Are suicide bombs a crime against humanity?

[Sayeret]

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is demanding the United Nations' General Assembly declare suicide bombings a crime against humanity.

The statement came with a denouncement of Wednesday's UN vote, which adopted an anti-security fence resolution, 150 for to 6 against.

"Isn't it remarkable that the dominant issue of our time - terrorism and suicide bombing - has not been taken up by the General Assembly, despite the fact that the terrorist culture of suicide bombings continues to claim an increasing number of innocent Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish victims," the Center's Rabbi Marvin Hier and Rabbi Abraham Cooper said.

The rabbis called the UN's decision a "selective application of a dangerous double standard" and a "tyranny of majority." They referred to other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, Spain and Turkey who have also constructed fences in disputed territories, without fear of disapproval by the UN or the International Court of Justice.

Last December, the Center presented an initiative that seeks to declare suicide bombings a crime against humanity to the Vatican, EU head Javier Solana, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin as well as several foreign minsters.

I posted this article not to start a flame war about Israel and the Palestinians rather what's everyone's opinion on suicide bombing being used at all. Should it be condoned when used by some people but not others? Or should it be condemned no matter who uses it? Is suicide bombings against military targets justified? Is it a pratical military tactic?

I'm against suicide bombings no matter who uses it because its waste of a person's life. Most of situations in which it would be effective it would be against off duty soldiers or civilians because they are large groups in people at those times.

[jmatucd]

Simple: targeting a civilian population for death which has not elected to enter into a state of war with you is clearly terrorism. Mind you, Israel was invaded many times, it never 'wanted' this crap. Thats why there is a giant wall being built to assure that these crazed suicide bombers do not enter the country and kill civilians.

[Tom The Hunter]

why a man became a bomb?
Is only fanatism?
Can be possible that this man lived a tragedy?

[Zebb]

Any targeting of civilians should be a war crime...

If an enemy wants to use these tactics against an armed force as a means of attack, then they should be prepared for any methods used against them to prevent it...

[scott]

why a man became a bomb?
Is only fanatism?
Can be possible that this man lived a tragedy?

is that some sort of cryptic poem whose meaning is lost on me?

[Tane Angle]

Suicide attacks themselves are not war crimes. That is, it depends on the intended target. Targeting civilians is terrorism, targeting military personnel is war.

Is Israel an innocent victim of terrorism? A great deal of the time, yes. But let's be real, it's not all of the time. You're at war, don't be surprised if your soldiers get shot or bombed. Use countersnipers. Have artillery and aircraft ready to go, but use it minimally. When taking a leader out, don't blow up his car if his wife and children are with him. Want to kill him? Fine, but hold your fire until he's clear of the civilians, or it just looks bad and helps their recruitment.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[Zapp Brannigan]

Suicide attacks themselves are not war crimes. That is, it depends on the intended target. Targeting civilians is terrorism, targeting military personnel is war.

Is Israel an innocent victim of terrorism? A great deal of the time, yes. But let's be real, it's not all of the time. You're at war, don't be surprised if your soldiers get shot or bombed. Use countersnipers. Have artillery and aircraft ready to go, but use it minimally. When taking a leader out, don't blow up his car if his wife and children are with him. Want to kill him? Fine, but hold your fire until he's clear of the civilians, or it just looks bad and helps their recruitment.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...
That may be your view, but that is not quite international law. Non-combatants may not be targeted in and of themselves, but may be targeted if collateral to a legitimate military target (the source of that all-too-misused euphemism "collateral damage"). Targeting civilians in these circumstances is governed by two legal principles - the doctrine of proportionality and the duty to mitigate. The latter is the duty to take all measures possible to mitigate civilian damages (this actually applies to all collateral damage, not just people, and covers destruction of protected sites as well). The doctrine of proportionality means that any collateral damage must be proportionate to the legitimate military objective sought. For example, you ought not bomb a hospital to get one soldier, but if a company of soldiers were holed up in the hospital, the calculus might be different (in this case, the duty to mitigate might induce you to find another alternative anyway).

