Quote:Original post by LessBread They should have held those who gave the order to attack ambulances for trial because attacking ambulances is a war crime plain and simple.
Oh no, it's not. Especially when the ambulance carries a terrorist.
I haven't read this whole thread, but are you saying that killing two or three medics in an ambulance is justified if there's a terrorist in there as well?
I think that in the battlefield the lines of morality get a little twisted. From my point of view, in the moment a combatant enters a civilian building to carry out his fight from there he turns that building into a battlefield.
I think no commander would sacrifice 100 soldiers just to save the life of a couple of civilians. I'd like to believe that no commander would sacrifice 100 civilians in order to save the life of a few soldiers...
War sucks. It's wrong. And any decision made in the context of war can only be less wrong or more wrong but it will still be wrong. Yet it gotta happen.
Quote:Original post by LessBread They should have held those who gave the order to attack ambulances for trial because attacking ambulances is a war crime plain and simple.
Oh no, it's not. Especially when the ambulance carries a terrorist.
Quote:Geneva Convention IV, Article 18 Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.[...]
In germany, there's proverb: "Wer lesen kann, ist klar im Vorteil" ("The one who is able to read is clearly in advance").
What I find funny is that you claim and claim and claim with a good pinch of personal point of view, but at no point in this thread you gave references to official and approved sources to back yourself up, like learned in school.
edit:
Quote:Original post by owl I think that in the battlefield the lines of morality get a little twisted. From my point of view, in the moment a combatant enters a civilian building to carry out his fight from there he turns that building into a battlefield.
I think no commander would sacrifice 100 soldiers just to save the life of a couple of civilians. I'd like to believe that no commander would sacrifice 100 civilians in order to save the life of a few soldiers...
I think Article 18 states that the ambulance itself might never be the target of an attack. I am no lawyer, but I think in case a terrorist captures such building, all possible care must be taken to not endanger any civilian, and in that sense, a soldier has less worth than a civilian. Bombing, barrage or other inprecise shooting is, I think, forbidden under any circumstance, as long as civilians are in that building.
Quote:
War sucks. It's wrong. And any decision made in the context of war can only be less wrong or more wrong but it will still be wrong. Yet it gotta happen.
Quote:Martin Luther War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.
[Edited by - phresnel on December 4, 2009 4:14:24 AM]
The real power today is money, capital. Governments are governed by capital. Government == business && government != ideology
That is why "we the people" get riled up from time to time to die in some profitable conflict somewhere or another under the guise of some lofty goal (freedom, democracy, you've heard it all before).
Power isn't as visible as we'd like it to be, there are a lot of little inconspicuous non-profit organisations that serve as a front for the worlds real power structures. Structures that don't deal with borders and constitutions. Countries today should be seen as mere compartments to the governments largest threat: "we the people".
We live in a democracy, majority rules > Majority watches telly = nuff said...
Problem with Democracies is that the people think they have freedom, you step on those "freedoms" enough and they will start having weird ideas of regime change (which mostly involve hanging the current people in power). But it is rule by consensus and most people would rather march to the gas chambers than rock the boat, so those in power don't have much to worry about.
People look back at the atrocity committed by humanity and blame the leaders or the crazed groups but in reality to get there they had to have the support of the people, implicitly and explicitly.
War has evolved into an exercise of political power. The borders of the world are fixed and the world nations will not condone the empire building of the past. The weapons are too powerful for world super powers to go head to head but they can fight proxy wars.
As climate change and peak oil stress the social political sphere, the superpowers will move to ensure their supplies of oil, gas and drinkable water. As there will only be limited supplies of each, it's likely that there will be conflicts of interests.
Luckily for the US we don't border any superpowers and can't annex as much oil , gas and water as we want, though their will be a bloody price for it.
Though that's a rather distopian view, it could very well go the other way where advances in renewable power frees us from our energy constraint ushering in a 2nd golden age of prosperity, but that seems too utpoian :D Maybe well just end up somewhere in between.
