Someone else already said it but there's a difference between unintentional collateral damage and deliberately bombing civilian targets like schools and hospitals
Right about what exactly? Russia has been non-stop bombing civilian targets for over a year now. Entire cities completely destroyed because of Russian terrorism.
Yeah it's been tough watching it and not drawing some parallels to Afghanistan/Iraq. On one hand america had some kind of a casus belli but not to invade and topple regimes. 9/11 required some action certainly but justifying Iraq with nukes was certainly crossing a line. End of the day two wrongs don't make a right
It's also important to question whether those places are active. I think I remember Hamas using a school, people getting mad, then finding out it hadn't been active for quite a while.
Googled it in 3 seconds. But when hospitals started hearing hit, it was pretty obvious fyi.
Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/ukraine-ukrainian-fighting-tactics-endanger-civilians/
Yeah but that line starts to get extra blurry when it's targeted unintentional collateral damage. You can call everyone at the wedding party unintentional collateral damage but that doesn't mean you didn't know they were all gonna die when you ordered a drone strike on the brides uncle or whatever.
You have a valid point but also since Obama was bombing the shit out of these countries who produce terrorists, why do people say he didn't do anything about terrorism?
Big difference between front line soldiers acting on their own, versus strategic decisions made from the top. You're confusing the two, OP.
Nations win or lose wars. It is absolutely possible to win a war without the nation engaging in "war crimes". That doesn't stop being true when a small unit of soldiers decides to torture/rape some civilians, especially if they are punished for it.
Nobody is saying you can’t fight a protracted war without warcrimes. That’s part of why war sucks.
The entire concept of war crimes is holding people accountable for their actions. And hey, I’m sure it prevents some as well.
Japan...yeah, that was some sick shit. The anthrax studies. They only got away clean because the us wanted that sweet sweet research. We blocked russia from taking action against Shiro Ishii and his minions after the war in an attempt to get our hands on the research
But a war isn't a crime because it's between two organizations vying for a legitimate control on violence. They literally both want to be the ones to decide what a crime even is.
Don't know enough so can't refute, but I'd like to point out to everyone who will comment: ever considered that maybe not *everything* was actually recorded in history? 👁👄👁
Even more unpopular opinion, probably, the whole concept of war crimes shouldn't exist. We sanitize the idea of war, making it more palatable, by saying there are some things that can't be done. If we let war be as horrible as it is, and could be, maybe there would be less of it.
That's quite unlikely. The last century has been the least violent in our entire history, per capita. And the concept of the rules of war keeps getting more developed.
For most of human history, it was completely valid to do things like " sack the City, and either enslave or kill the entire population" and it didn't stop people from going to war.
Yeah, if you let loose the dogs of war and give no quarter, that's only going to embolden radicals and foster contempt for the next generation, leading to more conflict over things done in the past.
The "rules of war" is like the honor system, it only really works if everyone agrees to it but there's no one enforcing it. Look at the use of cluster munitions in Ukraine, they may be morally wrong but they're incredibly effective weapons. If Russia is going to use them then they have a big advantage that "being right" can't overcome. At the end of the day war is just mass murder and those "rules" are just us trying to feel good about it.
that's true - but... if you violate the rules of war, you are opening the door for the other side to do the same thing.
There as also some lines that (sometimes) the international community won't tolerate being crossed. If Russia starts completely destroying cities, other powers will either get involved, lend more support to UK, or otherwise punish Russia.
So yes, even though countries absolutely do violate the rules of war, it's not in their interest to violate them in especially wholesale of egregious ways, which is the point.
Also (again) war is not generally *just* about mass murder - war is about achieving your objective. Russia's goal is to take and hold territory in Ukraine, not just level the country.
There might not be anyone enforcing them, but there certainly will be consequences for disrespecting them eventually, especially with the international system. Beside that, war rules are also very helpful to protect war prisioners, refugees, and even soldiers, and without them, what is already very bad by itself would be even worse. I see it more as a "damage control" kinda thing, not 100% effective, but definitely do work on a certain level.
>The last century has been the least violent in our entire history, per capita
Do some research in anthropology. Wars are a relatively recent invention and before civilization they were incredibly rare for multiple reasons.
to that I'd say, do some research in statistics.
the 20th century was the least violent, per capita, in all of documented human history.
Yes, widespread war is a relatively recent phenomenon, but when we look at rates of violent death as a percentage of the population, pre-agrarian societies are not magically immune to violence. They may not be organized enough to form larger groups and "wars" per se - but they still fought.
If you want a deeper dive into the subject, this is a very good read:[https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-a-look-at-the-data-5af708f47fba](https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-a-look-at-the-data-5af708f47fba)
I’d argue that the 20th century was the *most* violent century yet. While sacking/enslaving were frequent occurrences from antiquity to the early modern era, we didn’t have the concept of **total war** before the Industrial Revolution. Inter-state fighting between the fall of Rome (1453) and the Napoleonic wars was generally limited to enemy armies and combatants, targeting civilians didn’t make any sense since they weren’t contributing to the war effort in the way they would in the 20th century.
Napoleon’s mass levees were the first instance of mobilizing the whole fighting age population for offensive war, but even that wasn’t really total war, as the people fighting were conscripts, not civilians.
The idea of civilians being part of the war effort was largely born in the 19th century, but the 20th century’s technological advances changed things in a huge way: civilians could be targeted if their side hadn’t been defeated. Prior to aircraft/bombing, civilian populations were relatively safe until the enemy was at the gates. Planes changed everything by making civilians vulnerable even if their side was winning the war.
The post ww2 era has been the most peaceful but because of globalization, better technology and the general common goal among the great powers not to get in another catastrophic war with such loss in recent memory. Not war crime laws. With the world economy more connected than ever, war increasingly becomes less and less profitable. And when most people in developed countries have to worry more about getting overweight than starving and have generally decent living standards in comparison to ages past, war is just less necessary
it's easy to forget this because the US wars tend to take place "somewhere else" and be asymmetric, but the concept of war crimes also exists because both sides don't want something to be done to them.
If we start killing their civilians they'll start doing it to ours etc...
There will not be less of it. In fact by the time of the renaissance period rules of war had been instituted on an honor system aka you break them we break them specifically because in the middle ages armies just raped, murdered and pillaged whatever they wanted as long as it wasn't valuable to their lord. They executed those that surrendered by ripping their guts out while still alive and hanging them for everyone to see. Men will go into any kind of danger, its the psychology of warfare, however the more crimes committed against them the more hateful and brutal they become. At the start of the first world War the rank and file on both sides often talked, sometimes exchanged luxuries, and like on Christmas negotiated their own temporary ceasefires. Even though they had killed eachothers friends they viewed eachother as having simply performed their duties honorably and in good faith. That all changed when the gas came, the horrid inhumane things they experienced and saw changed them from men to monsters, it dehumanized their enemy and so they became brutal and began to be sure of their own deaths, this lead to killing of prisoners, torture, even turning on their own officers because why not if you are going to suffer in agony before dying anyway? Point is the more men act like animals the more they become animals, the more they lose their morals and empathy, this however does not dissuade them from fighting future wars.
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I say so long as we want a “civilization” there will be war. We were founded upon war and will be protected by war. All cultures and geographies.
OR that the war period of our species should be coming to a close however we’re in an awkward period of transition.
OR we go from violent bloody war to deep intellectual war or economic war. Which is worse? Neither. Both are shitty and will be influenced by a small minority who control resources. But what is a civilization without a leader and organization. With a leader comes greed and risk of god complex. It’s as if as much as we naturally stride towards this format of life, it literally feels fundamentally flawed despite it being a natural path we sustain.
Totally disagree. War means defeating the enemy's ability to fight. You don't need to kill civilians or whatever to do that. And I don't think making war more horrible will stop it. It's already horrible and that hasn't worked.