These are not hard-and-fast rules, of course, but subject to human judgment. How proportionate? If I kill 1 wife when I kill the terrorist, that might be OK, but if I kill 5 kids, it isn't. What about 1 wife and 1 kid? Two kids?

And how far do you have to go to mitigate? Do you have to risk your own life or that of your men? For example, submariners are under a duty to help the crews of ships they sink, but not if it risks the safety of the submarine. By contrast, during the Kosovo War, I was uncomfortable with fighter-bombers flying at high altitudes to mitigate the risk of getting shot down, but substantially increasing the likelihood of errant bombs.

And of course, there is the question of whether these rules are applies in a utilitarian/consequentialist manner or deontologically. "Deontologically" means you can only judge the rightness or wrongness of an action based on that action's consequences. Utilitarian/consequentialist ethics allows you to consider the consequences that flow from your actions. Thus, for example, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima might fail a deontological test - the number of civilians killed was immensely disproportionate to Hiroshima's value as a military-industrial target - but pass a utilitarian/consequentialist test - the number of lives likely saved - American and Japanese military and Japanese civilian was far more than the lives lost.

The problem with utilitarian/consequentialist ethics is that almost any decision can be justified before the fact as having foreseeable positive consequences, and even after the fact, as we see, there is no simple answer. The atomic bombings may have ended the war without an invasion of the home islands, but perhaps another course of action would have led to that result. Or perhaps casualties of the invasion would have been lighter that expected. We can never know.

[aktarian]

I don't see why suicide bombings should be separated from other intentional targeting of civilians. Why is blowing youself up in bus crime against humaniy but lobing arty shells into refugee camp isn't? Why is blowing yourself in pizza place crime agaisnt humanity but droping cluster bombs over city isn't? All result in same.

And out of curiosity, anybody knows why this is sugested now? Why wasn't this sugested when LTTE began blowing themselves up 20 or so years ago?

[Sayeret]

aktarian

This thread is about suicide bombing in general so instead of turning into a Israel and Palestinian thread why don't you read what I wrote:


I posted this article not to start a flame war about Israel and the Palestinians rather what's everyone's opinion on suicide bombing being used at all. Should it be condoned when used by some people but not others? Or should it be condemned no matter who uses it? Is suicide bombings against military targets justified? Is it a pratical military tactic?

I'm against suicide bombings no matter who uses it because its waste of a person's life. Most of situations in which it would be effective it would be against off duty soldiers or civilians because they are large groups in people at those times.

[Flagg]

If Stauffenberg had closed with Hitler and manually detonated the bomb he carried in his attempt to assassinate him, instead of leaving it to detonate on time-delay, he would be hailed today as a hero....not a suicide bomber.

General Doolittle, prior to the famous raid on Japan he led early in the US war effort against Japan announced he would have his crew bail out and ram his aircraft into the most valuable target within range if his aircraft was crippled and unable to continue towards it's rally point in Nationalist Chinese held territory....this is an often quoted and repeated story....had his aircraft been damaged, I'm sure he would have been a man of his word....and hailed a hero.......unlike the 19 terrorists on September 11th attacking military, political, and economic targets of their main enemy.

In the case of Israel, one could argue that the vast majority of adults, both male and female, are combatants and it is justifiable to target them with suicide bombers as they are well trained soldiers capable of serving in a military capacity against Israel's enemies.....I don't agree with this, but an enemy could attempt to make this argument.

I, for one, do not think suicide bombing is an acceptable practice to achieve one's aims. But I am also not on the "side" lacking in nearly every traditional military capability.

The condemnation of suicide bombings could cause a surge of them as it must be having some impact to deserve the condemnation in the first place, correct?

Condemning suicide attacks is like asking your opponent in a fist fight to please refrain from kicking you in the nuts again because it hurts....they're just likely to do it again and again.

On a side, but related note......is it just me, or does it seem like the greater the advantage some nations have over others militarily, the more basic and brutal overwhelmed opponents can become?

