John Mccain is a war criminal

[XaosLegend]

During John Mccain's career as a pilot in operation "Rolling Thunder" he flew 23 missions which specifically targeted civilians, decimating the ability of the locals to meet the daily needs of the population, in effect causing their starvation in addition to directly killing them by dropping more than half a million tons of explosives on the country. (You don't drop that much tnt in "surgical" strikes, or as merely part of a campaign against "military" targets. This is out of 7 million tons dropped during the war altogether) millions of vietnamese died in the war, mostly due to aerial bombing of the kind Mccain was conducting. Most of which was dropped on the SOUTH VIETNAMESE WE SAID WE WERE DEFENDING!, We targeted the south's populations to intimidate them against the populist politics they had come to support as part of the ousting of dictatorial french landowners that had up to then controlled the country as their personal fiefdom. (they owned more than 90% of the land and did whatever they could to diminish the democratic aspirations of the local population)

"the Geneva conventions that specifically forbid indiscriminate bombing that could cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects. Adding to the Geneva code was the decision at the Nuremberg trials after World War Two: military personnel cannot defend themselves against such a charge with a claim that they were simply following orders."

"U.S. pilots also had bombed hospitals and other civilian targets, a charge that turned out to be correct and was confirmed by the New York Times' chief foreign correspondent, Harrison Salisbury."

"Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara conceded some years later that more than a million deaths and injuries occurred in northern Vietnam each year from 1965 to 1968, as a result of the 800 tons of bombs a day dropped by our pilots."

"In his book, Faith of Our Fathers, McCain writes that he had been upset that he had been limited to bombing military installations, roads, and power plants. He said such restrictions were "illogical" and "senseless."" (He's essentially saying here that he wasn't happy not being more of a war criminal, that more murder might have won the war, he also happens to be lying ahout the extent of the restrictions, though reading between the lines you can conclude that he wasn't happy we only targetted three dozen hospitals and would have preferred we target three hundred.)

"Gen. Telford Taylor, a chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials after World War Two, told me that he strongly supported the idea of trying the U.S. pilots captured in North Vietnam as war criminals - and that he would be proud to lead in their prosecution."

If you go to war and a superior officer tells you to execute civilians as an example to the defending population YOU SAY NO. John Mccain said "HELL YES!, Are you sure these are the only ones I can kill maybe just a few hundred more?"

John mccain is a war criminal as much as any of the nazis at the death camps in WW2, He stocked the hydrogen cyanide, locked in his victims and pushed the button. If john Mccain is not a war criminal than there is no such thing as a war criminal.

[LazyDrunk]

the Geneva conventions that specifically forbid indiscriminate bombing that could cause incidental loss of

First, it wasn't indiscriminate to target a hospital . . . it's a very discriminate target. Second, the loss of life was not incidental, but actual, and deliberate. OPeration Rolling Thunder's intent was to shock and awe the enemy with proportional tactics combatting an un-uniformed enemy, well-informed on the rules of war, fighting on home turf. To say that McCain's participation brands him a war criminal is irrelevent; his missions were kosher by the spirit of the post-WWII Conventions.

[SkunkyFluffy]

At 11/23/08 07:49 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: I'm gonna need a link.

Here ya go.

It's about as informative as Xaos' massive blocks of text, and you'll have more fun.

[LazyDrunk]

At 11/23/08 07:56 PM, SkunkyFluffy wrote:

At 11/23/08 07:49 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: I'm gonna need a link.

Here ya go.

It's about as informative as Xaos' massive blocks of text, and you'll have more fun.

I clicked that, and had to turn down the porn to fully comprehend what just happened.

Internet's fun :D

[XaosLegend]

At 11/23/08 07:54 PM, LazyDrunk wrote:

the Geneva conventions that specifically forbid indiscriminate bombing that could cause incidental loss of

First, it wasn't indiscriminate to target a hospital . . . it's a very discriminate target. Second, the loss of life was not incidental, but actual, and deliberate. OPeration Rolling Thunder's intent was to shock and awe the enemy with proportional tactics combatting an un-uniformed enemy, well-informed on the rules of war, fighting on home turf. To say that McCain's participation brands him a war criminal is irrelevent; his missions were kosher by the spirit of the post-WWII Conventions.

direct targetting of civilians is also outlined as a war crime by the geneva conventions, "indescriminate bombing" is merely the most tame of possible charges that would be proven against US actions.

[LazyDrunk]

At 11/23/08 07:59 PM, XaosLegend wrote:

At 11/23/08 07:54 PM, LazyDrunk wrote:

the Geneva conventions that specifically forbid indiscriminate bombing that could cause incidental loss of

First, it wasn't indiscriminate to target a hospital . . . it's a very discriminate target. Second, the loss of life was not incidental, but actual, and deliberate. OPeration Rolling Thunder's intent was to shock and awe the enemy with proportional tactics combatting an un-uniformed enemy, well-informed on the rules of war, fighting on home turf. To say that McCain's participation brands him a war criminal is irrelevent; his missions were kosher by the spirit of the post-WWII Conventions.

direct targetting of civilians is also outlined as a war crime by the geneva conventions, "indescriminate bombing" is merely the most tame of possible charges that would be proven against US actions.