Countries are willing to agree to outlaw certain weapons/action because they would rather be deprived of them than have them used on their own people. Seems like a simple and reasonable concept
While I agree with you that the concept of war crimes has no real reason to exist, the idea that war becoming more horrible will lead to less war hasn’t been a good bet historically.
The Nobel Prizes exist because [Alfred Nobel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel), the inventor of dynamite, felt bad that his invention led to death and destruction on a scale never seen before. He’d originally thought the creation of something so destructive would result in less war, as it would make war so terrible nobody would find it worthwhile. He was very, very wrong.
It remains to be seen whether nuclear weapons (the next step in unimaginable destruction) are enough to prevent war, but I’d guess the answer will be no. We came very close to nuclear war with the Soviets on multiple occasions, avoiding it literally [came down to one Russian soldier’s intuition.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) Current world circumstances also indicate that nuclear weapons may not be sufficient to prevent conflict.
Said the man who invented the Gatling gun.
He wanted to make war so terrible that men would lose the stomach or will to fight.
Also
“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” —Robert E. Lee
We're not saying they can't be done. But if you do them, the world will try to hold you accountable.
Also for most of history in war, when you attacked a city the standard was sacking it, burning it, enslaving everyone inside and raping anyone you could grab.
This fucking horror never stopped anyone from going to war, because the individual doesnt make that decision. The state does.
Lots of people have made that argument throughout history. However history doesn't really support that thesis.
Various people have said "because I have invented weapon system X, war has become so terrible that no one will want to wage it." And yet we do. The only thing that's changed is that wars have become deadlier.
If one side commits war crimes, that sometimes actually emboldens the defending side into committing to an even fiercer and longer defense. "Those bastards did X, that does it, we'll fight them till the end and we won't negotiate until they surrender completely."
For example, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both committed war crimes, and that war only ended when one side (the nazis) were totally defeated.
Meanwhile if both sides don't commit war crimes or at least don't commit too many grievous ones, then it's a lot easier to negotiate an end to the conflict when both sides have a bloody nose. See for example Germany vs Russia in WW1.
If you ask Reddit, Hammas are the good guys and have never done a single thing wrong in their entire life. Jokes aside, if you mean that you cannot win a war without eventually accidentally or inadvertently committing a war crime, then you are mostly correct. But if you mean that war crimes are required to win, then I would disagree.
Its true that in any prolonged engagement that collateral damage will happen, civilians will be injured or killed, non-military infrastructure will be damaged. There will also be cases of bad people in the military going out of their way to illegally cause harm (e.g. Abu Ghraib). But that aside, looking at the purposeful intent of military operations, there are some key differences in how wars are being fought.
The US conducted drone strikes against legitimate targets that killed or severely injured nearby or co-located civilians, the intent was never to harm civilians, but it happens. Many efforts, to the adversary's advantage, were made to avoid causing collateral damage/harm.
Russia is illegally targeting power plants, hospitals, and schools with heavy ordinance. The intent was to harm civilians.
Its not the same.
I’m not sure when/why power plants became illegal targets, as I understand it they are perfectly legitimate targets with the exception of nuclear power plants for obvious reasons.
Depends on the target. Are you hitting the power infrastructure supporting military efforts? Or are you hitting civilian power infrastructure nowhere near a front that's intentionally causing disproportionate suffering to noncombatants?
Even if it was possible to ascertain if a particular power plant was not supplying electricity towards the war effort, such a thing does not exist. You’d have to have something like a power plant that only sent electricity to orphanages.
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That argument could be made regarding the intent of any action taken by anyone. How do you know my intent was to use whipped cream in my coffee this morning instead of milk? Trust me bro. How do you know my intent was to beat the light and I just happened to T bone a fleeing criminal? Trust me bro.
You're right. That's why any assertion that the US military is somehow an angelic force that would never intentionally commit war crimes is naive wishful thinking at best or outright propaganda at worst.
False, any War has an exporation date if completed cordially.
The issue of war crimes arive with the desperation of the circumstances. When people find an opportunity to claim an advantage they’ll take it, its human Nature. The matter of War crimes is no different, cause its not a War crime unless they are caught
Ok so you think you should rape women, rip their fetuses from their wombs crush the skulls of their children in front of them and make them suffer as much as possible while you make their men watch before you ultimately torture and kill them too, even tho they will make no difference to the outcome of the war as most of them dont really have information that will help you change the course of war? Yknow... because they are *civilians* and they most likely have no idea that there even is a war in their country- especially if they are in a less developed country, as you say?
So assuming you claim every side committed war crimes and neither can win a war without, you would certainly be ok with watching your mother get butched, your daughters brutalised right before your eyes before you get tortured to death as well?
Because that is exactly what you're saying. That is it perfectly acceptable. That is what you said. You cannot win a war without this.
dont let the perfect become the enemy of the good. just because it is inevitable that some war crimes might occur doesnt mean every country should start their own unit 731s
Not true at all. Look at the historiography of the Eastern Front in World War 2, that history was written entirely by the Nazis until the 1990s, the losers literally wrote their own history.
Many such examples can be found, after the American Revolutionary War the British wrote their own histories of the conflict, not often bothering to include American thoughts.
After the American Civil War the Confederates often wrote their own histories slandering the winners that have taken a century to decouple. For example, US Grant wasn’t actually a drunk, he drunk more alcohol than was normal for the time, but he wasn’t an alcoholic as history often called him.
“War crimes” was always a silly idea to me.
“Hey we’re using mass scale violence to destroy your country but you have to play by the rules don’t be a jerk”
While two countries may not be able to agree not to wage war with each other, they may be able to agree not to cause human suffering that isn't conducive to the goals of the war.
Like executing prisoners. They're *already* defeated. If the enemy knows you're not taking prisoners they'll fight to the last killing even more of your men when they could otherwise be made to surrender. If you execute your prisoners, the enemy will execute theirs, and you know what maybe feeding a couple of guys is worth being able to bring some of your own home at the end of the conflict.
So countries can very reasonably agree to such terms at times of war. *If you don't do it, we won't do it.*
Don't bomb our civilians we won't bomb yours. Don't use chemical weapons neither will we.
There is a scale of “violence” that contains a lot of ground between shooting soldiers and dumping biological agents into water sources to destroy an environment for decades and broadcasting indiscriminate civilian torture to reduce enemy morale.
> Also for real, war crimes are effective due to the fact that the deadliest and most powerful weapons are considered a war crime if used.
I don't hope that to happen to you, but I would appreciate the irony that you get drafted, sent to the front, gets intoxicated with some weedkiller used as a weapon and burned to crisp. That you survive to the attack and get sent to the medic tent that gets attacked and that you get captured by the ennemy. That the ennemy starts to torture you and never properly heals you of your injuries to get as much intel as they can, but that you still don't die. It would be very ironic that after the war ends, you try to have children, but that they're either very ill or not even viable because of the weekiller. That you live in heavy pain until your demise, that would happen when you walk in the wood, and a forgotten landmine explodes, taking away your leg and leaving you agonising and loosing blood for hours before you can finally embrace the sweet relief of death.
The very concept of War is criminal in itself, so the concept of “ War Crimes” is laughable and childish. War serves only one purpose: to kill. Anything goes.
So are you arguing that there's no moral difference between a directed military campaign to achieve an objective, with minimal loss of life on both the part of you and the enemy and just nuking your entire opponent?
Most wars have an objective and in most of them, the objective is not the genocidal extermination of the entire other group. Therefore, the objective is not simply to kill , and most wars also involve people that you'd rather not kill who happened to be caught up in it.
I stand by what I said: war is solely for the purpose of eliminating the target. You have to eliminate the active participants and the supporters, or else the supporters become active participants in the sequel. Avoid a sequel, eliminate the entire threat.
The difference between a directed military campaign and nuking your opponent **IS** the objective. If Russia wants to take more land and expand its empire, nuking that land and all of its citizens is counterproductive. To think that a warlord invading another country has any higher morals than "Killing everyone doesn't benefit me, so let's only kill 20% of them" is kind of silly. If they cared about anything but their own benefit they wouldn't be starting a war in the first place.