[Sayeret]

is like asking your opponent in a fist fight to please refrain from kicking you in the nuts again because it hurts....they're just likely to do it again and again.

ahh, it all makes sense now ;)


On a side, but related note......is it just me, or does it seem like the greater the advantage some nations have over others militarily, the more basic and brutal overwhelmed opponents can become?

I'm not sure but I think that the groups of terrorists that are using suicide bombings is because they realized they could do more damage with a suicide bombing then with a conventional bombing.


The condemnation of suicide bombings could cause a surge of them as it must be having some impact to deserve the condemnation in the first place, correct?

Depends who condemns them.

[Flagg]

And out of curiosity, anybody knows why this is sugested now? Why wasn't this sugested when LTTE began blowing themselves up 20 or so years ago?

You do have a point...as the Tamil Tigers have used suicide bombers quite often.....also, the Japanese and Vietnamese used suicide bombers as well......so there is a history of at least 60 years of this "suicide bomber" behavior.

I would think the advancement of technology(camcorders and satellites), the increased penetration of mass news media, and the perceived importance of the region both economically and politically goes a long way in explaining why suicide bombings in the Middle East seem to carry more "weight" in the eyes of the public than those that have occurred in other regions and times.

Just my opinion.

[Flagg]

I'm not sure but I think that the groups of terrorists that are using suicide bombings is because they realized they could do more damage with a suicide bombing then with a conventional bombing.

I'd have to agree with you....if they attempted to bomb a military camp, they'd likely have much less success as the risk of failure would be extremely high


Depends who condemns them.

Well......I'm not so sure.

If the West condemns them it will likely not carry much weight with anyone likely to commit such an attack

If the leaders of people likely to commit such attacks condemn them.....it would be the equivalent of Donald Rumsfeld condemning the use of JDAMs....

suicide bombings are one of "their" most effective weapons, I doubt they're likely to condemn them...or if they did......it would certainly not be a sincere condemnation

[Sayeret]

And out of curiosity, anybody knows why this is sugested now? Why wasn't this sugested when LTTE began blowing themselves up 20 or so years ago?

Sri Lanka makes it very difficult for the media to enter their country and even if they enter they can get arrrested so thats probably a big part of why people didn't hear about it as much.

[Tane Angle]

Thanks Zapp.

Tane wrote:

Suicide attacks themselves are not war crimes. That is, it depends on the intended target. Targeting civilians is terrorism, targeting military personnel is war.
That's why, for example, I don't consider the 18 April, 1983 attack on the US Embassy-Beirut to be terrorism. A strike at a major intelligence node and a disruption of the US's ability to operate in the Middle East, much less retaliate against future attacks, yes. But terrorism or a crime against humanity? No. The civilians were just added bonuses, not the intended targets.

It's just another tool, the same as remote-detonated car bombs or sniper rifles. Suicide bombings are often no less accurate than JDAMs or attack helicopters.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[cut]

Suicide bombers, whether terrorism or military such as kamikaze is a sign of desperation in my opinion. I think terrorists suicide bombings are despicable, but that does relate to my definition of terrorism and that is, except in exceptional circumstances, a civilian target.

IMO there is no difference between a militant/guerilla suicide bombing and kamikaze pilots of WW2, these are not nearly as bad as the terrorist version (obiously) but are none the less unfavourable.

[BadKarma26]

I agree with Tane Angel. That [the marine barracks] was a legitimate target. It would be as if we dropped a JDAM on an enemy barracks. I also agree that suicide bombings are a sign of desperation. They are more of a strategic weapon than they are a tactical one. However, living in poverty or growing up in desperate times are not excuses to put on a vest full of semtex and run into a shopping mall full of Isrealis. Any suicide bomber that's target intentionally includes civilians immediately becomes a terrorist. I do not, however, believe that a suicide bomber who blows himself up and kills soldiers is a terrorist. (Maybe insane, but not a terrorist)

*Edit* I'd rather have one of them die then none at all. :)

[aktarian]

aktarian

This thread is about suicide bombing in general so instead of turning into a Israel and Palestinian thread why don't you read what I wrote:

Care to qoute part of my post where I made the slightest reference to Israel or Palestine? :roll:



And out of curiosity, anybody knows why this is sugested now? Why wasn't this sugested when LTTE began blowing themselves up 20 or so years ago?

