

I would have thought it one and the same?

In the above scenario, you are in enemy territory, so there is a fear factor on your part - fear of being killed or captured (which might be worse).

Did the fear factor come into your arguments with the pacifists?

It’s my belief that many of these so called criminal acts which happen on a personal level are usually the result of fear and the adrenalin which it generates.

#34

As a descent person you should feel pity for the boy you killed. You should regret it happened.
You most likely did not commit a crime against neither human nor, most importatly, God’s law if your action was driwen by selfdefence and not by blind hatred to the enemy.
IMHO

#35

Being behind enemy lines wasn’t part of our discussions, nor do I think it makes all that much difference to the decision to kill a child, apart from the obvious consideration that behind enemy lines some methods of killing might give away one’s position which is rather different to being in a village as part of, say, a cordon and seach and being confronted with an armed child.

I think there might have been an incident or incidents involving children being shot which provoked our ancient debates, or it might just have been that awful picture of that poor burned little girl running away from a napalm strike or something similar. Hard to recall as there were so many terrible images from that lousy war.

Apart from being scared of some of those rabid peaceful bastards :D, no. My mates and I were always arguing on a kill or be killed basis, although obviously there is a fear factor in that which is to fear the loss of our own lives and to take someone else’s to preserve our own.

Firstly, I wouldn’t call an act of self-preservation criminal.

Secondly, whether it’s fear, adrenalin, or training, what does it matter if the response was reasonable to the threat?

Anyway, why should a soldier get wound up about shooting a single armed child presenting a threat when bomber crews killed countless unarmed children presenting no threat in a single raid?

And the answer is: because the infantryman is on the ground and, unlike artillery and bombers and naval gunners, sees and kills people who at very close quarters are trying to kill him, be they adults or children, and the rifleman has to walk through what he has done and often rummage through the bodies for papers for intelligence and generally immerse himself in the gory mess of what he and others have done while the air, naval and artillery forces don’t.

So, as in every other aspect of war, it always comes down to the poor bloody grunt on the ground to experience the most acute experiences of war, where fear and adrenalin can provoke direct and immediate harm on people within feet of the grunt and leave the grunt with moral and other questions which don’t arise when bombing on flares from 30,000 feet or firing artillery or naval guns at unseen targets.

#36

I like that. As I said, my thoughts are probably not that dissimilar to your own.

#37

I gave the scenario as being in enemy terrritory as it was one of which I have first-hand knowledge. But you are quite right, the geography isn’t so important.

I think there might have been an incident or incidents involving children being shot which provoked our ancient debates, or it might just have been that awful picture of that poor burned little girl running away from a napalm strike or something similar. Hard to recall as there were so many terrible images from that lousy war.

Apart from being scared of some of those rabid peaceful bastards :D, no. My mates and I were always arguing on a kill or be killed basis, although obviously there is a fear factor in that which is to fear the loss of our own lives and to take someone else’s to preserve our own.

Firstly, I wouldn’t call an act of self-preservation criminal.

Secondly, whether it’s fear, adrenalin, or training, what does it matter if the response was reasonable to the threat?

Anyway, why should a soldier get wound up about shooting a single armed child presenting a threat when bomber crews killed countless unarmed children presenting no threat in a single raid?

And the answer is: because the infantryman is on the ground and, unlike artillery and bombers and naval gunners, sees and kills people who at very close quarters are trying to kill him, be they adults or children, and the rifleman has to walk through what he has done and often rummage through the bodies for papers for intelligence and generally immerse himself in the gory mess of what he and others have done while the air, naval and artillery forces don’t.

So, as in every other aspect of war, it always comes down to the poor bloody grunt on the ground to experience the most acute experiences of war, where fear and adrenalin can provoke direct and immediate harm on people within feet of the grunt and leave the grunt with moral and other questions which don’t arise when bombing on flares from 30,000 feet or firing artillery or naval guns at unseen targets.

Did you go this far in your debates?

Forthcoming in International Military & Defense Encyclopedia. ©1990.
Morality & War
Kenneth W. Kemp
Department of Philosophy
University of St. Thomas

Most people acknowledge a strong presumption against the moral
permissibility of killing others, but nevertheless believe that in some
circumstances this presumption is overridden by other morally important
considerations. This article will survey a range of positions that have been
taken on the question of whether, and if so how, warfare can be justified as
one of the exceptions to the presumption against killing.
There are two fundamental questions which must be answered by any
adequate account of morality and war: (1) Is it ever morally permissible to go
to war? and b What is it morally permissible to do in war?[/b] The answers to
these two questions have received the names ius ad bellum and ius in bello, respectively.

http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/kwkemp/Kosova/Morality&War.pdf

#38

Yes.

Everybody does, regardless of how detailed or historically well-informed the arguments.

It’s usually a simple question in practice: Is this war justified or not?

That’s different to the question: Is this war just or not?

If you’re the agressor, it’s always justified, like Japan attacking in WWII to defend itself against Western sanctions which threatened its survival on the terms it wanted to survive.

If you’re the defender, it’s always just, like the West defending itself against Japan in WWII in a war caused by its sanctions after a long period of economic, racial and diplomatic discrimination against Japan as it threatened Western interests in China and elsewhere.

But it always depends where you stand, so that Sarah Palin thinks America’s (and Britain’s and Australia’s) aggressive war on Iraq is justified because it’s a mission from her god while the people opposed to it in Iraq think defending it is a mission from their god, who just coincidentally happens to be the same god Palin and her crew worship like the crew opposed to them.

Gott mit uns! :evil:

#39

Well, apparently, there was a distinct lack of mittens at Stalingrad, nobody got any! :twisted: