The concept of a "war crime"

[Foltest]

When it comes to war crimes and what makes them, I think the intention play a major factor here. shelling a villiage to the ground because of heavy fighting there? Not a war crime. Destroying a villiage, rape pillage etc because for the lolz or as punishment? War crime all the way.

 

[Absolute Brainlet]

The Geneva Convention is merely a suggestion

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

A good portion of Sun Tzu strategies would be considered "war crimes" by today's retarded moralfag standards.

 

[Dick In a Drawer]

Call me when Dubya and Obongo with Bolton and Cheney get tried for war crimes. The Left That Matters rehabilitated them or just ignored their record for war.

I agree with you about the hypocrisy but what drfuzzyballs said is absolutely correct & this shouldn't been made politicized, which everyone sadly has. During the Iraq War General Tommy Frank said "we don't do bodycounts" when talking about civilian deaths which, considering how that war is objectively seen as on false pretense now, is a huge disgrace for the US. There's still no correct estimate about the number of Iraqis killed but everyone puts it in the hundreds of thousands, all for essentially oil, greater Israel & US "full spectrum dominance." The fact that underaged boys being raped in Iraqi prisons in Abu-Gharib along with numerous other horrendous abuses has been mostly forgotten shows the universal discard for the lives of people in countries we invade. I see the problem is that post-Vietnam, we've managed to have wars with relatively little US soldiers deaths & the most convincing antiwar argument here has been based stopping more US troops from dying. Any means of trying war crime charges is also politicized with the ICC; the same neocons who called for Gadaffi, Sudan's al-Bashir & Milosevic to be tried, stonewall when the ICC investigates US & Israeli war crimes. The reality is that there's no war without any war crimes & no one in Washington is geunine about justice for the victims. I can't see international bodies being any solution to it & the easier objective is prevent most future wars, which I have little hope for as well.

 

[Emperor Julian]

A good portion of Sun Tzu strategies would be considered "war crimes" by today's retarded moralfag standards.

Yeah but it also encourages you to be merciful when it's expedint to do so and the 36 strategems are pretty timeless

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

Yeah but it also encourages you to be merciful when it's expedint to do so and the 36 strategems are pretty timeless

Oh, don't get me wrong I'm not saying its cool to rape women and stab babies or try and exterminate your enemy's population; just that the concept of a "war crime" is dumb.

"Dont target your enemy's water supply, or else they might get thirsty when they are assaulting your lines later!"
"Dont surprise attack your enemy! Let them know you plan to war them so they can kill more of your soldiers in a fair fight!"
"Hey that ship is still 300 nautical miles away, gotta wait till he's 12nm away from your shore to start shooting!"
"Hey! Your enemy worked hard on that ambush! Not very nice of you to just white phosphorous the whole fucking city block and make him come out in the open!"

 

[Empty]

When people go to war, for whatever reason, the main goal is to hurt the other side indeed, but there's still a huge difference between fighting as an armed soldier against another armed soldier and bombing homes and hospitals with little children

 

[drfuzzyballs]

But what about.....

I mentioned the orange man because that was more recent, still disapprove of the others

 

[Return of the Freaker]

The Geneva Convention is merely a suggestion

This. Who's gonna punish Geneva violations by the winners? Ideally nobody wants all out brutality and barbarism, but if one side decides "fuck it" in some way and wins? They're not gonna get punished. The US hasn't had to do shit for Dresden or Tokyo among other incidents.

 

[Lmove]

Welp... this will be a difficult thing to write; especially since I'm gonna argue the benefits of bombing orphanages filled with children.

Let me set the tone by citing one of Sun Tsu's most famous quote:

All warfare is based on deception.

In warfare, you, and your county image tends to be the most important factor, a good image will give you good army morale, foreigner support, and may diminish enemy's morale, I dunno.
By saying this, you have to be a total retard to openly commit war crimes, absolute buffoon; wars are all about good guys killing the bad guys. But seriously, openly killing civilians or torturing prisoners will create distress in your own men, generating defects and will increase the chances of being assassinated, let alone the fact that foreigner forces will join against you. Don't do it.

