Morality In Warfare

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What about napalm? Thats just as cruel as mustard gas as are cluster bombs.

I also forgot about agent orange in Vietnam.

 

You are right, of course, kemanmaldean.
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Not nerve agents are the answer here. What I had in mind was... whats the word?... a sedative substance? Dont know if it is doable, as I have little knowledge of military things.

Still, it would have been an opportunity for the US to prove they have respect for Islam by not defiling a temple with death. Or outright ruining the temple. A much needed gesture - if they wish to ever turn the developement in Iraq.

As it is the islamists could count on the US forces.

 

this is why both Iraqi and US troops are taking part in the assault against the insurgents; that way the US troops can act freely in support of their Iraqi "comrades", absolved of blame should the decision to destroy a mosque be made, by claiming that the decision was made by the Iraqi commanders

 

Are you people out of your minds. A military commander's main objective is to neutralize the enemy with the least amount of risk to his own troops. What are you proposing, that the army launch a frontal assault against a mosque full of enemy combatants and launch tear gas at them? The smart move is to fall back and have either air, artillary, or tanks level the position. Maximum damage to the enemy, minimal risks to your own troops. It is the only sensible thing to do. If the enemy combatants are concerned about their national treasures than they better think twice. It is a no brainer to me, but then again I don't consider war lightly.

 

I would think that its the goal of a military campaign to succeed, not to ensure failure?

Like I said: No longterm-thinking. Thats why you will lose.

Fewer casualties in Fallujah among US troops. Hundreds of thousands Iraqis all the more willing to kill them for destroying their mosques. I bet it will result in far more dead on both sides in the end.
Millions of moslems worldwide outraged.
Plus a missed opportunity to prove morale high-ground and respect.

Ah, but leave it to the US to screw things up thoroughly.

 

This logic is incredibly lacking. In many cases the civilians are not informed about the possible threat and they do not know that a enemy is approaching their position, and when the enemy does come and the battle begins is it smart to stay in shelter or go outside in the gunfire trying to find a way out? The main reason why civilians are left in the crossfire is that they are badly informed about the situation.

 

Well, I'll just stick my two cents in here.

Firstly, about the mosques being bombed, its not just me. Every single self-respecting Muslim will see America as the villain after this, no matter what they do.

And for those who are saying that buildings can be rebuilt, its not that simple. Its called culture and heritage. These things cannot just be rebuilt.

Here in India, there have been communal riots and general unrest between the Hindus and the Muslims since 1992, because the Hindus destroyed the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. After that, there has not been complete peace between the two communities till date.

The point I am trying to make is that America have not just alienated the Iraqis, they have alienated the entire Muslim community wordlwide.

Also, if you expect me to believe that those marines couldn't take those insurgents out without resorting to bombing the mosques, you're going to have to wait a long time.

The entire motivation for the US war in Iraq is morality. To remove Saddam Hussein's tyrannic rule and instil a democratic government. And the best way to do that is to destroy the people's buildings, shoot innocent civilians, rape innocent women prisoners, sexually abuse the other prisoners, the majority of whom have been arrested on vague, trumped up charges, eh? USA, champion of morality and destroyer of terrorism? Yeah, right.

 

Couldn't agree more Dendri. I accept it's not exactly "fighthing fair" on the behalf of the insurgents but then again, who expected them to? Going face to face against the largest and best equiped armed force in the world is suicide. They only have a chance to win on their own terms. They have backed the American's into the situation that they (Americans) actually have to risk their own lives in order to win the conflict. If you enter a war, you should be damn well prepared to risk the lives of your soldiers in order to win it.

@ TGS,
I know where you are coming from, but I don't understand how you can NOT think that it will actually lead to more Muslims fearing/hating (and therefore attacking) the Western World if we destroy their places of worship. It may make no sense to you and I, but in order to win a war you need to understand the mentality of your enemy and it seems obvious to a lot of people that it revolves around their faith. An attack on a Mosque is an attack on their God, and they will not see it go unpunished. Right or wrong, it is what they believe.

 

I stand behind what I said before. Saying this as bluntly as I can, it's as simple as this:

If the 'enemy' hides behind an important building, and the attacker has no realistic alternative to getting them out, save choosing between slaughtering their own people or simply demolishing the building, then the building must be demolished. If people get outraged for this, then they are stupid and shortsighted. They have little regard for human life, and they simply do not possess the intelligence to logically assess the situation. If they choose to not understand, then what can you do?

Will you sacrifice yourself for my house just because I feel your unknown life on the other side of the planet is insignificant next to my own comfortable living? Do you think it's right for me to even expect that of you?

