Thulsa Doom said:
nice try but sorry. its up to YOU as a member of a "civilized" country engaged in warfare to prove that every single arab you run accross is apparently a war criminal. dont give me this crap about them automatically being guilty until I prove them innoncent. freakin hypocrite. you dont abandon the Geneva Convention because your enemy doesnt follow its rules. you follow it because its the right thing to do.
Nice try, but if you're being fired upon, you fire back. That's all the proof you need. If they have bigger guns, you call in an airstrike, and flatten the building. It's not pretty, and it's not nice, but it's not supposed to be. Too many people have this idea in their heads that war is supposed to be civilized. It's not. They also see the pictures of 'smart bombs' dropping down chimneys, and taking out just one building while leaving the other buildings in the area undamaged. Depends upon the distance between buildings. They think that, when shown that the enemy has superior firepower, that people will immediately surrender, throwing down their arms and raising their hands. we have things like the Geneva Convention, the Laws Of Armed Conflict and the Rules Of Engagement, not to prevent war crimes, but to punish war crimes when the war is over. Now guess who get's to prosecute those war crimes? That's right...the ones who win the war. Of course, they're going to minimize their crimes and maximize the enemies, and only a few on either side is going to be honest about how their side acted.
TD said:
Oh well then maybe you missed that bit i just said about one Lieutenant Colonel Robert S McNamara (remember him?) who under the leadership of infamous General Curtis LeMay firebombed to death upwards of 1 million Japanese civilians including 100,000 in one night alone. McNamara himself said he considered that act alone to be a "war crime" of the heighest magnitude. His words not mine. So let me ask you if General "Chemical" Ali had managed to set off a giant serin bomb in fort wayne one night killing 100,000 american citizens you wouldnt be screaming to the rafters for his criminal hide?
Talk about your hypocrisy.
1. McNamara was the one who started all that trouble with war crimes in Vietnam, wasn't he? Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. While no person is completely free of blame when it comes to an actual war, McNamara is the
last person I'd use in a quote disparaging anybody elses 'war crimes'...especially when that quote was used during his defense of actions during the Vietnam war.
2. Comparing WWII with the wars being fought today is a big stretch, even for you,
TD. Warfare today is (I hate this phrase) much more 'efficient'. The amount of civilian deaths attributed to actual warfare is exponentially smaller than in WWII.
TD said:
Now if you are quite done with your "how dare you" atitude here in regards to war crimes then maybe youll also note i never actually condemned these acts. Just layed them out there. I even said you could make some justification for them. which i ALSO said about shooting the injured insurgent. Yet Im told to shut the fuck up and dont ever talk about americans commiting attrocities in response? real nice one gonz.
Speak your piece. Some will listen, some will ignore, and some will go out and do the exact opposite of what you say.
What is upsetting is not the message, but how the message is delivered. If I send you a singing telegram telling you that your father died, along with a box of chocolates and a stripper, I'm quite sure you'd be upset. If I sent a bouquet of flowers to the funeral home, you'd still be upset, but you would acknowledge my sympathetic overture.