War Crimes?

As a pacifist I simply find the hypocrisy of arguing the concept of decent and respectful warfare, too ludicrous for words.

THIS is a different question than the one you initially proposed. Naturally, if you do not believe in war as a means to an end, then you will not agree on any kind of war.

“Ethnic cleansing” depends entirely on which side of a conflict you are.

“War crimes” are always decided by the victor in a conflict and the loser is always the accused.

I’m sure the Tutsis in Rwanda would not agree with you. Almost a million Tutsis were killed, how does the reality of that depend on what side of the conflict you are on? The rest of the world could see it was genocide, so the viewpoint of the perpetrators fades in the wider scheme of things. The same is true for the Holocaust, or what Karadzic did in the former Yugoslavia. There is a wider, accepted morality, that will allow only so much bloodshed, rape, and pillaging. In the case of the poor Tutsis the U.N. was too faint of heart, too unfeeling to intervene, but that did not mean that the wider world could not see what was going on, and condemn it appropriately Condemnation and action are not always aligned, and such was the case in Rwanda. However, in the case of Karadzic, the West has decided that he did indeed go beyond acceptable violence, and as such, will take him to task for it. The dictates for any war come from the societies in which we live; how we treat those who are close to us. Abrogating those dictates in a conflict means that we no longer believe in a civil society, and thus, the whole shooting match breaks down.

Like in most things, there is a spectrum. There are those who don’t believe in violence, those who believe in an acceptable level of violence, and those who think violence rocks. It is impossible in war to find a balance, but we have decided over the past two thousand years that we must try. Right or wrong, though it may be.

In Sierra Leone, the rebels hacked the arms off of every child they could find who had been vaccinated. The level of amputees in that country is devastatingly sad. One may argue that they were doing what they had to in order to further their cause, by not only physically fighting the government, but by psychologically fighting them. However, most societies can see that going past a certain line of violence diminishes the soul of that society. It changes us as people, and we know intrinsically that we become less than the lowest of beasts. For this reason the Karadzic’s of this world must be prosecuted to the full extent of our collective indignation.

We are warring animals, but we must mitigate this tendency in certain ways, or we are then doomed to serving the most evil among us.

Stephen1

@obtuse wrote:

war is an inherent gene
man will naturally want to kill their neighbour
darwins survival of the fittest etc
the rape an pillage is equally genetic
no queensbury rules
the victor needs to debase the conquered

Like I say, we must mitigate our baser tendencies, lest we become only shytting, eating, boinking, warring beasts. By force if necessary. :twisted:

Since when is war condoned by anybody?

Like we enjoy it or something….

Yes, you are right, that wasn’t a question; I should have said “different matter.” My apologies.:oops:

Being a pacifist doesn’t preclude you from commenting on war, violence or any other topic, but it does presuppose that you already believe that war is completely unnecessary. In that case, you would argue neither for a moral war, nor an amoral one. You posed an question whether war could be fought within a parameter of “rules,” but you didn’t add the caveat that you believe the answer to be an academic one; as you have already made up your mind as to the uselessness of it all anyway.

Stephen1

As a pacifist I can indeed posit the observation that rules within an aggressive confrontation are as farcical as war itself. In fact, having no literal axe to grind places me in a position to strengthen my argument that if war is stupid then waging war with a concept of engaging the enemy as one would an opposing cricket team, is stupider still.

Uhm, yeah, wasn’t that already established? I was only speaking of your initial query, and then commenting on your subsequent statement…that’s all. 8) I actually agree with much of your sentiment, btw.

Now bugger off and don’t annoy me, or if you must, then save it for tomorrow. I’m tired, my brain is fuddled and I’ve come on tonight simply to chill.

Now whose setting rules of engagement? :wink: Chill away, and have a great evening.

Stephen1