What's a civilian who supplies the enemy army with food? Smuggling weapons? Not every uniformed VC lived underground, and the military infrastructure of the region depended on direct "civilian" assistance. The military's response was, appropriately, to decimate the military supply lines.

If a hospital services enemy combatants, is it not a military installation?

Tame charges of war crimes are most likely bullshit charges.

[blackattackbitch]

That whole rant about John McCain seemed like it was full of crap. You can read between the lines all you want, but it has no more relevance than the people who say Obama is a secret muslim.

[XaosLegend]

At 11/23/08 07:49 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: I'm gonna need a link.

You have plenty of sources, BTW the internet doesnt contain all the information in the world, for exapmple much of the more important information is contained in books or media articles not reproduced on the internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_R olling_Thunder fairly proUS view of the operation but it still confirms or escalates many of the statistical information I've cited already

"the Department of Defense announced that 864,000 tons of American bombs had been dropped on North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder"

"Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing in operation Rolling Thunder range from 52,000[112] to 182,000." (so what 10 to 35 9/11's?)

"Rolling Thunder had begun as a campaign of psychological and strategic persuasion"
READ BETWEEN THE LINES "psychological" persuasion = kill as many civilians as you can to scare the shit out of them.

http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.h tml The Hague treaty ratified by the US senate in 1902 which later becomes the geneva conventions

(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

http://books.google.com/books?id=8mjtd8D ljZEC&pg=PT102&lpg=PT102&dq=tonnage+of+b ombs+dropped+%22on+south+vietnam%22&sour ce=web&ots=ejf7IAGS-Y&sig=ZiZ6IHBxcFFJBv _4SGaHXF03pnY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&
resnum=4&ct=result

"excluding the missing figures the US dropped 3.2 million tons on south vietnam during the entire war, 2.1 million on laos and 840000 on north vietnam" yeah we were really defending the south from the north huh?

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/55841.html

"In late 1966 Salisbury described the widespread devastation of civilian neighborhoods around Hanoi by American bombs: 'Bomb damage ... extends over an area of probably a mile or so on both sides of the highway ... small villages and hamlets along the route [were] almost obliterated'. ... "

there sources lots of sources

[XaosLegend]

What's a civilian who supplies the enemy army with food? Smuggling weapons? Not every uniformed VC lived underground, and the military infrastructure of the region depended on direct "civilian" assistance. The military's response was, appropriately, to decimate the military supply lines.

If a hospital services enemy combatants, is it not a military installation?

Tame charges of war crimes are most likely bullshit charges.

based on your logic here civilians are ALWAYS A LEGITIMATE TARGET in war because civilians ALWAYS SUPPORT THEIR TROOPS WITH THEIR ECONOMY AND MEDICAL INFRASTRUCTURE.

Youre basically saying the twin towers in 9/11 were valid military targets because they are the civilians that support the military industrial complex in the US that targets middle east interests.

That's fine if you want to make an arguement that there is no such thing as a war crime, go completely machiavellian, but that's beyond my arguement, and not really relevant. Regardless it makes you a sociopath or a simpleton.

I make 2 assumptions here:

1: that the term "war criminal" means something.
2: that if a person fits the definition of a "war criminal" they are a "war criminal".

I argue that John Mccain fits that definition.

[stafffighter]

At 11/23/08 08:57 PM, XaosLegend wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_R olling_Thunder fairly proUS view of the operation but it still confirms or escalates many of the statistical information I've cited already

Wiki. nuff said.

"

http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.h tml The Hague treaty ratified by the US senate in 1902 which later becomes the geneva conventions

(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

You have successfully proven that there are terms that define an act of war.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8mjtd8D ljZEC&pg=PT102&lpg=PT102&dq=tonnage+of+b ombs+dropped+%22on+south+vietnam%22&sour ce=web&ots=ejf7IAGS-Y&sig=ZiZ6IHBxcFFJBv _4SGaHXF03pnY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&
resnum=4&ct=result

"excluding the missing figures the US dropped 3.2 million tons on south vietnam during the entire war, 2.1 million on laos and 840000 on north vietnam" yeah we were really defending the south from the north huh?

And Mccain dropped all those bombs himself?

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/55841.html

"

there sources lots of sources

Sine copy and paste is retarted on there look at the last few paragraphs of that article. It says don't expect Vietnam to tell us what happened and that "People have to use their imagination" as to the damage he did. You took that advise to heart, didn't you

[XaosLegend]

At 11/23/08 09:10 PM, stafffighter wrote:
Wiki. nuff said.

prove that it's wrong with your own source, wikipedia usually has correct factual information witht he subjective part being argueable, I'm not using the subjective portion as my evidence however. In order to argue a source isn't valid you have to do more than just say it isn't, you have to come up with a more legitimate countersource or more of them. Wikipedia generally gets criticized as a source because it's free media, no advertizing revenue, no fees, pissing all the other for profit media sources off thus presenting is in a bad light as often as possibel seeding your veiw of its content.

You have successfully proven that there are terms that define an act of war.

yeas, that was the point there.

And Mccain dropped all those bombs himself?

this was to counter someone else asking I prove that we dropped more bombs on south vietnam than north vietnam, regardless John Mccain doesnt need to have dropped all the bombs himself, he dropped plenty, you murder one person youre a murderer, killing more just makes you a worse catagory of murderer, and after 23 missions I'm sure Mccain i in the top .01% of murderers in the world.

Sine copy and paste is retarted on there look at the last few paragraphs of that article. It says don't expect Vietnam to tell us what happened and that "People have to use their imagination" as to the damage he did. You took that advise to heart, didn't you

I only use as much imagination as anyone has to to form a narrative for any historical account, there is plenty of evidence out there to create a preponderance of certainty about the business of mccain in his bomber, all of it collaborated by his undisputed self-reported record.

[stafffighter]

At 11/23/08 09:22 PM, XaosLegend wrote:

At 11/23/08 09:10 PM, stafffighter wrote:
Wiki. nuff said.

prove that it's wrong with your own source,

No, you made the topic. You prove your point first. I'll be here watching christmas movies.

I only use as much imagination as anyone has to to form a narrative for any historical account, there is plenty of evidence out there to create a preponderance of certainty about the business of mccain in his bomber, all of it collaborated by his undisputed self-reported record.

And you didn't show us any of it.

[Tancrisism]

War... War never changes.

Honestly, do you really think McCain should be charged for this or are you trying to beat a dead horse? The people in charge of his missions perhaps (but they won't be). Don't kill the messenger - that sort of thing. Lay off McCain.

[XaosLegend]

At 11/23/08 09:30 PM, Tancrisism wrote: War... War never changes.

Honestly, do you really think McCain should be charged for this or are you trying to beat a dead horse? The people in charge of his missions perhaps (but they won't be). Don't kill the messenger - that sort of thing. Lay off McCain.

If the only person who is accountable for war crimes are superior officers than each genocide has only 1 guilty party, the guy at the top (or several in an oligopoly, or junta). If the soldier understands what he's doing and does it anyway he's a war criminal. If people aren't held accountable this is going to be the history of the human race forevor, all rewards given to people being based on previous conflicts making all the benefits of our supposed individual accomplishments ours but by the result of evil acts.

John Mccain was not just a dumb grunt (maybe the dumb part is applicable). His father was an admiral, he VOLUNTEERED to be a bomber, he expressed regreat after the fact that the US didn't kill MORE people.

At the very least the leaders of that war should all be in prison, and people like Mccain should not be touted as being "war heroes" by a consensus of the US press. Risking your life does not make you a good person, being tortured doesnt either, violent street criminals do that all the time. I have no respect for a man like John Mccain and he should be infamous not famous.

[MultiCanimefan]

At 11/23/08 09:30 PM, Tancrisism wrote: War... War never changes.

Don't kill the messenger - that sort of thing. Lay off McCain.

Are you suggesting we take a Nuremberg defense approach?

[CBP]

John McCain is not a war criminal, he was not right for president, but he is not a war criminal. Why don't you send everyone a p.m. about it.

[aviewaskewed]

I'm not really taking a stance here, just pointing out some assertions you've made I think are pretty ridiculous.

At 11/23/08 07:40 PM, XaosLegend wrote: John mccain is a war criminal as much as any of the nazis at the death camps in WW2, He stocked the hydrogen cyanide, locked in his victims and pushed the button. If john Mccain is not a war criminal than there is no such thing as a war criminal.

I don't think he's on their same exact level. The nazis killed innocent civilians that we KNOW had nothing to do with undermining any Nazi war effort, nor were they an enemy combatant. It was a racist genocide of an innocent people, pure and simple. Do you know much about Vietnam? About the fact that many "civilians" were actually VC in disguise? They didn't wear uniforms bud, or carry their weaponry in the open. It was a guerilla war, and it forced us to do bad and horrible things, because the enemy wasn't going to do us the courtesy of identifying themselves. We never should have been there, mistakes were made. But saying McCain or anybody is akin to a Nazi? Oh come on, that's just an appeal to emotion and I think anyone with a lick of good sense is gonna see through that one. Let's continue with assertions you've made here that are a bit fact-challenged.

Youre basically saying the twin towers in 9/11 were valid military targets because they are the civilians that support the military industrial complex in the US that targets middle east interests.

A terrorist attack is not akin to a military action. The two are totally different and it's once again another emotional appeal with no basis being used here. Osama Bin Laden is not a national leader, he has no ability to declare war on behalf of a nation, therefore his declaration of war against America is not the same as if Afghanistan declares it. He is a terrorist, he is not bound to the Geneva convention, and his actions have absolutely no merit to an argument about war crimes or war criminals.

Wikipedia generally gets criticized as a source because it's free media, no advertizing revenue, no fees, pissing all the other for profit media sources off thus presenting is in a bad light as often as possibel seeding your veiw of its content.