Sri Lanka makes it very difficult for the media to enter their country and even if they enter they can get arrrested so thats probably a big part of why people didn't hear about it as much.

Colombo bombings in 1996(?) were quite well covered. Also Bandaranaike/Takunyake attacks. Not to mention Jaffne peninsula fighting. Jane's publications covered conflict quite well.

[StarvingStudent47]

Suicide attacks themselves are not war crimes. That is, it depends on the intended target. Targeting civilians is terrorism, targeting military personnel is war.


What he said. It's not the death of the bomber that's a crime against humanity, it's the target. Kamikaze attacks on naval vessels are NOT crimes against humanity. Suicide bombers on public busses ARE. But planting a bomb on that bus and leaving before the bomb detonates is ALSO a crime against humanity, because it is the deliberate targeting of civilians.

[cut]

And out of curiosity, anybody knows why this is sugested now? Why wasn't this sugested when LTTE began blowing themselves up 20 or so years ago?

there was a suicide bombing in Colombo this month, and I did bring up this debate in another thread, after that incident happened.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3872481.stm

[gilgoul]

I think the tactics employed aren`t bad by themselves, run into enemy`s bunker and blow up, you are a hero, and mainly fullfilled your mission, it aint more stupid than taking a bullet in the scalp without taking any ennemy with you.
Suicide bombing has been used for a while now (Sri lanka), because more effective than lforgetting a suitcase.Every ne is on alert now.
The thing that ought to be called "crime against humanity" is not specificaly suicide bombing, or sarin spreading, or drive by shooting, but the fact of targetting civilians with the intention to cause maximum damage. Here stands the diference between terror and mishaps or collateral damge, in the intention.
Just like in the case of homicide, the intention, the means, the method are going to determine the lengh and severity of response .
By using those criteria, you can determine that the killing of rehavam zeevi (sorry for coming back to israel) is definitely a first degree murder, but as a member of governement he was a legitimate target for his ennemies.
By facility of speech, we call terrorist the guy who tried to blow up on a Bradley (he didn`t succeed), the mean was a bomb belt, the target coalition convoy, does it make it a terrorist act?
Same country, a guy maybe from the same movement than the first wannabe suicide bomber drives an explosiveladen car thru a check point, explodes and kills 10 bystanders and security personnel, considering the mean and the intention, this is definitely a terrorist act.
That is where we see a thin line, a guy can be a partisan in the morning, firing conventionaly at an army tank, and be considered as an "armed militant", but in the evening, the same guy will shave, wash, pray and don his explo belt under his trench coat, board the first bus, maybe full of soldiers, or maybe full of school children, it doen`t make any diference, since the guy chose to don an explo belt, he is already a terrorist, not an "armed militant". He might activate his bomb now, or wait for the next stop, whatever the proportion of security personel his going to maim and kill, his act is a terrorist act.

[Zarathustra]

For me it is absolutely a crime against humanity, killing a fews innocent childs in a telavivian bus :cantbeli: , disgusting, no words to qualify that :petting: as for the 9/11 etc.....

[Siddar]

Is there any legitmate reason not to condem sucide bombings of civilian targets?

[cut]

Is there any legitmate reason not to condem sucide bombings of civilian targets?

Not easy, but say an american ww2 bomber pilot is flying over Berlin he gets shot down, and because he sees his crew die in front of him, he decides to take out the target with his crippled plane. The target like many in WW2 happen to be civilian.

Now is this guy an american hero, who gave his life to preserve freedom, or a suicide bomber that attacked a civilian target?

let me know what you think..

[Tane Angle]

The arguments about the legitimacy of intentionally killing civilians are, honestly, tough to answer or refute. The term "Total War" was a euphamism for it being acceptable to intentionally bomb civilian targets. Was it terrorism? I don't really think so. Those civilian targets were usually things like tank factories. Is a taking out a tank factory terrorism?