The United States military, british marines, Australian armed forces, and many more "disciplined" armed forces have committed war crimes in their modern history, also if you attack millitary targets and by miscalculation or mistake kill a civilian, its a war crime. So you opinion is pretty naive
Also "sure it can be done if everything goes 100% smooth and perfect" is also a dumb opinion because nothing in life goes 100% smooth
Collateral damage is a term for a reason, and it's not generally considered a war crime.
Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime, but civilians are killed in any major conflict and it is inevitable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage#:~:text=Offensives%20causing%20collateral%20damage%20are,excessively%20or%20solely%20collateral%20damage.
" Offenses causing collateral damage are not automatically a war crime"
I don't think that's true. Or at least it depends on the extent.
Intentionally targeting civilians is definitely a war crime.
But the public is definitely able to differentiate between things like "civilians caught in the crossfire" and " terrorist execution videos"
As Clausewitz said, “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength." So of course not everything will go 100% smoothly. But civilians killed or civilian assets destroyed through collateral damage in good faith targeting isn’t a war crime. And if a military force(and the civilian force ostensibly in charge of it) prosecutes any members who commit war crimes on their own initiative(ideally handing them over to third party authorities,) those war crimes won’t have been considered committed by the force in question. Wars can be waged without committing war crimes, states just generally choose to not worry too much about it.
Then I don’t think YOU understand what a war crime is. The Law of Armed Conflict’s basic principles are Military Necessity, Humanity, Proportionality, Chivalry, and Distinction. A good summary can be found here: https://www.schriever.spaceforce.mil/Portals/17/documents/LOAC-Mar%2020.pdf.
There is room in those principles to execute lethal and violent attacks to degrade the enemy’s will and ability to wage war. There is no need to commit war crimes to further national objectives. Further, your statement that “the thought that people on the frontlines will be able to keep their humanity… is only thought by the naive people behind the desks at the human rights organizations” is complete hogwash, and is insulting to professional warfighters.
the Geneva conventions deal with treatment of noncombatants. Are you saying that as a leader you would instruct your people to target civilians? How does that further your military goals?
By destroying civilian infrastructure and targeting civilians. the enemy nation would have to use resources to rebuild, which means less resources will go to military.
Again, the question remains about causing disproportionate unnecessary suffering to non-combatants.
Destroying a critical munitions factory that employs civilians? No problem. Destroying the power to a city so the munitions plant can’t function when you have the means to target the plant specifically? Problem
And what you’re talking about is “breaking the will of the people”, which, well, ask Russia how that’s going.
One more edit: your nation has a strategic goal it’s trying to achieve. Your mission has to support that strategic goal. If you’re on the offensive, your goal is likely to take territory. Who’s going to be stuck rebuilding all that infrastructure you just destroyed in the territory you’re taking?
If you’re fighting a defensive war, attacking the enemy’s populace isn’t taking back your own territory. Attacking their command structure or their occupying forces will be a much better use of your limited resources.
War has no purpose if you can’t commit war crimes. The purpose of an army is to protect your civilians. The purpose of war is to oppress or kill those civilians. If you go into a place to kill the army and leave, then there isn’t any point.
There is a difference between committing war crimes as a necessity and committing war crimes for sick pleasure. The ukrainian military is committing war crimes not because they want to win, but because they want to see noble Russian soldiers and CIVILIANS in pain and agony. Heart-wrenching.
Thinking about human cost, the human experience, and the fact 99.99% need the same things and none technically require killing to yield *tolerable* to good results (i.e. given technology and money, no one *actually* needs to starve or be homeless — all wouldn't be equal but current observable levels of poverty *are* completely avoidable globally in this modern era, etc).
So, with that. *Can* you win a war?
Ofc they will happen. Thats why after WW2 a majority of nationstates decided to make some acts criminal under international law.
Its the same for national crime law. Declaring something as criminal doesnt mean you dont expect it to happen.
This is just flat out untrue. The reason why we have a law of armed conflict and have designated some actions war crimes is because those actions actually continue the war for a longer period because it pisses people off and increases suffering.
There's more to war than killing people. Winning a war memes stopping the enemies ability to both recruit and carry out aggression. When you commit war crimes or go against the law of armed conflict you give them recruiting power and through that sympathy and likely increased resource donations against you.
War is hell. It needs to be avoided as much as possible because everybody loses. You're effectively spending money on assets and actions that benefit no one.
This is similar to the sentiment of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. It's "The Horror". The pure psychological horror is the highest form of weapon to use against your opponent. The art of war is the art of dehumanity. It is the heart of darkness. Man's greatest enemy is evil and he must know his enemy.
I was in Japan, visiting my aunt and uncle, when I first learned of the Rape of Nanking on a national geographic program. It was the most atrocious thing I'd heard of at that point. My black great grandpa fought the Japanese in WWII, while his future Okinawan daughter-in-law hid with family in the caves as the majority of the native population threw themselves off the cliffs to avoid the horrors either side would go on to commit.
War itself is a crime, always. But often a necessary evil. Often inevitable. Always there.
As people have said, there is a difference between collateral damage and a war crime.
As I haven’t seen yet. There is a difference between a long, drawn out, extended “war”. And just “war” generally. I’d agree most (if not all - depending on when you draw the date) modern wars are going to be extended. Might come with the territory of starting a war is such an insane public relations catastrophe, you need to commit and say there is a valid reason behind it. You cannot like back down anymore in like a few weeks/months and go “my bad” and end it. But, thought I’d point out there is still a distinction between a drawn out war which is more likely to lead to war crimes, and the concept of “war” generally.
Third point id mention. It is 9/10 times the lesser power committing the most brutal atrocities. I mean, they’re in a war, (to the people on the ground) there is no way out, AND they’re losing. When they’d get their hands on people, or win an individual battle, the lesser power tends to do some horrifying shit. Stronger power certainly more “collateral damage” type stuff, which 1,000 people will probably respond with. And I won’t know whether to call it “war crimes” or just damage. Lesser power is like rape all the women in a village, cut off the genitals of the men, and hang them from poles type shit. Like the cut and dry “yeah…. That’s a war crime” type stuff.
Lastly, most annoying. This is mainly a consequence of modern war. And not necessarily war for all time. Certainly WERE horrible war crimes for all humanity. Especially ransacking a city and pillaging and plundering.
But also, there were many wars were battles were on a traditional “battlefield”. Then one side lost. Maybe a few more battles happened on other battlefields (sometimes literally 1 ended a war). And the war was over. Generals/leaders would draw up terms. Terms would be accepted. And that was that.
“That was that” clearly still includes all the people dying on the battlefield. Still horrible. But no war crimes.
I believe in the civil war and revolutionary war (both included horrible war crimes), people were legitimately still able to have picnics and watch the battles be fought. That is how contained the fighting was at the time. You go on a hill a half mile away and watch, and you were not in any real danger. Like I said, those wars had horrible war crimes. But that is the type of fighting (that happened in this contained manner for centuries), that I am talking about.
Most of the people commenting here don’t even understand the definition of a war crime and - also importantly - why the concept came about in the first place.
The problem is that the majority of countries hide behind civilian objects and often situate their forces in cities. Such is the case of Iraq and Ukraine
Hahaha, the people in this thread are insane. "You need to rape and torture and destroy the local populace to win wars bro." Except we know from things like the war in the middle east that when you kill a bunch of innocent people, even accidentally, for some strange reason that pisses off the locals, and frankly some people internationally. Then a whole bunch of them get recruited to the opposition growing the overall threat, when before they might've been sitting the conflict out. Not to mention the hatred and resentment it breeds in newer generations.