No, Wiki is criticized because IT CAN BE EDITED, INFO DELETED, AND FALSEHOODS STATED AS FACT. Why, if I wanted to right now I could go and publish a Wikipedia article that says something like "the newgrounds politics forum is a place filled with malicious trolls and idiots. There is no conversation of any merit there ever, and only those with a diseased mind would frequent it". I can totally do that, and put it under the newgrounds section (I've seen far more horrible things written about the mod team) and the only way that utter bag of unsourced nonsense will be taken down is if someone comes by and complains. Here's another fun example of how Wiki can be altered. John Byrne launched a massive and successful campaign on his forum www.byrnerobotics.com to get his Wiki bio altered because it featured interviews from people who worked with him painting him in a bad light. Byrne felt this was slander and had his bio changed to just the bare essentials, no details, even though these were simply people speaking to their work experience with John Byrne, and that is perfectly valid to use in this instance since they were culled from professional journalistic sources.

I'm not necessarily saying the info you got from Wiki on this issue is bad, but to say wiki is unfairly targeted because it's a free ware site is such a crock. Sure companies that make you pay are pissed off something like Wiki exists most likely, but the fact is wikipedia is flawed as hell in many instances because of what I pointed out above. It's so easy to change information that is factual or just outright delete it that it makes it practically impossible to qoute a wiki article in any sort of debate or scholarly paper unless the article in question is sourced out the ass (and even then, why not just use the original sources to be really safe?). Not to mention there are many good and factual sites that are totally free and I've used them in the past for college level research papers.

That's all I have on the topic for now. Use facts bro, not emotional appeals or confusing what your actual point is, it'll help you keep out of those pesky credibility problems.

[XaosLegend]

At 11/23/08 11:48 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: I'm not really taking a stance here, just pointing out some assertions you've made I think are pretty ridiculous.

sure youre not... rofl

I don't think he's on their same exact level. The nazis killed innocent civilians that we KNOW had nothing to do with undermining any Nazi war effort, nor were they an enemy combatant. It was a racist genocide of an innocent people, pure and simple. Do you know much about Vietnam? About the fact that many "civilians" were actually VC in disguise? They didn't wear uniforms bud, or carry their weaponry in the open. It was a guerilla war, and it forced us to do bad and horrible things, because the enemy wasn't going to do us the courtesy of identifying themselves. We never should have been there, mistakes were made. But saying McCain or anybody is akin to a Nazi? Oh come on, that's just an appeal to emotion and I think anyone with a lick of good sense is gonna see through that one. Let's continue with assertions you've made here that are a bit fact-challenged.

sure it's hard to get exactly equivalent measures of evil as far as the bountiful array of horrifying things people do in the world surpase anything someone would want to rank, but as far as a low level officer being the one to escort jews to the gas chambers in an act of religious and racial genocide not being comparable to someone who kills people as part of a war on a political thought process, a war that specifically targetted civilians. (that was quite unique in vietnam and was mostly the population wanting democracy it just happens that oppresive economies often become more equitable after such rights are gained) Guess what? They never attacked us, so us saying well they hid in the masses is rediculous, no they didnt hide in the population they were the population same as you would defend america if the world decided to invade it over our political ideas. Regardless you can say this about nearly any defending force, created a logical justification to commit genocide against any population. The rules of war were not agreed on except in the case that the population cares about its defending military, they were agreed on understanding that of course populations would care about their soldiers. There is nothing "fact-meh-meh-challanged" about my points, it's a matter of perspective and until you start arguing over real comparitives all YOU are doing is asserting.

A terrorist attack is not akin to a military action. The two are totally different and it's once again another emotional appeal with no basis being used here. Osama Bin Laden is not a national leader, he has no ability to declare war on behalf of a nation, therefore his declaration of war against America is not the same as if Afghanistan declares it. He is a terrorist, he is not bound to the Geneva convention, and his actions have absolutely no merit to an argument about war crimes or war criminals.

Lets break down that first retarded thing you said "a terrorist attack is not akin to a military action." ok let me say this slowly so you can understand, terrorism doesn't mean it can't be military (ie sponsored violence beyond domestic police action by a nation or soveriegn power)
terrorism-

1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.( let's see the whole vietnam war? Yes Johnny we have a winner in simple foreign policy for 100)
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization. (hmm yeah wait no that's our dod in action too)
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. (well that'd be a different ball of wax but you know those flexible terms can be tough

No, Wiki is criticized because IT CAN BE EDITED, INFO DELETED, AND FALSEHOODS STATED AS FACT. Why, if I wanted to right now I could go and publish a Wikipedia article that says something like "the newgrounds politics forum is a place filled with malicious trolls and idiots. There is no conversation of any merit there ever, and only those with a diseased mind would frequent it". I can totally do that, and put it under the newgrounds section (I've seen far more horrible things written about the mod team) and the only way that utter bag of unsourced nonsense will be taken down is if someone comes by and complains. Here's another fun example of how Wiki can be altered. John Byrne launched a massive and successful campaign on his forum www.byrnerobotics.com to get his Wiki bio altered because it featured interviews from people who worked with him painting him in a bad light. Byrne felt this was slander and had his bio changed to just the bare essentials, no details, even though these were simply people speaking to their work experience with John Byrne, and that is perfectly valid to use in this instance since they were culled from professional journalistic sources.