This concept of not killing civilians is relatively new, so there are a lot of holes in it.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[UoUo]

How many people killed by the USA in Iraq?

[Tane Angle]

No more than somewhere in the low tens of thousands, by most estimates. Still, quite a lot. :|

The fact that a JDAM strike on target X usually kills a civilians collaterally is the reason why I can't say that some attacks, like the bombing the US Embassy in Beirut, are terrorism. That is, I would like to be able to say they are, but it's essentially the same attack but with a different method of delivering the explosives.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[UoUo]

No more than somewhere in the low tens of thousands, by most estimates. Still, quite a lot. :|

The fact that a JDAM strike on target X usually kills a civilians collaterally is the reason why I can't say that some attacks, like the bombing the US Embassy in Beirut, are terrorism. That is, I would like to be able to say they are, but it's essentially the same attack but with a different method of delivering the explosives.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

Personal que for you...why do you think about ten of thousnds iraqis died by the US in about 1 year and about 3000 Palstinians died by us in 4 years....

[Siddar]

I beleave link between targeting civilians and unlimited war is important.

People that wont condem targeting civilians need to acept that they are suporting the concept of unlimited war and people who are being attacked in this way have right to respond with unlimited warfare themself.

Ether both sides fight limited warfare and abide by the rules are both fight unlimited warfare and rules be damned.

I dont suport unlimited warfare in this day and age so opposeing deliberate killing of civilians is a very easy call for me. Funny how some people that claim to be anti war and want peace dont seem to be able to take same view.

[Fargin]

If your life is worthless, you can make it valuable by targeting more valuable lifes. Without terrorism there wouldn't be any negotiations, terrorism will get you a seat at the big table.

[Zapp Brannigan]

How many people killed by the USA in Iraq?
An organization called "Iraq Body Count" claims to keep a tally of Iraqi civilian deaths. According to their tally as of July 22, the range is 11,252 to 13,213 deaths. (that's all deaths, by the way; no distinction regarding who killed them).

Their methodology, however, is deeply flawed. They rely mostly on reputable mainstream news sources, claiming this ensures the numbers are reliable because these news sources have good fact-checking. However, when you read the actual news sources for a particular claim, you find that the news sources often only report what someone else claimed. Iraq Body Count takes what a ******* or AP report calls an unsubstantiated claim, often from a party at interest, and pretends that this is an accurate number.

But if a source claims no casualties, they do not count them. So what happens is this: someone claims 20 civilians were killed; someone else claims 10 civilians were killed; someone else claims no civilians were killed. This gets entered not as 0-20, but as 10-20.

The system is apparently designed to inflate civilian casualties. Especially during the invasion, fedayeen and others fighting in civilian clothes were treated as civilian casualties because in many cases the hospitals where the bodies were taken had no idea who was who. Yet despite this, the high end of their range is 13,000.

Because of the nature of the fighting, there will likely never be an accurate number. Too many of the casualties are not in uniform, so they end up getting lumped with civilian casualties. Based on an analysis of the underlying news reports Iraq Body Count uses, I would guess a number sowewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 at most.

But let's keep the Iraq Body Count number - 13,000 - for now. How many civilian deaths were these same antiwar groups claiming sanctions were causing? A 2002 paper entitled Iraq Sanctions: Humanitarian Implications and Options for the Future (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/2002/paper.htm) stated that some 400,000 to 500,000 children under five alone had been killed by sanctions. This number, or other numbers ranging up over 1 million, were routinely thrown around during the late 1990s. Sanctions were killing Iraqi children. Of course, when the allies began talking seriously about regime change, the chant became "give sanctions a chance". 500,000 over the 11 years from the beginning of sanctions to the date of the paper works out to 64,000 or so over any 17-month period. So even assuming the accuracy of the numbers - a big assumption - the war has actually saved over 50,000 Iraqi civilian lives over the last 17 months.