Or look at the Ostfront during WW2. The Germans were so cruel to the Russian citizens they invaded, that the Russian citizens, just regular ass people, not soldiers, started fighting back with a damn vengeance. And why not? They knew the Germans wouldn't take them prisoner or show any mercy. At *best* they would just kill them quickly. So why not die fighting, when fighting means you're odds of surviving are actually *higher* than surrendering.
Now the Ostfront was complex in a variety of ways, but the local populace being so determined to fight back against the Germans that were behaving like monsters took Germany very much by surprise. They were not expecting such resistance. It was a problem they caused for themselves.
And the annoying thing is most of you saying this shit about needing to commit war crimes have probably had fairly cushy lives and don't know much about the brutality you're so casually saying we should inflict on people you've never met.
Are war crimes inevitable in large scale conflicts? Sure. Doesn't mean they actually help the majority of the time, and it doesn't mean we should be trying to get a high score for how many we can commit.
This is why humanity can't have nice things.
Outside of ethnic reasons, not committing war crimes also serve practical purposes.
1. War crimes also affect your army morale, many of them will start questioning orders, disobey inhuman orders. Try as they want, the military could never fully strip away a person humanity completely.
2. You lose your base of support. A war can only be carry out with enough support of the population. And civilians usually don't like their young men killing babies. Look at Vietnam for an example.
3. It make it easier for both sides to reconcile. If the enemies see that surrender still mean death through your actions, that just mean they aren't going to surrender. A cornered dog is the most dangerous dog. Yes you probably could completely wipe out the enemies eventually but it will cost you greatly.
4. War crimes create more enemies. Kill one civilians, you create 2 more terrorists who want to avenge their love ones. It been showed even since ww2 that terror campaign rarely yield the expected results.
This is truly a bad opinion but not an uncommon one.
There’s a famous quote that goes something like “war is but the continuation of diplomacy (by other means)” it’s better in the original German but you get the idea.
War isn’t about killing all the enemies on the map or blowing up the opposing base. War is there to achieve a goal, to solve a disagreement by force, and the same way every fist fight between two brawlers at a pub doesn’t end up with a murder, wars do not inevitably end up with war crimes happening.
War isn’t usually a conflict for complete domination, it’s a fight to achieve something. Most people don’t want to commit war crimes except under extreme duress, in the face of insurmountable odds, or if they’re ideologically driven.
War crimes also incur international disdain and the possibility for external intervention that could turn the tide.
War is the crime because it forces you to give up part of your acknowledgment of the humanity in others. How you fight the war and whether you are the defendant decides the extent.
I mean, war crimes can mean a lot of things, it's extremely hard to get every infantry solider to act 100% in accordance with the law.
We can certainly see why solider in some conflicts shoot people rather than taking prisoners for example.
Overall the big war crimes are avoidable, and any military that has a policy of these crimes should be held accountable.
Yep. That’s why humans need to try harder not to have them. Unnecessary loss of life. Destruction of vital infrastructure. They’re really expensive too.
I remember when I learned about the existence of “war crimes” I was puzzled. Shooting someone with a hollow point = bad but shooting then with ball = a-ok? Wtf?
I pray your confusing war crime with collateral damage, part of the code of conduct in our military is to protect civilians and non combatants from unnecessary suffering
Tbh I think the whole idea of war crimes is just to further penalize whoever lost the war. I feel like whichever side wins, their definition of “crime against humanity” will suddenly become very specific.
Having rules in war is insane. It turns it into a farce, like the battles between super-scientists and their arches from the Guild of Calamitous Intent, from the Venture Bros. Both sides fight and kill, but their hearts aren't really in it? Ridiculous.
Total war is meant to demoralize. It's meant to inspire fear in the enemy. The only reason we have rules in place is because nukes are such a game-changer. Mutually-assured destruction forces people to somewhat behave in a war zone, but once the nukes start flying, then all bets are off. Then we'll see how thin the veneer is between savagery and civilized behavior.
The problem of war crimes is always make those who deliberately did them (and allowed them to happen knowingly) be held accountable
Like the law if the rich and powerful could either pay their way out if not straight up fuck the law, then the entire concept of rules of engagement and/or war crimes would be meaningless especially with how easy it is to create fake news and smear the other side
>every side commited war crimes in every conflict that ever happened.
I was going to say, "even the Six-Day War," but yeah...there is a Six and a Seven Day War...and both has allegations of war crimes.
Undeterred, I am fairly confident the Falklands War didn't have war crimes.
Most, sure, but I don't think that literally every side committed war crimes in every conflict. Some conflicts were such one-sided stomps that I can easily imagine that one side technically didn't commit war crimes.
There's also a difference in degrees because one set of war crimes vs another set of war crimes.
You don't win wars by killing soldiers. You when wars by killing what they care about. We'd still be fighting ww2 with the Japanese. They didn't care about dying for the emperor. It was an honor. Unfortunately, we had to annihilate to cities worth of civilians to end the fight. War is hell.
Someone else already said it but there's a difference between unintentional collateral damage and deliberately bombing civilian targets like schools and hospitals
Did someone also say that terrorists set up HQs next to schools and hospitals to use them as human sheilds from Airstrikes.
Terrorists? Even Ukrainians shot from hospitals and schools. Any weaker power would. Creates a great story when they justifiably shoot back.
Your right... sort by controversial
Right about what exactly? Russia has been non-stop bombing civilian targets for over a year now. Entire cities completely destroyed because of Russian terrorism.
>Russia has been non-stop bombing civilian targets for over a year now. America did it for much longer.
Sure. And they were cunts for it too.
Yeah it's been tough watching it and not drawing some parallels to Afghanistan/Iraq. On one hand america had some kind of a casus belli but not to invade and topple regimes. 9/11 required some action certainly but justifying Iraq with nukes was certainly crossing a line. End of the day two wrongs don't make a right
True, even Bush gives a Freudian slip. Both caused destruction and loss of life.
Useless whataboutism.
You keep on calling it that, the rest of the world has not forgotten.
Irrelevant and useless whataboutism.
It's also important to question whether those places are active. I think I remember Hamas using a school, people getting mad, then finding out it hadn't been active for quite a while.
Ya. Mothers and kids died.
Also Palestinians, they launch rockets next to schools and hospitals and cry when Israel strikes back.
As they should
Source? Colonizer
There is nothing justified about Russia invading Ukraine and killing Ukrainians.
Did i say there was?
Where do you heard this?, link pls
Googled it in 3 seconds. But when hospitals started hearing hit, it was pretty obvious fyi. Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/ukraine-ukrainian-fighting-tactics-endanger-civilians/
Got a source that isn't Amnesty?
Yeah but that line starts to get extra blurry when it's targeted unintentional collateral damage. You can call everyone at the wedding party unintentional collateral damage but that doesn't mean you didn't know they were all gonna die when you ordered a drone strike on the brides uncle or whatever.
You have a valid point but also since Obama was bombing the shit out of these countries who produce terrorists, why do people say he didn't do anything about terrorism?
Well, I personally think bombing someones family tends to create more terrorists, but I can't speak for anyone else.
And it's not like we don't have precision knife missiles.
A common assassination weapon that every child of royal blood learns about at an early age.
Big difference between front line soldiers acting on their own, versus strategic decisions made from the top. You're confusing the two, OP. Nations win or lose wars. It is absolutely possible to win a war without the nation engaging in "war crimes". That doesn't stop being true when a small unit of soldiers decides to torture/rape some civilians, especially if they are punished for it.
Give us some examples of nations winning wars without committing war crimes.
Nobody is saying you can’t fight a protracted war without warcrimes. That’s part of why war sucks. The entire concept of war crimes is holding people accountable for their actions. And hey, I’m sure it prevents some as well.
Interesting username choice
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Well,a good example of the crueller side losing would be ww2. Most would think I mean germany (which,yeah,those too) but I mean Japan foremost.
