The Value of War Crimes

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[The Dharma Bum]

I think war is organized mass murder, and thus a crime in all it's forms. However, if you are going to engage in warfare for whatever reason you better be in it to win it.

So yeah, kind of valid, I guess.

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[The Dharma Bum]

I'm down with that. Basically like the NAP?

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Random thought: It is almost like the concept of war crimes was invented to make unnecessary wars more palatable. "Well you see we aren't raping the corpses, so, you know, what's the big deal?"

[Mathurin]

So you are saying the US was totally justified in Nuking Japan?

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[battleax86]

[OGPhilly]

I'm sad that we've already brought up nuking Japan since it means the usual brigade of topic changers are going to use it as an excuse to derail this thread.

Anyway, while we're still on topic, this kind of relates to a discussion I had with Indy in a thread a few weeks back. Indy said the rules of war are outdated and need to be changed considering the type of enemy we now face. This was in reference to the claim that Obama is a war criminal.

In response,I said that in war there aren't really any rules, but that if we insist on maintaining the pretense that rules do exist, we shouldn't degrade ourselves by allowing Al-Qaeda to force us to change the rules.


International law is not to be taken too seriously. The state of the international community is more or less one of anarchy. America doesn't have to listen to the UN or anyone else, so international war crimes can be commited at will, and they are.