posted
Well, to a degree yes. They might sound good, but they forget that war is war. I don't think any country actually follows them anyway. At least, not if they can get away with it they don't.
posted
However, to be clear, I don't believe that the Terrorists fall under the same catagory as what the Convention set up. As such, they shouldn't be treated the same as if they were a real military.
Now, I know a few people will argue exactly what a "terrorist" happens to be. For me, I know what I mean by it and don't agree with those who try to find some broad definition that includes regular army.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mutual deterrence isn't a reason to have rules of war, it's a means of keeping the rules in place. The reason we have them is because we see ourselves as civilized nations who value human life regardless of nationality, and seek to transcend the barbaric behavior that has dominated war throughout our history. So while we recognize the necessity of war in many cases, we apply it judiciously and with restraint because to people with a conscience, it is better to die than to commit an atrocity. It is worth putting our own lives at greater risk to avoid committing exceptional acts of evil and barbarism. If you disagree with this, then I believe that by definition, you are not sufficiently civilized.
Actually, Occasional, when I started this thread, I had no idea I would actually attract one of the people I was talking about
I think that many people in this thread are getting sidetracked because, unbelievably, they are actually giving your arguments a degree of credence, when by their merits, they deserve none. I think these people are mostly just shocked that anyone could possibly grow up in America and come out with the opinions that you apparently espouse.
I certainly am shocked to find that you arose from the same faith and subculture that I did. Was there no lesson to be learned from the Nephites in the Book of Mormon? When they waged war for the right reasons, and in a civilized way, their nation prospered. When they descended into barbarism and torture, they lost the mandate of God, and were overrun. Descending to the level of their enemies gave them no advantage — in fact, it lost them the one advantage they had.
I think the greatest indicator of a nation's character is its behavior in war. You act as though our peacetime policies are completely separate from our wartime policies — like we can be brutal and atrocious on the battlefield, and still stand for noble principles once the treaties are signed.
That's called hypocrisy, and as a Christian, I'm sure you're aware of your supposed beliefs on that subject. If we are to truly represent honor, goodness, morality, and freedom, then we must show it even at the darkest times in our history. If we drop the principles we stand for the moment our lives are threatened, or when things get a little hot, then how good can we truly claim to be?
[ November 17, 2004, 02:10 AM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
What he said. That's the problem with having a Card post to this board. They consistently manage to be both more succint and eloquent than I can be.
The reason I responded was to make sure I was interpreting Occasional's posts fairly. I think I am, and I don't really have anything more to say that hasn't already been said.
posted
Oh, and holy crap, Occasional ... are you really saying that people who don't overthrow their own oppressors deserve to die? Overthrowing an oppressor isn't exactly something you can just decide to do. To succeed, you have to be organized, well-armed, and have some hope of success. We have that advantage. The people of Fallujah do not. If a war against the terrorists is going to take place, which of us do you think should fight it? The ones who have a chance of winning? Or the ones who are guaranteed to fail and die?
On top of that, people are limited by what they know. If the terrorists are your only source of information, and everything they tell you portrays the United States as an evil oppressor and themselves as the best hope of relative freedom you've got, then are you going to rush out and attack them on the strength of ... what? A random decision to have faith in the rightness of a foreign power you have heard nothing good about? To many of these people, the Baathists and the insurgents are the only kind of government they have ever known, and keeping your head down has been the only way to survive. On what grounds and with what resources are you expecting them to suddenly rise up and throw off the shackles of oppression?
[ November 17, 2004, 02:20 AM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
imogen, you're too kind And I wasn't intending to criticize your responses to Occasional. I think that your reaction made sense — double-checking to make sure he was really saying what he seemed to be saying. Honestly, I'm still having trouble believing it. Makes me wonder if he's somebody's fictional character Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Let me just say -- after only now reading this thread -- that I'm very, very relieved that Occasional thinks of me as a subhuman, pigheaded troll.
*wipes brow*
Whenever I start feeling a little run-down, it does my ego a world of good to visit Hatrack and see who dislikes me. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
But let's consider the actual case of the Marine who shot the dead body. Actually, since I know very little about it, so maybe actual case is a bad way of putting it. How about here's my impression of what could possibly be the case.
Right now, the insurgents/terrorists are using a bunch of tactics heavily proscribed by the Geneva Convention. Using Mosques as military bases and depots, booby-trapping the dead or wounded, etc.