[Tom The Hunter]

why a man became a bomb?
Is only fanatism?
Can be possible that this man lived a tragedy?

is that some sort of cryptic poem whose meaning is lost on me?

Simple.
Before we judge the act, we must analize the reasons.
What is the reason that a man becomes a mob? is it only fanatism, or maybe he has good reasons?
For example, a man who looks his childs killed by a regular army what can do?

[cut]

How many people killed by the USA in Iraq?
An organization called "Iraq Body Count" claims to keep a tally of Iraqi civilian deaths. According to their tally as of July 22, the range is 11,252 to 13,213 deaths. (that's all deaths, by the way; no distinction regarding who killed them).

Their methodology, however, is deeply flawed. They rely mostly on reputable mainstream news sources, claiming this ensures the numbers are reliable because these news sources have good fact-checking. However, when you read the actual news sources for a particular claim, you find that the news sources often only report what someone else claimed. Iraq Body Count takes what a ******* or AP report calls an unsubstantiated claim, often from a party at interest, and pretends that this is an accurate number.

But if a source claims no casualties, they do not count them. So what happens is this: someone claims 20 civilians were killed; someone else claims 10 civilians were killed; someone else claims no civilians were killed. This gets entered not as 0-20, but as 10-20.

The system is apparently designed to inflate civilian casualties. Especially during the invasion, fedayeen and others fighting in civilian clothes were treated as civilian casualties because in many cases the hospitals where the bodies were taken had no idea who was who. Yet despite this, the high end of their range is 13,000.

Because of the nature of the fighting, there will likely never be an accurate number. Too many of the casualties are not in uniform, so they end up getting lumped with civilian casualties. Based on an analysis of the underlying news reports Iraq Body Count uses, I would guess a number sowewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 at most.

But let's keep the Iraq Body Count number - 13,000 - for now. How many civilian deaths were these same antiwar groups claiming sanctions were causing? A 2002 paper entitled Iraq Sanctions: Humanitarian Implications and Options for the Future (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/2002/paper.htm) stated that some 400,000 to 500,000 children under five alone had been killed by sanctions. This number, or other numbers ranging up over 1 million, were routinely thrown around during the late 1990s. Sanctions were killing Iraqi children. Of course, when the allies began talking seriously about regime change, the chant became "give sanctions a chance". 500,000 over the 11 years from the beginning of sanctions to the date of the paper works out to 64,000 or so over any 17-month period. So even assuming the accuracy of the numbers - a big assumption - the war has actually saved over 50,000 Iraqi civilian lives over the last 17 months.

rofl that's really good! Did you work that out or get it from somewhere?

[Sayeret]

Care to qoute part of my post where I made the slightest reference to Israel or Palestine?


I don't see why suicide bombings should be separated from other intentional targeting of civilians. Why is blowing youself up in bus crime against humaniy but lobing arty shells into refugee camp isn't? Why is blowing yourself in pizza place crime agaisnt humanity but droping cluster bombs over city isn't? All result in same.


Colombo bombings in 1996(?) were quite well covered. Also Bandaranaike/Takunyake attacks. Not to mention Jaffne peninsula fighting. Jane's publications covered conflict quite well.

Thats only one attack theres many more you've probably haven't heard of unless you looked up because of the Media converage on it is very minimal.

[Zapp Brannigan]

rofl that's really good! Did you work that out or get it from somewhere?
It's an excerpt from a longer essay I wrote a while back.


Is there any legitmate reason not to condem sucide bombings of civilian targets?
Not that I can think of, especially when there is not even a pretense of having a military target to which the civilians were just collateral damage.