That's all that needs to be said. There is no good choice there, all you can do is choose the least bad one. Sacrificing human lives for a building that a whole lot of shortsighted people who have no idea what's going on find so valuable, does not come off as the least bad one for me.

 

Sacrificing human lives to kill humans? That doesn't make much sense.

How many civilians are going to die in the bombings? How many innocents? What about hostages the enemies have? They're going to go down with the insurgents. But I suppose its alright to sacrifice them as well, to save the lives of the marines.

The ones who have little regard for human life, are the marines who are indiscriminately slaughtering insurgents and civilians alike, without discrimination, as long as the person they are shooting isn't white, and is a guy.

The outrage here, is for the destruction of a cultural background of thousands of years, of the killing, abuse and harassment of innocent people because of their nationality and religion, of the violation of something which westerners will find very hard to understand.

There can be no way Muslims the world over will give weight to any of these arguments, because they are simply too outraged to care.

 

Well the USA has some of the highest rates of racism in the western world. Some that I have spoken to do not understand that the rest of the world does not want to become like the USA - they think that everyone aspires to become like the Americans but I am more than happy to be N.Irish.

Some do not understand history and culture so thats why bombing mosques and casulties of war do not seem important to them.

When 9th September happened we raised funds and offered our help:

http://www.nireland.com/lisburnfirestation/new_york_tribute.htm

When the Omah bombing happened it was hardly reported on US news and did not seem important.

 

I couldn't disagree more. People sign their military contracts knowing they are going to face death or captivity, but this doesn't put them out of the brackets of Geneva or Hague convention.

You seem to have made an assumption that short of dying, everything is more or less in order. That's an unhuman assumption if we looked at it more closely. There is nothing in this universe to justify unmerited suffering. There are various ways to "deserve" death or corporal punishment, but sex can't serve as punishment and there's no way whatsoever to deserve being forced into sexual activity or sexually humiliated.

What some of people fail to notice is that the fact that you have your enemy captive does not mean that you're at your leisure to do anything to him, or especially to her, that your heart desires.

Rape is no toll of war, whether we consider frontline soldieres, or medical staff, or civilians. There is no force whatsoever to grant the right to collect such "tax" from the enemy.

In short, there is no way for you to support a claim that it's a normal thing and people should be lucky to get out of it alive. I'm quite sure that some people in Abu Ghraib and other prisons would rather have died than faced that outrageous sexual humiliation.

I can understand killing on strong violent emotions associated with war, especially on the part of the defending side. I can understand somewhat violent treatment of prisoners if they aren't denied human status. But I will never understand torture for pleasure of the guards. Especially not sexual torture, especially rape. I suppose the evaluation of rape depends on one's individual views on sexual freedom or the specific mystique of this part of life, but there's no way to justify rape in war, frontline or during occupation.

Just my two cents. No need for me to elaborate on various ugly weaponry, as that's pretty well covered by people who know that stuff better than I do. As a bonus thought to consider, I would like to add that there's a difference between acting out of strong feelings and plain taking it out on defenceless victims. The former isn't plausible, but it's war. Sort of one big mitigating circumstances. The latter is succumbing to one's uncivilised side, denying one's own humanity - not only that of the victim.

So far as rape goes, there's hardly anything more unhuman and more openly reducing the victim to an item status, not even an animal. Not even downright murder does that.

 

War has changes in the past thirty years. The military has learned some very hard lessons. Public perception is as important as casualty count. Vietnam taught the US Military that lesson. You cannot look at tactics from any war in history to accurately determine the course of action the forces in Iraq must take. Collateral damage must be minimized in all engagements (that is just a fact of modern warfare).

The Geneva convention is required. Nazi Germany taught us that. War is inhumane enough without restricting the use of WMD's and only allowing valid military targets. If an enemy uses a hospital as a shield he is in violation of the Geneva convention -- but that does not allow the opposing force to destroy the hospital in order to destroy the enemy. Take the time to read what the rules from the convention are. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity -- to deny that is criminal (and we are seeing such criminals being punished).

The US cannot target sites of religious significance -- that would turn this into a global war. The commanders know this. So many people seem to think of the military as some massive entity that just follows orders -- that is very simplistic. The commanders and soldiers are individuals who take this mission very seriously. They know what is at stake. They know making the wrong move will get them killed or possibly escalate terrorism and bring the war home.

By the way, agent orange and napalm are not chemical weapons. They are defoliants. When used incorrectly (i.e., on people) the results are horrific and a violation of the Geneva convention.

Iraq is the only country I know of to use chemical weapons on a aggressor since WWI.

 

Both GB and Lewisite were used during WWII. GB is an early form of nerve gas, and lewisite is a blister agent - sort of an advanced form of mustard gas.

