War and Law

[Squigbaby]

What is purpose of trying to put "rules" on what is acceptable during "WAR" times.

It's been quite well covered on this thread, but very briefly it is to introduce the potential for some humanity and restraint when otherwise there might be none.

You might find the website for the Red Cross a useful resource.:)

[Grumbler]

No such thing as "International Law", unless, of course, one stretches the meaning of "Law" in a shape beyond recognition by civilized man.
All law shres one common 'truth';
'The Law does not go where enforcement cannot reach'. It doesn't matter if it's Roman Law, English Common Law, the Napoleon Code, Shiria or International Law, if the violators cannot be arrested and brought to trial, there is no law.
Warfare itself is an act of politics. It can be divided into two broad categories, Restricted and Unrestricted. Restricted Warfare is a new concept, created after the 30 years war (IIRC) where rapine, massacre and Pillage were the order of the day. It was formalized at the end of the 19th century, mainly thru the efforts of America and several European nations. Several treaties were crafted and ratified that attempted to curtail various of the more unsavory aspects of war. None worked. ALL those treaties have been violated by all the signators to those treaties.
Google 'Brand-Kellogg Pact'. That was a treaty that made war illegal. Period, no if's and butts. Within a decades most of the nations that ratified the B-K treaty were busy killing each other's citizens.
Never mind, I did it for you;

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/kbpact.htm

Before the Senate would ratify the BKP, it added a clause that said if attacked, the US was allowed to defend it-self, which made it 'legal' for the USA to fight both WW2 and the current War on Terror. But not Bosnia, Kosovo, or Korea, just to mention a few recent wars.

This drifts me into the area of terrorism. The difference between terrorism and other types of warfare is the target. If the violence is directed at non-combatants, with the intent to maim or kill them, then it is terrorism.
Going back to September 11, 2001, the attack on the WTC was terrorism, the attack on the Pentagon was NOT, the Pentagon being a ligitimate military target. Blowing up a truck full of explosives in a shopping center is terrorism, blowing up a HMMWV with a road side bomb is NOT.

Serious, pile the bodies up to the rafters and then blow the roof off so we can squeeze in a few more, warfare is a result of two social forces; Nationalism and Industrialization. Nationalism provides the bodies to be counted and Industrialiaztion arms them with ever more lethal weapons.

ALL the various treaties that seperate unrestricted warfare from restricted warfare were conceived by Nation/States. They apply only to Nation/States. As the nation/ state slowly collapses, so will mass wars with mass casualties slowly vanish.
I think the Nation state will be replaced by the corporate state over the next several centuries, but that is a different topic. The Corporate State will use violence to protect it's interests, but it won't be the mass violence of armies, fleets, and bomb tonnage. It will be the low level violence of assassination. rumor and sabatoge. After all, a business that kills off it's customers is doomed anyway.

As a part of the 19th and 20th century effort to replace the court of battle with something not so destructive, the League of Nations was created right after the War to end all wars. (AKA WW1, about 20 million dead) . The collapses of the LON led directly to WW2 ( 100 to 200 million dead). The end of that war led to the creation of the UN. The UN has collapsed following 9-11 and the WTC attack. My question is, will we suffer thru another huge war (billions dead) before the UN is replaced, or can we just replace the UN now and skip the war part?

International law can only exist if their is an international policeman to extend the reach of the law. The only possible canidate is the USA, and we WILL NOT have that job. No way, No how.
I'm sure the Mad Mullahs wolud take it, and the Chinese might. France thinks they already have it. Regardless of who bells the cat, so to speak, the ONLY means of enforcement is WAR, which leaves us right back where we started, only with a sore typing finger.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV
will be fought with sticks and stones."
- Albert Einstein (contemplating nuclear devastation)

[Havoc]

If no one wanted war, it wouldn't persist. Wars are started by those who think that the benefits out way the costs... that is until the costs overwhelm them... then you have peace. Look at your history; wars start with people predicting it will be over by Christmas, or in a few months. When the realization sets in that it will be long and brutal, then they talk of peace.

Those who truly do not want war may still have it thrust upon them by those that are eager for it and then they must fight back... or subjugate themselves to the will of the aggressor.

Ultimately who is right and who is wrong is decided by the winner.

[Squigbaby]

[Liebchen]

[Narwan]

War and terrorism are not absolutes. They are what their defenitions say they are. Different people and different nations use different ones at different times (both throughout the years aswel as at one single point in time). Both Begin and Mandela were generally considered to be terrorists at one point in their 'career'. For some they still are. For others they always were freedom fighters.

Same with terrorism in general. It is one thing to define it as an act aimed at civilians (to kill, maim or otherwise hurt them), it's another to follow that through to its logical conclusion. That conclusion being that a roadside bomb or suicide bomb aimed at the militairy (which does not excluse the chance of non-militairy casualties) is NOT an act of terrorism while (just to name two examples) the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the fire bombings of Dresden, Hamburg and Tokio were acts of terrorism. (In fact german Luftwaffe officers were convicted in Neurenberg for similar bombings which had far fewer casualties).

It is one thing to have a defenition, it's another to apply it consistently. The west does consistently shy away from applying these standards to their own acts. During the air campaign against Serbia (allegedly because of Kosovo) NATO bombed the Serbian television studio's. Deliberately. Because they were considered to be airing pro-serbian propaganda and hence a valid target. That was a blatant act of terrorism, except that we never really called it that. Not to mention that that same act also meant that Serbia would be in its right to bomb CNN (it's reporting was, along with other western networks, as biased as the serbian reports were). Imagine what would have happened if they had actually done that.

The point being that the rules and defenitions are set up for a reason, to benefit those who made them. Our current rules governing warfare are derived from the wishes and desires from imperialistic western powers who wanted to minimise the damage they would do to each other while fighting wars agianst each other while not inhibiting their affairs against other nations (the ones they ruled as colonies and dependencies primairily). This thinking is in my opinion still very prevalent in the way we view the world and acts of violence within it.

[alpha]

Well "the Victor writes the history" or not ?

I think war is some kind of natur for humans, otherwise it
would very difficult to explain all the wars after world war I.

World War I was so terrible that they said this is the war
to end all wars... yeah it worked great..

[Mitglied Nr.55]

At this stage, I just would like to thank all contributors.
A lot of usefull and interesting links for further reading, and elaborating.

I looks like "we (humans)" have :
- only one interrest (or own) : again difficult to define...
- always look for back-doors ...we're clever in defining and interpreting.

(That's why I like mathematics.....definitions are clear.)