But for far too many Muslim "religious leaders," there are easy rationalizations to kill Jews. Muslim religious leaders who try to justify suicide bombers, like Sheikh Dr. 'Ali Gum'a, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, the Qatari considered the most influential Sunni scholar today, claim that all Israelis are soldiers and invaders of Muslim lands, so no distinction need be drawn between soldier and civilian. According to al-Qaradhawi, "Every Israeli is a soldier in the army, either in practical terms or because he is a reservist soldier who can be summoned at any time for war. This fact needs no proof. Those they call 'civilians' are in effect 'soldiers' in the army of the sons of Zion." He further says "... in modern war, all of society, with all its classes and ethnic groups, is mobilized to participate in the war, to aid its continuation, and to provide it with the material and human fuel required for it to assure the victory of the state fighting its enemies. Every citizen in society must take upon himself a role in the effort to provide for the battle. The entire domestic front, including professionals, laborers, and industrialists, stands behind the fighting army, even if it does not bear arms. Therefore the experts say that the Zionist entity, in truth, is one army." By this logic, of course, there is never a distinction that need be drawn between combatant and non-combatant. If your country is at war, you are a combatant, no matter what you do.

This goes much further than strategic bombing advocates ever go. Though some, such as Curtis LeMay and "Bomber" Harris, seemed indifferent to civilian casualties, most theorists going back to Douhet never thought the killing of civilians in strategic bombing of cities was morally right in and of itself. Rather, they were consequentialists who believed that breaking the enemy's will as quickly and decisively as possible would hasten the end of a war, saving more lives in the long run.

This, by the way, is not the majority view in the US Air Force. Air power strategists in the US mostly favored targeting military infrastructure targets - factories, railways, bridges and the like. They recognized that there would be civilian casualties, but held they would be justified under the traditional rules of proportionality and the duty to mitigate. To this end, the US spent decades of research and billions of dollars developing more accurate bombs and missiles. The "shock and awe" campaign in March-April 2003 was the culmination of this - a triumph of precision bombing that destroyed the Iraqi military as a coordinated fighting force. But one side effect appears to have been a certain lack of "shock and awe" of the Iraqis in general. Many Iraqis, who never saw a Coalition soldier until well after the regime's collapse, and who never felt the direct effects of "shock and awe", never felt defeated, unlike the Germans and Japanese in 1945. Arguably, a little less precision bombing in March-April 2003 might have saved lives in March-April 2004 by forestalling the Sadr and Fallujah "uprisings". But this is one of those arguments I referred to earlier, like those related to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, that can never be proven one way or the other.

[Tane Angle]

Personal que for you...why do you think about ten of thousnds iraqis died by the US in about 1 year and about 3000 Palstinians died by us in 4 years....

Say that again? Sorry.

[aktarian]

Care to qoute part of my post where I made the slightest reference to Israel or Palestine?


I don't see why suicide bombings should be separated from other intentional targeting of civilians. Why is blowing youself up in bus crime against humaniy but lobing arty shells into refugee camp isn't? Why is blowing yourself in pizza place crime agaisnt humanity but droping cluster bombs over city isn't? All result in same.

Sorry, I still can't see where I mentioned Israel or Palestine. Can you be more specific?

[Sayeret]

Sorry, I still can't see where I mentioned Israel or Palestine. Can you be more specific?


I don't see why suicide bombings should be separated from other intentional targeting of civilians. Why is blowing youself up in bus crime against humaniy but lobing arty shells into refugee camp isn't? Why is blowing yourself in pizza place crime agaisnt humanity but droping cluster bombs over city isn't? All result in same.

I think we both know what you were refering to with these comments, so don't deny it.

[StarvingStudent47]

This concept of not killing civilians is relatively new,

So is the idea that women are human beings and not property. "New" does not mean "imperfect" or "we shouldn't complain when half the world hasn't gotten a clue yet."

[aktarian]

Sorry, I still can't see where I mentioned Israel or Palestine. Can you be more specific?


I don't see why suicide bombings should be separated from other intentional targeting of civilians. Why is blowing youself up in bus crime against humaniy but lobing arty shells into refugee camp isn't? Why is blowing yourself in pizza place crime agaisnt humanity but droping cluster bombs over city isn't? All result in same.

I think we both know what you were refering to with these comments, so don't deny it.

Since you are obviously mind reader care to tell me what I ment by them? :roll:

[Tane Angle]

Very true, SS47. I'm certainly not missing the old ways. ;)