Get real.

There is no hell, and War Crimes are a matter of political propaganda.

> Red_Rooster wrote:

> Dont you know? powerful countries never commit warcrimes. might is always right i guess.>

Thank you for educating the overly idealistic Firewing on how politics works.

"And "might" can only be right as long the population lets it be "right". The problem is our whole western society consists of pussies like Justinian who accept things because they appear to be the status quo... or have been written down by people hundreds of years ago.

War crimes are crimes and specially us western societies who allways praise themselves to be the defenders of human rights should do everything to bring war criminals to justice.. no matter if it is serbian or dutch people comitting them."

sorry i didnt mean to write what i wrote. I actually meant to write that there is no such thing as war crimes. In war there are only heinous acts against humanity and war itself maybe considered that. In war, there are only good justifications and bad justifications for your actions. Not that anyone can be punished for bad justifications.

And justinian isnt entirely wrong because war crimes are often not reported or are falsely reported during a war. Both sides will say the other side is committing "war crimes". The winner of the war often gets to decide who committed warcrimes and who did not. Just as what happened in the nuremburg trials after WW2.

Given the communist doctrine of "the guerrilla lives among the people like the fish among the ocean" and the proved fact that the commies slaughtered 8000 civilians in Hue in the week they held it during Tet, your whining about what the Americans "must" have done is laughable.

"I personally get upset when i hear that US or German or Dutch soldiers commit warcrimes"

Which warcrimes do you accuse the Dutch soldiers of? Afghanistan or Indonesia?

Okay, a few things:

1: You have NO proof of any specific scenarios.  To prosecute someone, you need to have specific evidence about a specific scenario, and a specific culprit.  You can't just go and lock up an army.
2: You have to prove it was a deliberate killing of civilians.  I know what officer you were talking about, and if you read the scenario, it was BLATANTLY clear he was trying to wipe out a village.  Many other cases are less than certain.
3: How do you draw the line between military and civilian?  North Vietnam used huge amounts of terrorist tactics to take down the US.  Many American soldiers reported seeing women and children being used as suicide bombers, along with simply hiding inside civilian populations.  That is what the majority of the Tet offensive was all about.  There was a uniformed army, but the Viet Kong was the primary enemy, and they operated much like Al Qaeda today.

"Given the communist doctrine of "the guerrilla lives among the people like the fish among the ocean" and the proved fact that the commies slaughtered 8000 civilians in Hue in the week they held it during Tet, your whining about what the Americans "must" have done is laughable."

So because the other guys did bad things we should ignore things the US did?  I'm not falling on either side of this, personally I think if you're going to charge anyone of a war crime it should be the person/people responsible for starting the thing.  "There is nothing good in war, only in its ending." War sometimes requires people on both sides to do some pretty nasty things.  We don't have to like it, but neither should we condemn it.

" I think if you're going to charge anyone of a war crime it should be the person/people responsible for starting the thing."

not necessarily. Sometimes a war MUST be started in order to achieve a better state or welfare for your people. Not saying that the US was correct in its involvement in vietnam. I actually disagree with it. But im just throwing it out there that some wars must be started and you cannot just punish the person who starts the war.

Red I completely agree that sometimes war needs to be fought; all I meant to say is that in war terrible things must be done, if you're going to cast blame and responsibility for said terrible things it falls on whoever started the war.

"WE didn't start the Vietnam War anyhow."

don't think anyone said you did.

"And when you use civilians for cover then its OK to fire on civilians."

Does the term "slippery slope" mean anything to you?

"Which warcrimes do you accuse the Dutch soldiers of? Afghanistan or Indonesia?"

I do not accuse dutch soldiers of any warcrime. I just chose some countries as example and since there are many durchies here.. the netherlands had been one of them.

> Selur Ku wrote:

> As much as I disagree with Justininians stance of "it has always happened & always will, we should just ignore it", he at least is honest.>

I do want to say, though, that there is such a thing as wanton excess. We may be able to limit the violation of human rights when it's motivated by wanton excess (Hitler and Stalin), but we can't when it's motivated by pragmatic consideration (security, power and profit)

"Red I completely agree that sometimes war needs to be fought; all I meant to say is that in war terrible things must be done, if you're going to cast blame and responsibility for said terrible things it falls on whoever started the war."

No the responsibility does not fall on who started the war. Like I said, sometimes war HAS to be started due to a lack of any options. So is it fair to cast blame on the one who took the only option he can take?

I only see JUST and UNJUST wars. Any "warcrimes" committed are hard to investigate and punish due to human nature. Like other people said, mankind does horrible things in war. If you are going to punish people for said "warcrimes" then it has to be all people guilty or none at all.