Quote:Original post by Codeka I haven't read this whole thread, but are you saying that killing two or three medics in an ambulance is justified if there's a terrorist in there as well?
Quote:Geneva Convention IV, Article 18 Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.[...]
This article doesn't apply here. An ambulance is not a hospital. Moreover, even if you did try to broaden the meaning of this article somehow by, for example, saying that the ambulance can be considered some kind of "portable hospital", it still wouldn't apply to an ambulance with a terrorist inside since, obviously, such an ambulance is organized to harbor militants rather than "to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases".
Quote:Original post by phresnel What I find funny is that you claim and claim and claim with a good pinch of personal point of view, but at no point in this thread you gave references to official and approved sources to back yourself up, like learned in school.
I'm just following the trend here. I think your citation of Geneva convention (plus LessBread's citation of it) were about the only references to official sources. The rest are just links to newspapers articles, which, of course, just reflect the writers' (and probably the editor's) personal opinions. I could, of course, link to a ton of pro-israeli articles, but I don't think it would prove anything.
That said, if you do want me to prove some specific point, please let me know. You don't think terrorists can travel in ambulances? Here's an ">example. Here's an example of a guy with a rifle dragging a child around. Had he been shot, he would be claimed to be an innocent civilian. ">Here are quite a few examples of shots being fired from residential buildings and of using these buildings to store weapons. This, of course, makes these buildings not residential anymore, but if there were blasted, it would be claimed that a residential building was targeted. ">Here's a longer clip of rockets being launched from a school. A few examples of the same thing happening in Lebanon: ">1, ">2. Again, please let me know if you want me to prove some other point.
I actually can't tell from that what you mean. The Americans seem to be doing quite nicely compared to that war, which - correct me if I'm wrong - was among the greatest failures of SU, seeing that at a very great cost it didn't achieve practically anything except for destabilizing the region?
Sure,it was a great failure.The question is who will be the next.It's just the matter of time...
Quote: (BTW, the movie you are linking - this is not one of those patriotic/nationalist war movies, this time glorifying another mindless waste of lives in an attempt to export the communist world revolution? Also comments point out that the claim that no-one has ever conquered Afghanistan is not quite true. In addition to the Mongols, wasn't Alexander the Great one who did just that? And ... is the current war about conquering the country?)
May be Alex the great also thought that he conquered Afghanistan,just like people believe now that the democracy grows there? What about movie-it is about the senseless of that war.About 18-year-old guys without armoured vests,forgotten on the hill and having an order- capture and hold. === ">The most patriotic part[smile]
Quote:Original post by Codeka I haven't read this whole thread, but are you saying that killing two or three medics in an ambulance is justified if there's a terrorist in there as well?
Yes. Are you saying it's not?
So you'd shoot right through the victim in order to kill the criminal?
Good show! Extend that mentality and we'd just as well exterminate all of humanity in order to prevent further unwanted behaviour.
Quote:Original post by LessBread Here's an example of an IDF officer getting a slap on the wrist after giving an order to shoot a bound prisoner in the leg:
So you do agree that they punish inappropriate behavior?
By that logic, sentencing a serial killer to 30 months of community service is punishment for inappropriate behavior.
And is this just your personal preference, or can you support it somehow by, say, that Geneva convention?
Quote:Original post by Kirl You'd shoot right through the victim in order to kill the kidnapper?
No. But that's not a war situation, that kidnapper doesn't threaten anyone else except for the victim. As opposed to terrorists in the ambulance, who (in case it wasn't clear) threaten israeli civilians (and soldiers).
Also, I'm not sure whether the medics in the ambulance are really victims. They might quite be willingly helping the terrorists.
Quote:Original post by Kirl Good show! Extend that mentality and we'd just as well exterminate all of humanity in order to prevent further terrorist attacks.
Well, extend your mentality and we might as well all kill ourselves in order to prevent any possible harm to terrorists.