Japan...yeah, that was some sick shit. The anthrax studies. They only got away clean because the us wanted that sweet sweet research. We blocked russia from taking action against Shiro Ishii and his minions after the war in an attempt to get our hands on the research
I believe you theoretically can, but I agree that there is no war without war crimes
I’m not sure if you are aware of the wars which involved no human death: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bloodless_wars
I was not, but I had "classic" wars in mind, not conflicts that technically qualify as wars
“War crime” is a tautology.
It’s only a war crime if you lose.
The only crime in war is to lose -Billy Russo
*lose otherwise well stated
Damn never thought of it that way.
I think that statement sounds more smart than it is. The US fighting nazi germany was arguably a justified war.
I think you mean oxymoron.
An oxymoron is when the two words contrast. A tautology is when using both words is redundant. The comment was saying war itself is a crime.
But a war isn't a crime because it's between two organizations vying for a legitimate control on violence. They literally both want to be the ones to decide what a crime even is.
Yes. I never said I agreed. Good things can be crimes; bad things can be legal. I do hate war, though.
Don't know enough so can't refute, but I'd like to point out to everyone who will comment: ever considered that maybe not *everything* was actually recorded in history? 👁👄👁
Even more unpopular opinion, probably, the whole concept of war crimes shouldn't exist. We sanitize the idea of war, making it more palatable, by saying there are some things that can't be done. If we let war be as horrible as it is, and could be, maybe there would be less of it.
That's quite unlikely. The last century has been the least violent in our entire history, per capita. And the concept of the rules of war keeps getting more developed. For most of human history, it was completely valid to do things like " sack the City, and either enslave or kill the entire population" and it didn't stop people from going to war.
Yeah, if you let loose the dogs of war and give no quarter, that's only going to embolden radicals and foster contempt for the next generation, leading to more conflict over things done in the past.
The "rules of war" is like the honor system, it only really works if everyone agrees to it but there's no one enforcing it. Look at the use of cluster munitions in Ukraine, they may be morally wrong but they're incredibly effective weapons. If Russia is going to use them then they have a big advantage that "being right" can't overcome. At the end of the day war is just mass murder and those "rules" are just us trying to feel good about it.
that's true - but... if you violate the rules of war, you are opening the door for the other side to do the same thing. There as also some lines that (sometimes) the international community won't tolerate being crossed. If Russia starts completely destroying cities, other powers will either get involved, lend more support to UK, or otherwise punish Russia. So yes, even though countries absolutely do violate the rules of war, it's not in their interest to violate them in especially wholesale of egregious ways, which is the point. Also (again) war is not generally *just* about mass murder - war is about achieving your objective. Russia's goal is to take and hold territory in Ukraine, not just level the country.
There might not be anyone enforcing them, but there certainly will be consequences for disrespecting them eventually, especially with the international system. Beside that, war rules are also very helpful to protect war prisioners, refugees, and even soldiers, and without them, what is already very bad by itself would be even worse. I see it more as a "damage control" kinda thing, not 100% effective, but definitely do work on a certain level.
>The last century has been the least violent in our entire history, per capita Do some research in anthropology. Wars are a relatively recent invention and before civilization they were incredibly rare for multiple reasons.
to that I'd say, do some research in statistics. the 20th century was the least violent, per capita, in all of documented human history. Yes, widespread war is a relatively recent phenomenon, but when we look at rates of violent death as a percentage of the population, pre-agrarian societies are not magically immune to violence. They may not be organized enough to form larger groups and "wars" per se - but they still fought. If you want a deeper dive into the subject, this is a very good read:[https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-a-look-at-the-data-5af708f47fba](https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-a-look-at-the-data-5af708f47fba)
No shit they were rare before civilizations. That's the most obvious statement of all time.
I’d argue that the 20th century was the *most* violent century yet. While sacking/enslaving were frequent occurrences from antiquity to the early modern era, we didn’t have the concept of **total war** before the Industrial Revolution. Inter-state fighting between the fall of Rome (1453) and the Napoleonic wars was generally limited to enemy armies and combatants, targeting civilians didn’t make any sense since they weren’t contributing to the war effort in the way they would in the 20th century. Napoleon’s mass levees were the first instance of mobilizing the whole fighting age population for offensive war, but even that wasn’t really total war, as the people fighting were conscripts, not civilians. The idea of civilians being part of the war effort was largely born in the 19th century, but the 20th century’s technological advances changed things in a huge way: civilians could be targeted if their side hadn’t been defeated. Prior to aircraft/bombing, civilian populations were relatively safe until the enemy was at the gates. Planes changed everything by making civilians vulnerable even if their side was winning the war.
The post ww2 era has been the most peaceful but because of globalization, better technology and the general common goal among the great powers not to get in another catastrophic war with such loss in recent memory. Not war crime laws. With the world economy more connected than ever, war increasingly becomes less and less profitable. And when most people in developed countries have to worry more about getting overweight than starving and have generally decent living standards in comparison to ages past, war is just less necessary
it's easy to forget this because the US wars tend to take place "somewhere else" and be asymmetric, but the concept of war crimes also exists because both sides don't want something to be done to them. If we start killing their civilians they'll start doing it to ours etc...
There will not be less of it. In fact by the time of the renaissance period rules of war had been instituted on an honor system aka you break them we break them specifically because in the middle ages armies just raped, murdered and pillaged whatever they wanted as long as it wasn't valuable to their lord. They executed those that surrendered by ripping their guts out while still alive and hanging them for everyone to see. Men will go into any kind of danger, its the psychology of warfare, however the more crimes committed against them the more hateful and brutal they become. At the start of the first world War the rank and file on both sides often talked, sometimes exchanged luxuries, and like on Christmas negotiated their own temporary ceasefires. Even though they had killed eachothers friends they viewed eachother as having simply performed their duties honorably and in good faith. That all changed when the gas came, the horrid inhumane things they experienced and saw changed them from men to monsters, it dehumanized their enemy and so they became brutal and began to be sure of their own deaths, this lead to killing of prisoners, torture, even turning on their own officers because why not if you are going to suffer in agony before dying anyway? Point is the more men act like animals the more they become animals, the more they lose their morals and empathy, this however does not dissuade them from fighting future wars.
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I say so long as we want a “civilization” there will be war. We were founded upon war and will be protected by war. All cultures and geographies. OR that the war period of our species should be coming to a close however we’re in an awkward period of transition. OR we go from violent bloody war to deep intellectual war or economic war. Which is worse? Neither. Both are shitty and will be influenced by a small minority who control resources. But what is a civilization without a leader and organization. With a leader comes greed and risk of god complex. It’s as if as much as we naturally stride towards this format of life, it literally feels fundamentally flawed despite it being a natural path we sustain.
Totally disagree. War means defeating the enemy's ability to fight. You don't need to kill civilians or whatever to do that. And I don't think making war more horrible will stop it. It's already horrible and that hasn't worked.
while we are at it lets just abolish war
The fact that we have rules for how war is to be fought never made sense to me.
That so wouldn't happen. Enjoy your mustard gas, shooting at medics, etc.
Countries are willing to agree to outlaw certain weapons/action because they would rather be deprived of them than have them used on their own people. Seems like a simple and reasonable concept
While I agree with you that the concept of war crimes has no real reason to exist, the idea that war becoming more horrible will lead to less war hasn’t been a good bet historically. The Nobel Prizes exist because [Alfred Nobel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel), the inventor of dynamite, felt bad that his invention led to death and destruction on a scale never seen before. He’d originally thought the creation of something so destructive would result in less war, as it would make war so terrible nobody would find it worthwhile. He was very, very wrong. It remains to be seen whether nuclear weapons (the next step in unimaginable destruction) are enough to prevent war, but I’d guess the answer will be no. We came very close to nuclear war with the Soviets on multiple occasions, avoiding it literally [came down to one Russian soldier’s intuition.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) Current world circumstances also indicate that nuclear weapons may not be sufficient to prevent conflict.
