Re: If we do get Afghanistan, what shall we do with it?

From: Dwayne (ddraig@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Nov 26 2001 - 05:00:49 MST


Mike Lorrey wrote:
>

> Quite. However, a proper examination of the Dresden incident,
> specifically, will show that the US only bombed the rail yards. It was
> the British who had firebombed the whole city the night before with HE
> then incindiaries, and they did so because they wanted to "beat us to
> it". While the US has some blame, the overwhelming blame belongs
> specifically to european sources.

I have always personally considered area bombing a war crime, but then
again, if they hadn't used it, would the nazis have won?
Were *any* allied soldiers charged with war crimes after WW2?

 
> Furthermore, I don't regard Hiroshima or Nagasaki to be primarily
> terrorist acts. By late in the war, both the German and Japanese
> governments had so thoroughly mobilized and armed their societies in
> preparation for invasion of their home territories that the only people
> there that could be considered 'non-combatants' under the Geneva
> Conventions were those in POW camps and patients in hospitals.

You know, I spent 2 minutes searching on google for "hiroshima end war"
and found a lot of evidence to suggest that this is entirely wrong.
Refer to my quote yesterday from the head of the Joint Chiefs, or
whatever he was.

> Under the Geneva Conventions, when a combatant hides behind
> non-combatants or in non-combatant facilities, those then become
> combatant targets as well, legally.

Ah, well, what about the "highway of death" out of Kuwait? Soldiers
fleeing a battle are non-combatants, yet a hell of a lot of people were
massacred on that road.

Dwayne



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