I'm not necessarily saying the info you got from Wiki on this issue is bad, but to say wiki is unfairly targeted because it's a free ware site is such a crock. Sure companies that make you pay are pissed off something like Wiki exists most likely, but the fact is wikipedia is flawed as hell in many instances because of what I pointed out above. It's so easy to change information that is factual or just outright delete it that it makes it practically impossible to qoute a wiki article in any sort of debate or scholarly paper unless the article in question is sourced out the ass (and even then, why not just use the original sources to be really safe?). Not to mention there are many good and factual sites that are totally free and I've used them in the past for college level research papers.

So heres a whole lot of effort rendered for the wiki point, which was one of four or five sources I used.

so let's see why this is fairly impotent as an attack line:

1: I used wiki for generally agreed upon facts that anyone can easily check at a dozen sources which just happen to be all arranged together on the wiki site being the reason I used it. Expanding briefly this is once again because the facts I was sourcing from the wiki were the LEAST controvertial and most widely known, kind of like looking up the height of mt everest, it's not a big deal of contention.

2: you failed to identify 1 instance relevant to this topic of incorrect information in the wiki.

3: wiki is a good online encyclopedic source and while anyone can change it a host of other people can change it back to how it's supposed to be. I find its results generally to be just as legitimate as a single writer for a major publication is, with as few errors. I know I know change is scary, it's ok though Ill hold you.

That's all I have on the topic for now. Use facts bro, not emotional appeals or confusing what your actual point is, it'll help you keep out of those pesky credibility problems.

I used facts, you chose to ignore the ones you couldnt throw an ad hominem attack at and use unspecific assertions to color my points as "emotional" and "confusing my actual point" Saying youre not taking a side in things doesn't magically grant you credibility yourself, only if you follow through on appearing unbaised which you clearly didnt. Emotion isn't always a bad thing, without emotion you wouldn't have any sense of what to even write about because nothing would matter to you. The new psychological studies show that emotion is CRITICAL to reasoning not in opposition to it.

And tell you what next time Ill post a doctoral thesis so my arguement won't fail as being only emotional assertions without a library of sourcing. (give me a break theres ten times more sourcing in my posts than 90% of the threads on here, it's just a double standard to say: If I don't agree with you you must have 1000000x more sourcing than someone I agree with)

[aviewaskewed]

At 11/24/08 02:38 AM, XaosLegend wrote: sure it's hard to get exactly equivalent measures of evil as far as the bountiful array of horrifying things people do in the world surpase anything someone would want to rank, but as far as a low level officer being the one to escort jews to the gas chambers in an act of religious and racial genocide not being comparable to someone who kills people as part of a war on a political thought process, a war that specifically targetted civilians. (that was quite unique in vietnam and was mostly the population wanting democracy it just happens that oppresive economies often become more equitable after such rights are gained) Guess what? They never attacked us, so us saying well they hid in the masses is rediculous, no they didnt hide in the population they were the population same as you would defend america if the world decided to invade it over our political ideas. Regardless you can say this about nearly any defending force, created a logical justification to commit genocide against any population. The rules of war were not agreed on except in the case that the population cares about its defending military, they were agreed on understanding that of course populations would care about their soldiers. There is nothing "fact-meh-meh-challanged" about my points, it's a matter of perspective and until you start arguing over real comparitives all YOU are doing is asserting.

Dude, I did exactly what you do, I was arguing that in my opinion, and the opinion of many others, if we argue an american soldier following orders in a war action, vs. a german soldier following orders to slaughter Jews, I feel like they don't exactly match. Both are bad things, but to me it's not the same thing. Especially because your using the same sort of tactics that basically everybody does when they want to argue that America or anybody else has done something truly horrendous: Compare 'em to the Nazis. To me, it just don't work.

Lets break down that first retarded thing you said "a terrorist attack is not akin to a military action." ok let me say this slowly so you can understand, terrorism doesn't mean it can't be military (ie sponsored violence beyond domestic police action by a nation or soveriegn power)
terrorism-

I know that, but prove that 9/11 was sponsored by another nation, and not just something that Osama Bin Laden did and The Taliban just hid him. Because I've never seen evidence that implicates the Taliban in the plot, just evidence that they were the guys willing to harbor Osama after the fact. Not to mention since Afghanistan did not declare war on us, I don't see how unprovoked terrorist actions work for your arguement. Other then the method we're all familiar with where you appeal to emotion and say that's logic.

So heres a whole lot of effort rendered for the wiki point, which was one of four or five sources I used.

so let's see why this is fairly impotent as an attack line:

1: I used wiki for generally agreed upon facts that anyone can easily check at a dozen sources which just happen to be all arranged together on the wiki site being the reason I used it. Expanding briefly this is once again because the facts I was sourcing from the wiki were the LEAST controvertial and most widely known, kind of like looking up the height of mt everest, it's not a big deal of contention.

I was disputing your point that you seemed to be making out like wiki is the victim of big corporate bad guys trying to discredit it. You acted like otherwise it's an unimpeachable source, which isn't true. Try to keep up with exactly what we're discussing.

2: you failed to identify 1 instance relevant to this topic of incorrect information in the wiki.

