From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Aug 29 2002 - 15:16:19 MDT
--- Avatar Polymorph <avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Lee Corbin makes a number of points.
>
> I agree it is apparently contradictory to value all human life
> equally and then value defenceless civilian life more.
>
> However, in the pre-Singularity period we are in the position of
> having to
> temporarily accept layered parameters of operation. For example, I
> have no
> leather products and do not eat meat, not because of the things
> themselves
> but because I wish to remove myself from non-consesnsual killing.
Does this mean you will eat hamburgers if they are made from people who
have committed suicide?
>
> Under these rules, shooting pilots parachuting down is a war crime.
> Straffing fleeing unarmed troops is a war crime. Shooting POWs is a
> war crime. Bombing civilians is a war crime. Executing civilians is
> a war crime.
These are only war crimes when the result is the specific intent. If
POW's revolt and escape, running wild in civilian areas sabotaging
military equipment, they are gonna get shot.
If civilians are committing crimes that call for the death penalty, it
is no war crime to execute them. If they are hiding combatants,
engaging in insurgency/sabotage operations, they are illegal combatants
and subject to summary execution under the laws of war.
>
> Total war, when it extends to genocide, is totalitarianism by another
> name.
>
> I would have no problem with using an A-bomb against the Japanese
> navy. A
> military harbour would be a legitimate target. I have no problem with
>
> collateral damage near a military factory. And so on.
>
> I guess in the end we disagree on the very notion of a war crime. I
> think it
> exists, others don't.
> ===
>
> Just on a weird point, some historians have pointed out from the
> ancient
> world point of view it wasn't Sparta that was the "Evil Emprie" but
> Rome.
Actually, first Persia, then Athens was considered the 'Evil Empire'.
Rome wasn't a baddie for a century or so later, and didn't really do
it's insane genocidal thing until it was attacked by Carthage, which
was really evil (they burned their firstborn alive as offerings to the
god Balbek, and everybody was a slave of somebody else (except the guy
on top))
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