I also think it's strange that you say napalm isn't a chemical weapon because it's a defoliant. Do you know what the difference is between a "chemical weapon" and an "industrial chemical"? A chemical weapon is something that can only be used in warfare to kill people. An industrial chemical is something that might also be very good at killing people, but has some use other than killing people. Chlorine is also on that list of industrial chemicals. It burns like hell if you weaponize it, but you could also use it to keep your pool clean so it isn't a chemical weapon.

One point to stress - the differntiation between chemical weapons and industrial chemicals has NOTHING to do with their toxicity or their ability to kill people. It's strictly whether or not such chemicals have an industrial or commercial use. There are industrial chemicals that are more deadly than chemical weapons once they are weaponized.

 

I stand corrected, I had forgotten the use of Lewisite on the Chinese by Japanese aggressors (also I believe Italy used it in the 30's). Sarin (GB) was developed, but not used in WWII -- but was also used by Iran against Iraq.

I work with dangerous chemicals on a regular basis and someone just needs to look at Bhopal or the history of the "death train" to see how deadly industrial chemicals can be (the death train is a crude term for the train that runs between the Dow chemical plant in Michigan and the one in Freeport).

There is one main requirement for a chemical weapon -- it must rapidly incapacitate the victim. I have worked with many chemicals that are odorless and colorless that can kill, with many of these chemicals there are fairly few acute side affects until a fatal dose is reached (i.e., not incapacitating).

I did state that improper use of chemicals can have horrific consequences. But as I said before, use of any of these on personnel is against the Geneva Convention and is absolutely wrong.

 

The idea of applying laws to warfare is way older then the geneva convention. There are religious writings in sanksrit, that outlaw certain tactics and the use of poisend arrows. And there always have been codes of counduct concerning war. So, the saying that in war and love, anything goes is not always true.

Indeed, after the peace of westphalia there was a rather long period, in which wars (among Europeans) were generally faught "gentlemen" like. And gentlemen don't rape women or let their subordinates do it(at least not when expecting to be caught), as this would make you a social outcast. That area was finished with the American civil-war, which saw the first wave of atrocities of Europeans against Europeans (at least stock) we had plenty of time to accustome to in the meantime.

And if your opinion is, that you're free to destruct churches and mosques and other holy sites. Don't be astonished, if people hate you as if you were the devil. The Germans made that experience often in WWII. At least do it right. Kill all witnesses and don't leave no uncrashed baby-skull behind. Don't give people a chance for revenge.

And besides, another interesting question would be, how would a protestant or catholic soldier react to the order, to burn down a church ? Would he really do it ? I'm tempted to think, that if he believed, he would fear divine reprisal.

And anyways, show me sailor that would let sailors of an enemy ship drown without having nightmares for the rest of his life. Rules of war were actually made by soldiers who faught.

Edit: hm, redundant parts removed.

 

A commander has a duty to his men and country to accomplish his objective with minimal losses to his side. You can not expect a commander to order his men into a situation where, knowingly, more of them will be killed than the enemy. The term 'sacrifice' is more of a chess term. Sacrificing a pawn, rook or knight to take the enemy king or queen. However in modern warfare you don't have a 'value' system. A tank with a crew of 4 is just as valuable as 4 grunts, despite the tank being capable of more damage. A commander will not order his men to rush an enemy position - that is basically ordering his men to their deaths.

And where is the proof of this? If they were shooting civilians indiscriminately then they would just waltz on into a town and blast it, hell, they wouldn't even go into the town. They'd turn it to rubble from far away. Non-combatants will get killed. It's unfortunate and unavoidable but the soldiers are not targetting non-combatants - to do so would be pointless.

As for civilians not being able to leave before a battle, the US give pleanty of warning as what is going to happen. They're basically telling the enemy where they are going to attack and when - something that had almost been unheard of in war, actually giving the enemy correct information about your troop movements. After hearing this and being stupid enough to stick around it's a little unwise to complain about being caught in crossfire.

 

Could you please site your references for this claim?

 

Here here Darkwolf....i would love to see some data on racism in the US vs the rest of the world!

Napalm is not a defoliant(although it can be used as one...so can TnT)...Agent Orange is.

Once a Church, School, Hospital, ect. is used as a base of operations for military activities it loses it's statis as a non target.

Targeting civilians....the US military has done more than any other force in history to try and reduce civilian casualties.

 

This is simply not true. If you'd like, I could elaborate, but there were for instance a number of atrocities commited by both sides during the American Revolution, to say nothing of the French revolution.

Are you equating the destruction of an ENEMY OCCUPIED BUILDING with the murder of babies? Because that's what it seems like.