Because I wasn't trying to say wiki is incorrect here, just that wiki is attacked because IT HAS HAD AND BY IT'S VERY NATURE CAN HAVE INCORRECT INFORMATION. Which is why it is attacked as a source in scholarly circles, not because of the reasons you mentioned, and seemed to suggest were the ONLY reasons it's attacked.

3: wiki is a good online encyclopedic source and while anyone can change it a host of other people can change it back to how it's supposed to be. I find its results generally to be just as legitimate as a single writer for a major publication is, with as few errors. I know I know change is scary, it's ok though Ill hold you.

The very fact that it can be changed makes it a bad encylopedia. You can't change actual encyclopedias, or many other online encyclopedias or pages that print facts. Wiki has only it's membership to use as a quality filter. It's one of those things that's a good idea in theory, but in practice it has a ton of flaws.

I used facts, you chose to ignore the ones you couldnt throw an ad hominem attack at and use unspecific assertions to color my points as "emotional" and "confusing my actual point" Saying youre not taking a side in things doesn't magically grant you credibility yourself, only if you follow through on appearing unbaised which you clearly didnt. Emotion isn't always a bad thing, without emotion you wouldn't have any sense of what to even write about because nothing would matter to you. The new psychological studies show that emotion is CRITICAL to reasoning not in opposition to it.

True, but it also can confuse issues, my big problem is you used two examples that either have been used a hundred times in a hundred different other arguments (the person I don't like is comparable to a nazi), or had no real relevance (9/11).

And tell you what next time Ill post a doctoral thesis so my arguement won't fail as being only emotional assertions without a library of sourcing. (give me a break theres ten times more sourcing in my posts than 90% of the threads on here, it's just a double standard to say: If I don't agree with you you must have 1000000x more sourcing than someone I agree with)

Not at all. I was just picking apart the bits of your argument that were weak and seemed a bit offensive to me. Also, let's not go throwing around a bunch of statistics you can't back up. I know for a fact most of the threads in this forum in the past and present (remember, there's threads from YEARS ago you'd have to put in your 90%) that are very very well sourced. See? I'm not the only one that can be accused of ad hominem attack, and confusing the points here.

[Masterzakk]

At 11/24/08 04:56 AM, IAmNotWadeFulp wrote: I dont think he is a war criminal. He is too old to have been in any current war.

We are talking about whenever he was younger...back in vietnam, come back whenever you read up on his history there should be links for you on the top.

[LazyDrunk]

At 11/23/08 09:07 PM, XaosLegend wrote:

What's a civilian who supplies the enemy army with food? Smuggling weapons? Not every uniformed VC lived underground, and the military infrastructure of the region depended on direct "civilian" assistance. The military's response was, appropriately, to decimate the military supply lines.

If a hospital services enemy combatants, is it not a military installation?

Tame charges of war crimes are most likely bullshit charges.

based on your logic here civilians are ALWAYS A LEGITIMATE TARGET in war because civilians ALWAYS SUPPORT THEIR TROOPS WITH THEIR ECONOMY AND MEDICAL INFRASTRUCTURE.

When they're on their home turf, if they aren't friendly, then yeah.. I guess pretty much everyone trying to kill you is fair game. You understand me well.

Youre basically saying the twin towers in 9/11 were valid military targets because they are the civilians that support the military industrial complex in the US that targets middle east interests.

They would've been valid military targets if they were targetted militarily. Of course, you can't militarily attack America because then you'd die.

John McCain wore a uniform last time I checked, the 9/11 bombers didn't. You better find some better parallels to draw, like the preservation of the Koelner Dom during the World Wars or the Bataan death march if you want wartime exceptionalisms. 9/11 is a horseshit occasion to drop when levelling accusations of war crimes. Terrorists aren't countries.

That's fine if you want to make an arguement that there is no such thing as a war crime, go completely machiavellian, but that's beyond my arguement, and not really relevant. Regardless it makes you a sociopath or a simpleton.

I'm a realist, kiddo. There is such thing as a war crime, but when neither side follows the "rules of war" set forth post-WWII you shouldn't expect me to condemn one of our warriors by casting this perverse light on him as though he's a jew-killing Nazi.

I'm also a redneck, so chew on that for awhile.

I make 2 assumptions here:

1: that the term "war criminal" means something.

But only to one side...

2: that if a person fits the definition of a "war criminal" they are a "war criminal".

And only John McCain deserves your blaring attention. Great, you just found out the real reason Viet Nam was a war and not a picnic.

I argue that John Mccain fits that definition.

I argue every act of war ever fits your broad-based definitions of war crimes.

Ge read up on General Sherman and get back to me about war crimes.

[XaosLegend]

Dude, I did exactly what you do, I was arguing that in my opinion, and the opinion of many others, if we argue an american soldier following orders in...else has done something truly horrendous: Compare 'em to the Nazis. To me, it just don't work.

it is very close to the same thing if the results of that american soldier's actions are similar to the german soldier's actions, and both had a smililar level of authority above them yet still had enough sense to know what they were doing was killing noncombatants en masse. I use these examples because 90% of people have little to no knowledge of world history and you have to give them something to compare to as spock would say, "It would be impossible to discuss without a universal frame of reference." In this case a person could read instead of die to get into a more interesting discussion of the issue, I could use pol pot and the Khmer Rouge as a reference but that would just fly over most people's heads.