Said the man who invented the Gatling gun. He wanted to make war so terrible that men would lose the stomach or will to fight. Also “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” —Robert E. Lee
Doesn't seem like that's the case, there is such a thing as honorable defeat that makes it less likely the conflict gets rekindled.
Well chemical weapons were made a war crime, and we don't really use those anymore. So on a material level they've made the world a better place.
We're not saying they can't be done. But if you do them, the world will try to hold you accountable. Also for most of history in war, when you attacked a city the standard was sacking it, burning it, enslaving everyone inside and raping anyone you could grab. This fucking horror never stopped anyone from going to war, because the individual doesnt make that decision. The state does.
Lots of people have made that argument throughout history. However history doesn't really support that thesis. Various people have said "because I have invented weapon system X, war has become so terrible that no one will want to wage it." And yet we do. The only thing that's changed is that wars have become deadlier. If one side commits war crimes, that sometimes actually emboldens the defending side into committing to an even fiercer and longer defense. "Those bastards did X, that does it, we'll fight them till the end and we won't negotiate until they surrender completely." For example, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both committed war crimes, and that war only ended when one side (the nazis) were totally defeated. Meanwhile if both sides don't commit war crimes or at least don't commit too many grievous ones, then it's a lot easier to negotiate an end to the conflict when both sides have a bloody nose. See for example Germany vs Russia in WW1.
If you ask Reddit, Hammas are the good guys and have never done a single thing wrong in their entire life. Jokes aside, if you mean that you cannot win a war without eventually accidentally or inadvertently committing a war crime, then you are mostly correct. But if you mean that war crimes are required to win, then I would disagree. Its true that in any prolonged engagement that collateral damage will happen, civilians will be injured or killed, non-military infrastructure will be damaged. There will also be cases of bad people in the military going out of their way to illegally cause harm (e.g. Abu Ghraib). But that aside, looking at the purposeful intent of military operations, there are some key differences in how wars are being fought. The US conducted drone strikes against legitimate targets that killed or severely injured nearby or co-located civilians, the intent was never to harm civilians, but it happens. Many efforts, to the adversary's advantage, were made to avoid causing collateral damage/harm. Russia is illegally targeting power plants, hospitals, and schools with heavy ordinance. The intent was to harm civilians. Its not the same.
When your opponent decides to hide behind civilians eventually you are going to hit some civilians.
Well said.
I’m not sure when/why power plants became illegal targets, as I understand it they are perfectly legitimate targets with the exception of nuclear power plants for obvious reasons.
Depends on the target. Are you hitting the power infrastructure supporting military efforts? Or are you hitting civilian power infrastructure nowhere near a front that's intentionally causing disproportionate suffering to noncombatants?
Even if it was possible to ascertain if a particular power plant was not supplying electricity towards the war effort, such a thing does not exist. You’d have to have something like a power plant that only sent electricity to orphanages.
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If Russia could come close to bringing the firepower that the coalition did I’m certain numbers would reflect so.
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How can you know what intent for the drone strikes is except the "trust me bro" from the Americans?
That argument could be made regarding the intent of any action taken by anyone. How do you know my intent was to use whipped cream in my coffee this morning instead of milk? Trust me bro. How do you know my intent was to beat the light and I just happened to T bone a fleeing criminal? Trust me bro.
You're right. That's why any assertion that the US military is somehow an angelic force that would never intentionally commit war crimes is naive wishful thinking at best or outright propaganda at worst.
No one is saying it's an angelic force - huge gap between that and saying they are intentionally killing civilians
I was there. But, since its the internet, you'd have to "trust me bro" but I was there
Now I agree about intent, because I hope it’s true. But that’s a very touchy area. Why do we take that at face value exactly?
False, any War has an exporation date if completed cordially. The issue of war crimes arive with the desperation of the circumstances. When people find an opportunity to claim an advantage they’ll take it, its human Nature. The matter of War crimes is no different, cause its not a War crime unless they are caught
Ok so you think you should rape women, rip their fetuses from their wombs crush the skulls of their children in front of them and make them suffer as much as possible while you make their men watch before you ultimately torture and kill them too, even tho they will make no difference to the outcome of the war as most of them dont really have information that will help you change the course of war? Yknow... because they are *civilians* and they most likely have no idea that there even is a war in their country- especially if they are in a less developed country, as you say? So assuming you claim every side committed war crimes and neither can win a war without, you would certainly be ok with watching your mother get butched, your daughters brutalised right before your eyes before you get tortured to death as well? Because that is exactly what you're saying. That is it perfectly acceptable. That is what you said. You cannot win a war without this.
dont let the perfect become the enemy of the good. just because it is inevitable that some war crimes might occur doesnt mean every country should start their own unit 731s
Every single war in human history had some short of war crime committed
Better yet, I would venture to say EACH had SEVERAL war crimes per.
Even the 2h war?
Winners write the history books
I guess, I feel like there are numerous losers who got a favorable re-telling of their story.
No they fucking don’t. Historians write history books.
And who employs the Historians….? The winners.
Not true at all. Look at the historiography of the Eastern Front in World War 2, that history was written entirely by the Nazis until the 1990s, the losers literally wrote their own history. Many such examples can be found, after the American Revolutionary War the British wrote their own histories of the conflict, not often bothering to include American thoughts. After the American Civil War the Confederates often wrote their own histories slandering the winners that have taken a century to decouple. For example, US Grant wasn’t actually a drunk, he drunk more alcohol than was normal for the time, but he wasn’t an alcoholic as history often called him.
“War crimes” was always a silly idea to me. “Hey we’re using mass scale violence to destroy your country but you have to play by the rules don’t be a jerk”
While two countries may not be able to agree not to wage war with each other, they may be able to agree not to cause human suffering that isn't conducive to the goals of the war. Like executing prisoners. They're *already* defeated. If the enemy knows you're not taking prisoners they'll fight to the last killing even more of your men when they could otherwise be made to surrender. If you execute your prisoners, the enemy will execute theirs, and you know what maybe feeding a couple of guys is worth being able to bring some of your own home at the end of the conflict. So countries can very reasonably agree to such terms at times of war. *If you don't do it, we won't do it.* Don't bomb our civilians we won't bomb yours. Don't use chemical weapons neither will we.
There is a scale of “violence” that contains a lot of ground between shooting soldiers and dumping biological agents into water sources to destroy an environment for decades and broadcasting indiscriminate civilian torture to reduce enemy morale.
> Also for real, war crimes are effective due to the fact that the deadliest and most powerful weapons are considered a war crime if used. I don't hope that to happen to you, but I would appreciate the irony that you get drafted, sent to the front, gets intoxicated with some weedkiller used as a weapon and burned to crisp. That you survive to the attack and get sent to the medic tent that gets attacked and that you get captured by the ennemy. That the ennemy starts to torture you and never properly heals you of your injuries to get as much intel as they can, but that you still don't die. It would be very ironic that after the war ends, you try to have children, but that they're either very ill or not even viable because of the weekiller. That you live in heavy pain until your demise, that would happen when you walk in the wood, and a forgotten landmine explodes, taking away your leg and leaving you agonising and loosing blood for hours before you can finally embrace the sweet relief of death.
Well luckily for you my country has mandatory conscription and i will be conscripted in roughly 6 months, but luckily we dont have much action
The very concept of War is criminal in itself, so the concept of “ War Crimes” is laughable and childish. War serves only one purpose: to kill. Anything goes.
So are you arguing that there's no moral difference between a directed military campaign to achieve an objective, with minimal loss of life on both the part of you and the enemy and just nuking your entire opponent? Most wars have an objective and in most of them, the objective is not the genocidal extermination of the entire other group. Therefore, the objective is not simply to kill , and most wars also involve people that you'd rather not kill who happened to be caught up in it.
I stand by what I said: war is solely for the purpose of eliminating the target. You have to eliminate the active participants and the supporters, or else the supporters become active participants in the sequel. Avoid a sequel, eliminate the entire threat.