Now that the big no no is established, let me tell you why killing women and children is a good thing. You see, most wars are started due to a drastic contrast of beliefs, this means that if you don't act accordingly you will lose the territory almost as quick as when you captured it. Here is where genocide comes in place. Despite being a semi-recent term genocides had happened since the beginning of time, It's the most efficient way of maintaining power. Two quick example to prove that I don't talk completely out of my asshole: In the Italian war, Louis the Twelfth, the king of France captured and lost the city of Milan twice as they became more and more rebellious. While during the Ottoman war, Vlad the Third, the Voivode of Wallachia; after executing his rival to the throne, Dan the Third, captured the city of Basov and then quickly executed any of his rival supporters. Genocide happened because they're the quickest method of maintaining order. They were used in the past, they are used in the present; quick examples may be: the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the Bantu attacks. And I grantee to you, they will happen in the future.

Regarding the rules of war and and Geneva convention, I'll give you a simple advise, if you happen to be at war, read the rules like they're your new Bible. The Geneva convention is a meme for a reason; everyone will ignore it. Your job is simply to work around it and find new loopholes to use. Want to kill civilians? They're militia. Are you doing chemical warfare? It's insecticide. War is all about deception, if you did a good enough job, even if you're trailed you may leave with no charge. Again, two examples that come to mind are the Vietnam war and the Yugoslav war. In the Vietnam war, the U.S used Agent Orange as a herbicide ignoring its heavily toxic effect. This affected them only 20 years after when Vietnamese victim class action lawsuit got dismissed. Comparatively, in one of the Yugoslav wars, more specifically the Bosnian war. The Serbs were doing war crimes with the subtlety of a pink elephant, catching NATO's attention and then getting bombarded by NATO.

Spoiler: big conclusion

Everyone is doing war crimes and its making me sad

 

[Gun Safety]

The idea of a war crime is a Christian idea, that is as far as I know the first ideas of what is just and unjust in war was pioneered by Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages, notably Thomas Aquinas’ writings on just warfare. Makes sense that this spirit would be carried forward into the modern era with most institutions that prosecute and legislate what is and not legal in war are led by westerners. War in Europe since Christian domination up until the modern era was remarkably tame. Instances of mass killing were infrequent and notable, @Lmove points out a few and I suppose you could throw in the siege of Madgenburg and the mass killings of the 50 years war and during the Crusades. Usually mass killings resulted from a breakdown of discipline and normally after a prolonged siege. This makes sense when you consider that armies were made up of professional life long soldiers led by a king or duke or baron who waged war for a specific and limited purpose, capture a castle or rarely even a city. It would be kind of retarded to indiscriminately kill people.

Seems to me that war crimes only really became a regular feature of war when governments became more democratic and not personal property of select nobility. Even the fascists and communist nations that were ostensibly autocratic still legitimized themselves that they were acting as the will of the people. It makes sense then that massacres and genocide would become a key feature of modern war, it would be weird if it wasn’t. War crimes in the modern sense is just people vainly trying to return to a time when war was limited and relatively not as fucked up. Of course this is silly and if real war were to happen again it would be as brutal and painful as the last two world wars.

 

[Puff]

Another category of war crimes are about killing prisoners, false surrender and wearing uniforms. These seem pretty important because when you start breaking them you basically force your enemy to go "total war". Ununiformed apparent civilians killing your troops all of the time? Well nobody is a civilian anymore.

 

[Jon Conroy]

If you think of it from a non enemy combatant that's completely defenseless then it makes sense. But its not because of the fact it morally or an act of hate. In war if you are going to topple an already subjugated population why wouldn't you keep what remains subjugated to after words? Ceaser would take the common folk of defeated enemies and make them grow food for the republic. Simply it is there to keep those who are under control in control.