I know that, but prove that 9/11 was sponsored by another nation, and not just something that Osama Bin Laden did and The Taliban just hid him. Because I've never seen evidence that implicates the Taliban in the plot, just evidence that they were the guys willing to harbor Osama after the fact. Not to mention since Afghanistan did not declare war on us, I don't see how unprovoked terrorist actions work for your arguement. Other then the method we're all familiar with where you appeal to emotion and say that's logic.

Lets agree that bin laden isn't a war criminal in the internationally recognized sense since he has no nation he's representing. My comparison to him was in the moral sense and had to do with the original poster saying that it's ok to target civilians that support a group you are in conflict with, essentially saying there were no limits on attacking civilians because they support their own defensive forces (How impertenent of a population to do so), basically saying that international law shouldn't matter and sidestepping wether under internationally accepted terms mccain is in fact a war criminal. Kind of pisses me off when someone says it'd be ok to kill my grandmother because she baked a pie for a soldier in Iraq (which is something my grandmother is likely to do).

I was disputing your point that you seemed to be making out like wiki is the victim of big corporate bad guys trying to discredit it. You acted like otherwise it's an unimpeachable source, which isn't true. Try to keep up with exactly what we're discussing.

It's clearly not unimpeachable as a source, but even single authored sources that are published by major media outlets are not nearly unimpeachable, check out FAIR
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=18&re gion_id=1 sometime to get some really juicy misrepresentations by all sorts of these. I get annoyed about the reflex itchy trigger finger anti wiki thing because I know people wouldnt be so jacked up about the issue if the private news and resource media weren't waging a war on it's legitimacy. In a vacuum these would be good points to raise, after the automatic revoltion about wiki by the 100th person (accurate number) without me causally being able to find rampant innacuracies as must be the case fromt he reactions I hear I get a little trigger happy myself to defend what is a great institution trying to educate people without a fee or an advertizing based bias.

Because I wasn't trying to say wiki is incorrect here, just that wiki is attacked because IT HAS HAD AND BY IT'S VERY NATURE CAN HAVE INCORRECT INFORMATION. Which is why it is attacked as a source in scholarly circles, not because of the reasons you mentioned, and seemed to suggest were the ONLY reasons it's attacked.

I think alot of the attacks in scholarly circles come for a few reasons 1 being the potential for incorrect information.

2: Scholars are anal and like to have impeccable sources, they spend weeks often time gathering and collating these sources.

3: Scholars have a need for accountability, they must be able to go back and check the original form the source was taken from, a site like a wiki is constantly being changed making this sometimes impossible.

4: Scholars themselves have an interest in information being private (as they tend to make their money doling it out) and don't like public education resources any more than media companies. The point of a school is to make information profitable, in order to do that you want to limit universal access to information, and monetize teh exchange of it. If you work as a contributor to various media outlets so much the greater bias.

The very fact that it can be changed makes it a bad encylopedia. You can't change actual encyclopedias, or many other online encyclopedias or pages that print facts. Wiki has only it's membership to use as a quality filter. It's one of those things that's a good idea in theory, but in practice it has a ton of flaws.

All encyclopedias get changed from time to time, then they issue new editions, the same goes for online encyclopedias. It's one of those things thats bad in theory but actually works very well, and is a fine source for fairly casual forum discussions.

True, but it also can confuse issues, my big problem is you used two examples that either have been used a hundred times in a hundred different other arguments (the person I don't like is comparable to a nazi), or had no real relevance (9/11).

If you agreed with my point that mccain knew what he was doing, that our military targetted civilians in that war, and that he had a responsibility to refuse than using a nazi or 9/11 comparison would not seem so out of wack, when your country conducts frivolous wars of politics and aggresion upon other nations and your nation kills millions of civilians (not that killing enemy soldiers isnt nearly as bad if not just as bad when yours is a war of aggression) it's time to start taking things seriously, and to realize that if your nation is in the wrong it's guilty of the illigitimate killings of most of those people, and if you participate in the greatest source of those killings then yes you are like a nazi, you are a terrorist and a murderer and I will not apologize for making a case for the victims of my country, the victims whose memory incriminates our entire nation for it's complicitness, and shames us all, just as the more than one million esimated Iraqi civilians now dead in a country with around 30 million people shames us, shames me and shames you until we own up to it and it stops.

When we prosecuted the nazis at Nuremburg we prosecuted them for waging a war of aggression

"Crimes against peace:
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression... "

"War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or illtreatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, WANTON DESTRUCTION of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity. "

http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-nurem.htm

At the end of the trial it was said by the chief US prosecutor Robert Jackson, "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."

http://www.adl.org/education/dimensions_
19/section1/trials.asp

The more and more I talk to other people the more I come to question wether they care about justice at all, or only their own self interests.

[JeremieCompNerd]

You mention the bombing of hospitals in particular, and though I would say that they are a valid military target because they offer refuge to the enemy, I would also like to add to that by saying that a true doctor would save people on both sides. A hospital can't possibly be considered a valid military target because a hospital is indiscriminate and would heal soldiers regardless of their side in a war. Or, at least, any decent hospital would. Nobody seems to have commented on this part just yet so I'll throw it out there as my 2-bits.

