U.S. will withdraw from U.N. peacekeeping unless troops are exempted from world court

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Good point, but again, the Geneva Convention has no enforcement mechanism, and no court set up by the treaty. If the treaty had done that, most nations probably wouldn't have signed it.

Further, the application of "crimes against humanity" is bull**** - how can Milosevic or Japanese General Yama****a be considered criminals but people like Truman and FDR and Curtis LeMay not be? They all ordered the murder of civilians, except the Americans did it in a far larger scale.

For one reason the Nazis and Japanese began the bombing of civilian targets during that war first - in China, in Hawaii, in the Phillipines, in Malaysia, in Spain, in Poland, in the Netherlands, in France, and in Africa. For another reason both the Germans and the Japanese deliberately moved military production into small shops in their cities in order to make it more difficult to destroy. They deliberately put their own civilians in harms way in order to shield their war materials production.

Would it be illegal to target non-military targets, i.e., "infrastricture" potentially killing "X" number of enemy civilians, in order to prevent crimes against humanity leveled at 10X or 100X innocents? I don't think that to do so would be right. That's what the US did in Serbia - it destroyed the infrastructure of a nation bent on the genocide of one million of its inhabitants. Since nowhere near one million Serbs were killed the policy can be said to have been justified.

[DinoDoc]

Pearl Harbor wasn't a civilian target, Dr. S.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Pearl Harbor wasn't a civilian target, Dr. S.

Some bombs fell on civilian structures, but if you're bothered by this statement then substitute Burma, Dutch East Indies or Thailand for Hawaii.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


For one reason the Nazis and Japanese began the bombing of civilian targets during that war first - in China, in Hawaii, in the Phillipines, in Malaysia, in Spain, in Poland, in the Netherlands, in France, and in Africa. For another reason both the Germans and the Japanese deliberately moved military production into small shops in their cities in order to make it more difficult to destroy. They deliberately put their own civilians in harms way in order to shield their war materials production.

Would it be illegal to target non-military targets, i.e., "infrastricture" potentially killing "X" number of enemy civilians, in order to prevent crimes against humanity leveled at 10X or 100X innocents? I don't think that to do so would be right. That's what the US did in Serbia - it destroyed the infrastructure of a nation bent on the genocide of one million of its inhabitants. Since nowhere near one million Serbs were killed the policy can be said to have been justified.

Dr. S, You'll find it interesting that many countries ratifying the agreement do so with a reservation to the effect that a military target is a military target even if some civilians are killed. This means, I suspect, that the only thing prohibited really is the deliberate targeting of civilians for the purposes of terror. But this is what both sides did during WWII. I don't know if the fact that the Nazi's and Japanese did it first is any excuse, except if we were to say to them - you stop it and so will we.

[David Floyd]

Yeah, but they don't. States signed with the original intention that they could leave if they wanted to. Therefore the US is every bit as bad as the UN is.

I think they do, but that's another argument.
The point here, though, is that the GC and Constitution are fundamentally different documents, addressing different situations, and cannot be compared, yet even if you insist on making that comparison the point doesn't hold up.

Enforcement powers are implied. After all the treaty is meaningless without them. People have been tried for violation of the GC, in tribunals through the UN. This is a more permanent one.

Really? So every treaty has an enforcement mechanism? So the League of Nations actually had an enforcement mechanism, and lack of such a mechanism wasn't one of the "problems" (as others would call it) of that organization? Or, the Kellogg Briand Pact (as you already brought up) had enforcement mechanisms? Of course not. Not every treaty has such mechanisms, and such mechanisms are not implied in the GC. One cannot consider an international treaty to be a loose, open-to-interpretation document, because you have to remember the a nation is very unlikely to sign such a treaty, unless there is the understanding that it means only and specifically what it says - that was especially true when the GC was developed.

Um... because they did imply a court? And they did learn from history. I'm sorry, but I don't remember a 'Treaty of Versaille' type peace after WW2... that is learning from history.

What does the Treaty of Versailles have to do with the Geneva Convention? Yes, in some cases politicians learn from history - but in the case of WW2, don't you think it's much more reasonable that the US knew it would need allies/satellite states against the Soviet Union, and thus did not treaty Germany and Japan too harshly? I think it was a bit of both, myself, but weighted towards the side of wanting to counterbalance the Soviets.

In the cases of treaties, no treaty prior to the GC, and really none to this day (excepting, of course, the recent ICC/ICJ treaties and the like) have set up or implied mechanisms such as international courts and the like, so why assume the GC did?

Because the UN decided to enforce the Geneva Convention, as the Convention does imply.

Actually it's because the US wanted him out of the way - let's face it.

DS,

For one reason the Nazis and Japanese began the bombing of civilian targets during that war first - in China, in Hawaii, in the Phillipines, in Malaysia, in Spain, in Poland, in the Netherlands, in France, and in Africa.

How is "they did it first" an acceptable justification for killing civilians?