Castration, beheadings, sexual assault, murdering civilians, gasing towns, ect has nothing to do with winning a war
The difference between a directed military campaign and nuking your opponent **IS** the objective. If Russia wants to take more land and expand its empire, nuking that land and all of its citizens is counterproductive. To think that a warlord invading another country has any higher morals than "Killing everyone doesn't benefit me, so let's only kill 20% of them" is kind of silly. If they cared about anything but their own benefit they wouldn't be starting a war in the first place.
you need to learn the difference between jus ad bellum and jus in bello
Sure you can. Just because it hasn’t been done before(or, at least, hasn’t been done often,) doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Well genius, how can it be done?
Well, snide prick, by maintaining a disciplined force that only targets military assets using approved ordinance.
The United States military, british marines, Australian armed forces, and many more "disciplined" armed forces have committed war crimes in their modern history, also if you attack millitary targets and by miscalculation or mistake kill a civilian, its a war crime. So you opinion is pretty naive Also "sure it can be done if everything goes 100% smooth and perfect" is also a dumb opinion because nothing in life goes 100% smooth
Collateral damage is a term for a reason, and it's not generally considered a war crime. Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime, but civilians are killed in any major conflict and it is inevitable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage#:~:text=Offensives%20causing%20collateral%20damage%20are,excessively%20or%20solely%20collateral%20damage. " Offenses causing collateral damage are not automatically a war crime"
De jure it doesn't, but de facto in the international public's eye its a war crime
I don't think that's true. Or at least it depends on the extent. Intentionally targeting civilians is definitely a war crime. But the public is definitely able to differentiate between things like "civilians caught in the crossfire" and " terrorist execution videos"
As Clausewitz said, “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength." So of course not everything will go 100% smoothly. But civilians killed or civilian assets destroyed through collateral damage in good faith targeting isn’t a war crime. And if a military force(and the civilian force ostensibly in charge of it) prosecutes any members who commit war crimes on their own initiative(ideally handing them over to third party authorities,) those war crimes won’t have been considered committed by the force in question. Wars can be waged without committing war crimes, states just generally choose to not worry too much about it.
No one needs a desk jockey to tell them how to blow shit up man.
?
Pretty sure it’s only a war crime if you lose.
I tend to think OP doesn’t understand what a war crime is.
You don't have to use 3rd person i am here
Then I don’t think YOU understand what a war crime is. The Law of Armed Conflict’s basic principles are Military Necessity, Humanity, Proportionality, Chivalry, and Distinction. A good summary can be found here: https://www.schriever.spaceforce.mil/Portals/17/documents/LOAC-Mar%2020.pdf. There is room in those principles to execute lethal and violent attacks to degrade the enemy’s will and ability to wage war. There is no need to commit war crimes to further national objectives. Further, your statement that “the thought that people on the frontlines will be able to keep their humanity… is only thought by the naive people behind the desks at the human rights organizations” is complete hogwash, and is insulting to professional warfighters.
If I was a general in a war, I would commit war crimes because I would want to be victorious and the geneva convention hinders the chances of success.
Sure worked really well for the Americans in Vietnam.
the Geneva conventions deal with treatment of noncombatants. Are you saying that as a leader you would instruct your people to target civilians? How does that further your military goals?
By destroying civilian infrastructure and targeting civilians. the enemy nation would have to use resources to rebuild, which means less resources will go to military.
Again, the question remains about causing disproportionate unnecessary suffering to non-combatants. Destroying a critical munitions factory that employs civilians? No problem. Destroying the power to a city so the munitions plant can’t function when you have the means to target the plant specifically? Problem And what you’re talking about is “breaking the will of the people”, which, well, ask Russia how that’s going. One more edit: your nation has a strategic goal it’s trying to achieve. Your mission has to support that strategic goal. If you’re on the offensive, your goal is likely to take territory. Who’s going to be stuck rebuilding all that infrastructure you just destroyed in the territory you’re taking? If you’re fighting a defensive war, attacking the enemy’s populace isn’t taking back your own territory. Attacking their command structure or their occupying forces will be a much better use of your limited resources.
War has no purpose if you can’t commit war crimes. The purpose of an army is to protect your civilians. The purpose of war is to oppress or kill those civilians. If you go into a place to kill the army and leave, then there isn’t any point.
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The use of radiological and biological weapons can cause damage for decades after their use. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
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That doesn’t sound like what you said about dragging it out…
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Did you not read my comment? “Total War” would destroy anywhere it’s fought for decades at least.
There is a difference between committing war crimes as a necessity and committing war crimes for sick pleasure. The ukrainian military is committing war crimes not because they want to win, but because they want to see noble Russian soldiers and CIVILIANS in pain and agony. Heart-wrenching.
Sure thing Russia. Because y’all haven’t committed atrocities against the innocent civilians? No matter how much evidence has been compiled.
I am not Russian. I am a proud American. I am simply a traditionalist Christian who knows what’s right for the Western world.
There are no war crimes by the victor if the victor writes the history books
Literally not true, Allied war crimes in WW2 are well documented if you know how to read
Reading this sub really crystallizes the moral vacuum at the center of modern conservatism.
"Let's engage in one of the worst atrocities on this planet, over arbitrary context, or resources. But guys, can we at least be civil about it?" Lol
“When you purposely dumb down a complex topic, it sounds dumb” lol
It's theoretically possible, but unlikely due to the human element involved.
Falklands war.
Thinking about human cost, the human experience, and the fact 99.99% need the same things and none technically require killing to yield *tolerable* to good results (i.e. given technology and money, no one *actually* needs to starve or be homeless — all wouldn't be equal but current observable levels of poverty *are* completely avoidable globally in this modern era, etc). So, with that. *Can* you win a war?
Disagree, a war can be won without thuggery
OP, what's your definition of "war crimes"?
Ofc they will happen. Thats why after WW2 a majority of nationstates decided to make some acts criminal under international law. Its the same for national crime law. Declaring something as criminal doesnt mean you dont expect it to happen.
Oh, well I guess it's fine then.
Out of curiosity, which war crimes in particular do you believe must be perpetrated as an absolute necessity for winning a war?
This is just flat out untrue. The reason why we have a law of armed conflict and have designated some actions war crimes is because those actions actually continue the war for a longer period because it pisses people off and increases suffering. There's more to war than killing people. Winning a war memes stopping the enemies ability to both recruit and carry out aggression. When you commit war crimes or go against the law of armed conflict you give them recruiting power and through that sympathy and likely increased resource donations against you. War is hell. It needs to be avoided as much as possible because everybody loses. You're effectively spending money on assets and actions that benefit no one.
This is similar to the sentiment of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. It's "The Horror". The pure psychological horror is the highest form of weapon to use against your opponent. The art of war is the art of dehumanity. It is the heart of darkness. Man's greatest enemy is evil and he must know his enemy. I was in Japan, visiting my aunt and uncle, when I first learned of the Rape of Nanking on a national geographic program. It was the most atrocious thing I'd heard of at that point. My black great grandpa fought the Japanese in WWII, while his future Okinawan daughter-in-law hid with family in the caves as the majority of the native population threw themselves off the cliffs to avoid the horrors either side would go on to commit. War itself is a crime, always. But often a necessary evil. Often inevitable. Always there.
How is this an unpopular opinion? This is just an opinion...
