From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Aug 29 2002 - 14:39:04 MDT
--- Avatar Polymorph <avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Mike Lorry wrote:
>
> "Sorry, it doesn't wash. If you are going to blatantly use terms
> like
> 'war crimes' which have an accepted legal definition, then you
> ought to
> at least go and read what the laws of war say before you spout
> off.
>
> First off, any civilian population or facilities within which
> military
> assets are hidden, i.e. using one's own citizens as 'human
> shields',
> are themselves legitimate targets because they become combatants
> due to
> their status as shields, and those forcing them to do so are the
> war
> criminals, not those who bomb them."
>
> I never raised this issue. No one was claiming the Germans or
> Japanese did this to any great extent.
They did, in fact, do this. They hid many defense installations within
civilian communities to hide them from bombers, just as Saddam does the
same today with his own citizens as well as his use of American
hostages at the beginning of the Gulf War. Milosevic did the same thing
in Kosovo with Albanian Kosovars. The North Vietnamese did the same
thing with its own population as well as with South Vietnamese
villagers.
If our American fighter bombers killed some Albanian Kosovars while
attacking a Serb tank they were being used as a human shield by, the
war crime is on the heads of the Serbs, not the Americans.
> >
> "In terms of actual combative recognition of the laws of war, the
> allies
> recognised them rather punctiliously until Hitler proved that he
> gave no care for their observance, that he believed that victors held
> war crimes trials for the vanquished and that he would be a victor.
>
> The laws of war provide for their restrictions to be tossed out
> the window when one side decides to do so."
>
> Okay. The Western Allies did observe the rules of war in many other
> respects. For example, they did not execute large numbers of POWs
> like other
> parties in the war. They refrained from chemical and biological
> weapons.
> They did not abolish military trials. And so forth. Their main
> problem was
> accepting the notion that killing defenceless civilians was not a war
> crime.
Correct, and I said that if defenseless civilians are being used as a
human shield for military assets or combatants, those civilians become
legitimate targets under the laws of war. It says so right in them. Its
really tiring having to belabor these points over and over again when
you and others refuse to actually go and read up on the laws of war.
>
> You appear to accepted the notion that it is legitimate to commit
> genocide to stop something like Hitler. Basically after saying
> looking at the legal
> rules of war, you now do not want to look at any rules. The
> "restrictions"
> can be "tossed out the window" and its all okay. So you are an
> anarchist or
> an absolutist authoritarian.
No, I'm not saying anything like that. You are also twisting the
definition of genocide around as well. Genocide is the systematic
extermination of an entire ethnic group. Killing a single digit
percentage of the German civilian population in the course of targeting
strategic military assets and combatants of the Third Reich does not
fit that definition, and you are entirely demogogic and disengenuous to
do so.
> But as a Singularitarian I argue that anarchy
> or authoritarianism is not okay without Sysop (systems operation) -
> i.e. protective shielding. See Singularitarian sites if you're not
> familiar with these terms.
I would suggest that Singulatarians who can't seem to get the
definitions of terms like 'war crimes' and 'genocide' straight ought to
seek out a dictionary first before making all sorts of ad hominem
attacks about people being authoritarians.
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