From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Apr 10 2002 - 10:23:40 MDT
Kai Becker wrote:
>
> Am Montag, 8. April 2002 17:56 schrieb Mike Lorrey:
> > > > The current conflict is between civilization itself and ignorant
> > > > darkness. Spectators are not allowed.
> > > Whos civilization exactly?
> > Anybody who thinks that targeting and killing civilians specifically is
> > NOT an acceptable tactic of a conflict.
>
> Oh, would you please go and tell this the military officers of various
> armies, who used terror bombings against civilians? The German Wehrmacht,
> "Bomber Harris", US airforce spraying biocides in Vietnam, Pol Pots killing
> fields and countless other slayings in Asia and Africa? Do you really think
> that _any_ "civilized" country, cornered in a brutal conflict, would
> refrain from using this last instrument? Are the families of the Palestine
> leaders, killed by Israelian missiles, no civilians? What is "collateral
> damage", after all, but calculated killed civilians? There is no
> "civilization" in war.
There is a distinct difference between targeting civilians specifically
(as I said) and killing civilians as collateral damage from an attack
targeted at military assets. While Bomber Harris was certainly a war
criminal, the spraying of pesticides on Vietnam was not a war crime,
since its target was the military supply trail called the Ho Chi Minh
Trail.
There is also a caveat to killing civilians in the Laws of War which say
that if a military asset is hidden or shielded by civilians or civilian
assets, those civilians and assets are considered combatants, and those
military people so hidden are illegal combatants and are themselves war
criminals. By this definition EVERY Palestinian combatant is an illegal
combatant and war criminal, and ANY Palestinian who these criminals hide
with are themselves combatants. Moreover, they can be tried and executed
summarily on the battlefield, legally, under the Laws of War.
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