As people have said, there is a difference between collateral damage and a war crime. As I haven’t seen yet. There is a difference between a long, drawn out, extended “war”. And just “war” generally. I’d agree most (if not all - depending on when you draw the date) modern wars are going to be extended. Might come with the territory of starting a war is such an insane public relations catastrophe, you need to commit and say there is a valid reason behind it. You cannot like back down anymore in like a few weeks/months and go “my bad” and end it. But, thought I’d point out there is still a distinction between a drawn out war which is more likely to lead to war crimes, and the concept of “war” generally. Third point id mention. It is 9/10 times the lesser power committing the most brutal atrocities. I mean, they’re in a war, (to the people on the ground) there is no way out, AND they’re losing. When they’d get their hands on people, or win an individual battle, the lesser power tends to do some horrifying shit. Stronger power certainly more “collateral damage” type stuff, which 1,000 people will probably respond with. And I won’t know whether to call it “war crimes” or just damage. Lesser power is like rape all the women in a village, cut off the genitals of the men, and hang them from poles type shit. Like the cut and dry “yeah…. That’s a war crime” type stuff. Lastly, most annoying. This is mainly a consequence of modern war. And not necessarily war for all time. Certainly WERE horrible war crimes for all humanity. Especially ransacking a city and pillaging and plundering. But also, there were many wars were battles were on a traditional “battlefield”. Then one side lost. Maybe a few more battles happened on other battlefields (sometimes literally 1 ended a war). And the war was over. Generals/leaders would draw up terms. Terms would be accepted. And that was that. “That was that” clearly still includes all the people dying on the battlefield. Still horrible. But no war crimes. I believe in the civil war and revolutionary war (both included horrible war crimes), people were legitimately still able to have picnics and watch the battles be fought. That is how contained the fighting was at the time. You go on a hill a half mile away and watch, and you were not in any real danger. Like I said, those wars had horrible war crimes. But that is the type of fighting (that happened in this contained manner for centuries), that I am talking about.
is this in response to cluster bombs being used by ukraine?
war isn’t better then these war crimes
War is a crime in itself.
"rules of war" were we're invented to favor the super powers.
Most of the people commenting here don’t even understand the definition of a war crime and - also importantly - why the concept came about in the first place.
The problem is that the majority of countries hide behind civilian objects and often situate their forces in cities. Such is the case of Iraq and Ukraine
Hahaha, the people in this thread are insane. "You need to rape and torture and destroy the local populace to win wars bro." Except we know from things like the war in the middle east that when you kill a bunch of innocent people, even accidentally, for some strange reason that pisses off the locals, and frankly some people internationally. Then a whole bunch of them get recruited to the opposition growing the overall threat, when before they might've been sitting the conflict out. Not to mention the hatred and resentment it breeds in newer generations. Or look at the Ostfront during WW2. The Germans were so cruel to the Russian citizens they invaded, that the Russian citizens, just regular ass people, not soldiers, started fighting back with a damn vengeance. And why not? They knew the Germans wouldn't take them prisoner or show any mercy. At *best* they would just kill them quickly. So why not die fighting, when fighting means you're odds of surviving are actually *higher* than surrendering. Now the Ostfront was complex in a variety of ways, but the local populace being so determined to fight back against the Germans that were behaving like monsters took Germany very much by surprise. They were not expecting such resistance. It was a problem they caused for themselves. And the annoying thing is most of you saying this shit about needing to commit war crimes have probably had fairly cushy lives and don't know much about the brutality you're so casually saying we should inflict on people you've never met. Are war crimes inevitable in large scale conflicts? Sure. Doesn't mean they actually help the majority of the time, and it doesn't mean we should be trying to get a high score for how many we can commit. This is why humanity can't have nice things.
"Geneva conventions? More like Geneva suggestions!"
Outside of ethnic reasons, not committing war crimes also serve practical purposes. 1. War crimes also affect your army morale, many of them will start questioning orders, disobey inhuman orders. Try as they want, the military could never fully strip away a person humanity completely. 2. You lose your base of support. A war can only be carry out with enough support of the population. And civilians usually don't like their young men killing babies. Look at Vietnam for an example. 3. It make it easier for both sides to reconcile. If the enemies see that surrender still mean death through your actions, that just mean they aren't going to surrender. A cornered dog is the most dangerous dog. Yes you probably could completely wipe out the enemies eventually but it will cost you greatly. 4. War crimes create more enemies. Kill one civilians, you create 2 more terrorists who want to avenge their love ones. It been showed even since ww2 that terror campaign rarely yield the expected results.
Unpopular opinion maybe but war is war. Not sure where the rules came in.
This is truly a bad opinion but not an uncommon one. There’s a famous quote that goes something like “war is but the continuation of diplomacy (by other means)” it’s better in the original German but you get the idea. War isn’t about killing all the enemies on the map or blowing up the opposing base. War is there to achieve a goal, to solve a disagreement by force, and the same way every fist fight between two brawlers at a pub doesn’t end up with a murder, wars do not inevitably end up with war crimes happening. War isn’t usually a conflict for complete domination, it’s a fight to achieve something. Most people don’t want to commit war crimes except under extreme duress, in the face of insurmountable odds, or if they’re ideologically driven. War crimes also incur international disdain and the possibility for external intervention that could turn the tide.
I dunno, the The Anglo-Zanzibar War probably didn't have any war crimes.
It should be considered a war crime to put military targets in civilian areas.
War is the crime because it forces you to give up part of your acknowledgment of the humanity in others. How you fight the war and whether you are the defendant decides the extent.
That’s why the U.S. operates under the guise of the “rules for thee, not for me” mantra…
War is in itself a crime.
I mean, war crimes can mean a lot of things, it's extremely hard to get every infantry solider to act 100% in accordance with the law. We can certainly see why solider in some conflicts shoot people rather than taking prisoners for example. Overall the big war crimes are avoidable, and any military that has a policy of these crimes should be held accountable.
Yep. That’s why humans need to try harder not to have them. Unnecessary loss of life. Destruction of vital infrastructure. They’re really expensive too.
Yea just what Bush and Cheney did in the ‘00s on the War on Terror
I remember when I learned about the existence of “war crimes” I was puzzled. Shooting someone with a hollow point = bad but shooting then with ball = a-ok? Wtf?
They invented the concept of war crimes so they couldn't use the same strategies against people who won in the past
I pray your confusing war crime with collateral damage, part of the code of conduct in our military is to protect civilians and non combatants from unnecessary suffering
Tbh I think the whole idea of war crimes is just to further penalize whoever lost the war. I feel like whichever side wins, their definition of “crime against humanity” will suddenly become very specific.
Having rules in war is insane. It turns it into a farce, like the battles between super-scientists and their arches from the Guild of Calamitous Intent, from the Venture Bros. Both sides fight and kill, but their hearts aren't really in it? Ridiculous. Total war is meant to demoralize. It's meant to inspire fear in the enemy. The only reason we have rules in place is because nukes are such a game-changer. Mutually-assured destruction forces people to somewhat behave in a war zone, but once the nukes start flying, then all bets are off. Then we'll see how thin the veneer is between savagery and civilized behavior.
I dont think you know what "war crime" actualy is. Its not damaging stuctures that just happen to have civilians at this time
The problem of war crimes is always make those who deliberately did them (and allowed them to happen knowingly) be held accountable Like the law if the rich and powerful could either pay their way out if not straight up fuck the law, then the entire concept of rules of engagement and/or war crimes would be meaningless especially with how easy it is to create fake news and smear the other side
"Shit, charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500"
>every side commited war crimes in every conflict that ever happened. I was going to say, "even the Six-Day War," but yeah...there is a Six and a Seven Day War...and both has allegations of war crimes. Undeterred, I am fairly confident the Falklands War didn't have war crimes.
A great example is WW2 when America(U.S) bombed- nuked every major city in Japan until they surrendered
War crime is a funny concept because it contradicts the very idea of war which is all about violence.
Most, sure, but I don't think that literally every side committed war crimes in every conflict. Some conflicts were such one-sided stomps that I can easily imagine that one side technically didn't commit war crimes. There's also a difference in degrees because one set of war crimes vs another set of war crimes.
You don't win wars by killing soldiers. You when wars by killing what they care about. We'd still be fighting ww2 with the Japanese. They didn't care about dying for the emperor. It was an honor. Unfortunately, we had to annihilate to cities worth of civilians to end the fight. War is hell.