For another reason both the Germans and the Japanese deliberately moved military production into small shops in their cities in order to make it more difficult to destroy. They deliberately put their own civilians in harms way in order to shield their war materials production.

And, to punish them for that, we kill their civilians. Some solution.
Besides, in many cases bombing cities had nothing to do with industry - the atomic bombings, for example.

Would it be illegal

I care more about right and wrong than legality.

to target non-military targets, i.e., "infrastricture" potentially killing "X" number of enemy civilians, in order to prevent crimes against humanity leveled at 10X or 100X innocents? I don't think that to do so would be right.

There's quite a difference between unavoidable collateral damage, when bombing valid targets such as railroad depots, oil refineries, etc., and indiscriminate firebombing of residential districts in large cities.

That's what the US did in Serbia - it destroyed the infrastructure of a nation bent on the genocide of one million of its inhabitants. Since nowhere near one million Serbs were killed the policy can be said to have been justified.

The problem here (besides, of course, taking the US's word about Serbia) is that you are boiling this down to mathematics and statistics - turning people into numbers. You are saying that someone who murders 100 civilians is worse than someone who murders 50. I disagree - scope has nothing to do with it. The US was just as bad as the Nazis in WW2 - sure, they gassed 6 million Jews, but so what? We incinerated easily over a million Japanese and Germans, and displaced tens of millions. We were no better than they were.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Well, fine. By that same argument any war crime, or whatever term you use, is justified because those who commit it feel justified - better enemy civilians die than their soldiers, or whatnot. Or how about this? The Holocaust was justified because the Germans felt Jews were inferior, and were holding them back, and it was vital to the survival of Germany as a superpower to eliminate them.

Do you think a human could act without personnal justification ?
Even a mad-man have is own justification.
When you kill somebody steal something ... you've always a good justification. Whatever it is a crime (depending of your law).

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Roland
It is a wierd thing, I admit. But this "best in the world" mantra is slowly going to my nerves. I should just laugh about it. Guess what really annoys me are the braindead suckers who repeat the crap on this side of the pond.

What has professional got to do with it ?

I think he means that, as a professional, you must be making good money, so spend some of it AND GET OVER HERE!

[Roland]

In that case, I wait for the ?/$ rate to go to 1.40.

[Roland]

Ok, the EURO/DOLLAR rate, then...

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Very true. And the Germans felt justified in killing Soviet civilians, Jews, gypsies, etc., and the Japanese felt justified during the Rape of Nanking and the Death March.

What you're really saying, it seems, is that the firebombing and atomic bombing of Japanese cities, and the murder (not killing, murder) of hundreds of thousands of civilians was OK because it shortened the war and saved American lives.

There's a huge difference between the bombing of Japanese cities and what the Germans and Japanese did.

The Americans bombed a country that was actively fighting against them. The Allies never bombed people who had surrendered or people who were not fighting against them.

The Germans murdered Russians who had effectively surrendered. The Germans murdered Jews and others who were not fighting against them.

The Japanese murdered thousands of civilians in Nanking, after the city surrendered. The Death March killed thousands of men who had surrendered. The Japanese also killed thousands of civilians in Manila who were not fighting against them and who were not involved in any way in the war.

The actions of the Japanese and Germans were far different than that of the Americans.

I don't think anyone would argue that a crime is justified because the criminal thinks it is justified.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

Right, even if Allies use terror as a war strategy (Dresde, Bombs A ...), this not the same thing than gathering people of a city and slaughtering them all.

This is not a war strategy but a political or ideological madness.

[MarkG]

I know this makes a lot of Europeans and many Americans mad to say that, but it's truth.
We have NO such obligation, we always did it because we felt it right and moralistic.

/me tries not to fall of his chair laughing

[Sava]

Ahhhh, good old fashioned hypocrisy. Let's put Slobo on trial for fighting Islamic terrorism and defending his country from Islamic and Croatic revolt, but let's make our troops exempt...

[David Floyd]

There's a huge difference between the bombing of Japanese cities and what the Germans and Japanese did.

The Americans bombed a country that was actively fighting against them. The Allies never bombed people who had surrendered or people who were not fighting against them.

This makes not one speck of difference. By that logic, we could have dropped The Bomb on Hanoi and Haiphong in Vietnam, because hey, they were fighting us. And we could have lined up and shot villagers we suspected of being VC - war is hell, right?

The Germans murdered Russians who had effectively surrendered. The Germans murdered Jews and others who were not fighting against them.

And I'm sure the civilian population of, say, Dresden, was about to pick up Mausers and march to the front, right? And the women and children in Hiroshima were such a huge threat, weren't they?

And lest you get too self-righteous, remember what we did to Americans of Japanese descent. That was probably FDR's worst crime (Truman dropped the A-Bomb), and it's too bad the people who got locked up didn't try and resist.

I DO like your justification, though - basically, if we do something in war it's OK, but if someone else does it that's not OK.

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