I only semi-agree with Geoff's assertion that the Geneva Convention are about doing the right thing (yeah, I'm simplifying his position). I'd ammend that to say that it stuff we don't want to have to do that we're trying to rule out. For example, we don't want to have to target non-military buildings, especially religious ones like Mosques. So attacking them and using them to attack from are proscribed. Likewise, we don't want either side to slaughter prisioners or the wounded. From our own side, it's at least partially accurate that we don't as a nation want to have to kill people that are prisoners or wounded. But, just like the Mosque thing, there's a flip side to this proscription, which is that prisoners and the wounded can't be used as weapons.
A lot of the provisions of the Geneva Convention have this oppositional nature. I'm not going to come out and say that because the people we're fighting, for example, take prisoners and behead them, that we should be able to as well. That's a case where the hackneyed BS line of "We'd be just as bad as them." is actually true. But, if, for example, you're fighting people who are shooting at you from a Mosque, they've removed that Mosque from the protections of the Geneva Convention (and to be honest, I don't actually know if not attacking religious buildings is part of them) and put it into play as a valid military target, not you. If you're fighting an enemy that has the tactics of their wounded laying on bombs that they're waiting for enough soldiers to get close to them to set them off, then killing the wounded from afar if you can't tell that this isn't the case has become a lamentably justifiable tactic.
edit: And actually, to be honest, I know very little about anything the Geneva Convention actually says. All of that is just my theory of what it says, not bounded in facts at all.
posted
Squick, I agree that the enemies choice to flout the rules of war can justify relaxing or abandoning the commitment to particular rules - the no mosque rule (which I don't know is part of the convention, either) is a very good example of this.
In the case of the wounded soldier, though, apparantly he had been taken into custody and checked. The failure of communication is what makes this incident problematic. Not necessarily criminal, but incompetence that leads to a violation of the rules of war should still be rooted out.
In criminal terms, there's a concept called mens rea, or level of culpability. The "ideal" breakdown is Purpose, Knowledge, Recklessness, Negligence, and Strict Liability. Each crime is given a level of culpability required to support conviction. I'm sure there is a similar concept in international criminal law, and that would determine if this is a war crime or not.
I realize nothing you said contradicts this - I'm more expanding and explaining than arguing.
posted
Oh yeah, no doubt. I'm all for a court martial in this particular case, but probably not conviction (although I'm saying that with the extremely limited grasp of the facts that I have). What actually happened in this situation (which I'm making the guardedly optimistic assumption would come out of this court martial) is very important. I also think that it may precipitate a crisis in how we view the standards our tactics should be meeting.
I personally think that the battle for Fallujah has been pretty darn amazing in terms of American effectiveness. Based on this incident being the focus of "war crimes" discussion, I'm willing to tentatively say it's been pretty good in terms of our soldier conduct as well. The thing is, I think the superficial opinion that many Americans who aren't willing to go the "we're fighting sub-humans" route have about standards of conduct during a war is that they are like a mostly inflexible set of moral rules. While I think that this is true in some instances, I think that many questions of standards exist more on a contractual basis than a unileteral rule. Of course, keep in mind that I admire Michael Collins (the Irish revolutionary, not the third guy on the first moon landing, although I guess he's pretty cool too and deserves more recognition) in part because he's the father of modern strategic terrorism.
One of the worries I have is that the complex situation of fighting people who couldn't give a fig for the Geneva Convention or for any standards other than what let's them gain ground that we as Americans are going to have to come to grips with is going to be cast largely in the two unsophisticated molds that I referenced. People are either going to go the "We shouldn't break any of the Convention, because that makes us bad people." or "We don't have to follow anything because they're savages. Let's nuke them into the ground." I don't know how likely this is, but I don't see a lot of voices calling for a more complex understanding of what it means to be at war, so I'm at least concerned. Hopefully, what's going to come out of the court martial and similar situations is a better understanding of complexity (or maybe just I'll see the understanding that's there right now but I'm not seeing).
---
I was actually talking about this last night with some people as an offshoot of the Colin Powell's leaving and being replaced by Condoleeza Rice couldn't have come at a worse time in relation to Yassar Arafat's death. That conversaions turned to the question of what can you accept in war, knowing that war is never going to fit the ideal.
For example, I'd consider war to be ideal only when taken on with a full realization that the people you are going to kill (many of them non-combatants) are human beings like yourself with hopes and families and lives a lot like yours, but I'm realistic to know that this will never happen and pretty much can't happen on a soldier level if we don't want our troops to all go insane. Or the idea that the U.S. goes to war in part to serve it's business interests, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other interests to be served (hey, Iran's saying they're getting rid of their nukes program) that are more laudable. The question comes "What do you do with war, which you think is only justified if you're being the good guys, when you're not being and probably never are going to be the spotless good guys, but it is often necessary anyway?" It's a puzzlement.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