[FattyWhale]

At 11/23/08 07:40 PM, XaosLegend wrote: John mccain is a war criminal as much as any of the nazis at the death camps in WW2, He stocked the hydrogen cyanide, locked in his victims and pushed the button. If john Mccain is not a war criminal than there is no such thing as a war criminal.

lol

[aviewaskewed]

At 11/24/08 08:13 AM, XaosLegend wrote: it is very close to the same thing if the results of that american soldier's actions are similar to the german soldier's actions, and both had a smililar level of authority above them yet still had enough sense to know what they were doing was killing noncombatants en masse.

So right here you're saying it's not exact. You said "very close" so that's not "exact" and to me you don't get to to say they are the same thing unless you can prove they are EXACTLY the same. Words mean what they mean. Also as has been pointed out numerous times but you choose to ignore it vietnam was guerilla combat much like the American revolution. The Vietcong did not always wear uniforms or identify themselves, sneak attacks were common. Sometimes military intelligence fucks up. I'm not saying innocent people didn't get killed or hurt, but there's a difference between what the Nazis did, which was killing with full knowledge they were in no way killing an enemy combatant vs. American forces fighting a confusing battle against an enemy that blended into the populace making it difficult, if not impossible to distinguish who was merely helping the VC because they simply felt it was the right thing to do, or who was collaborator. Mistakes were made, but you still haven't proven for me your argument that I should view McCain like I'd view Concentration Camp personnel.

I use these examples because 90% of people have little to no knowledge of world history and you have to give them something to compare to as spock would say, "It would be impossible to discuss without a universal frame of reference." In this case a person could read instead of die to get into a more interesting discussion of the issue, I could use pol pot and the Khmer Rouge as a reference but that would just fly over most people's heads.

Oh don't pull stuff out of your ass man! That statistic is completely made up for the purposes of sounding good. You also do not know what this forum does and doesn't know about world history (I was taught about Pol Pot in the 8th grade). Plus as a frame of reference the Nazis fail, because our efforts in Vietnam are not the same as the Nazis, which is what you open with. You want me to accept that John McCain as a soldier following orders is the same as Nazi exterminations of the Jews, which doesn't hold water. This point has been attacked multiple times. Seriously dude, stop making up numbers and things.

Continued into a second post.

[aviewaskewed]

Lets agree that bin laden isn't a war criminal in the internationally recognized sense since he has no nation he's representing.

Yes let's agree that he isn't, since he's a lone man acting on his own principles. He, and his attacks on 9/11 are irrelevant to an argument about what a war criminal is.

My comparison to him was in the moral sense and had to do with the original poster saying that it's ok to target civilians that support a group you are in conflict with, essentially saying there were no limits on attacking civilians because they support their own defensive forces (How impertenent of a population to do so), basically saying that international law shouldn't matter and sidestepping wether under internationally accepted terms mccain is in fact a war criminal. Kind of pisses me off when someone says it'd be ok to kill my grandmother because she baked a pie for a soldier in Iraq (which is something my grandmother is likely to do).

Um, we're arguing morals now? I thought we were arguing specific definition of what a war criminal is! Morals are also highly subjective. What you hold to be morally right could be totally different from what I hold to be morally right, so you can't really argue moral standards as an unimpeachable thing. If we're trying to define whether John McCain is a war criminal under the definition of the term, morals doesn't enter into it, only what the definition of a war criminal is, and the actions of John McCain which could make one believe he is fitting that definition.

It's clearly not unimpeachable as a source, but even single authored sources that are published by major media outlets are not nearly unimpeachable.

And that is why you have to be careful about what you source. That's my whole point. I wasn't trying to say Wiki is the only flawed and bad source out there and anything else must be an unimpeachable paragon of truth, just that wiki has too many flaws as a medium of truth for many people to take it seriously.

I get annoyed about the reflex itchy trigger finger anti wiki thing because I know people wouldnt be so jacked up about the issue if the private news and resource media weren't waging a war on it's legitimacy.

I proved two instances that make me personally take wiki with a pinch of salt that were not reported by private news or resource media that have any interest in hurting wiki. I have personally observed instances where Wiki has failed as an actual source of factual information. I'm sure other people have too. I have just proven that your OPINION masquerading as knowledge and fact is incorrect in this instance.

In a vacuum these would be good points to raise, after the automatic revoltion about wiki by the 100th person (accurate number) without me causally being able to find rampant innacuracies as must be the case fromt he reactions I hear I get a little trigger happy myself to defend what is a great institution trying to educate people without a fee or an advertizing based bias.

If that is what people are intending to do with it. But it is also used by people who have a grudge or an ax to grind so that they can put their unfiltered opinion on a web resource that is supposed to be intellectual and factual. They can have it published and then after the fact Wikipedia will ask other people to source it or shout it down. This hurts wikipedia as a credible source. The aim may be exactly what your saying. I'm sure the runners of Wikipedia have every noble intention in the world for it, but that doesn't change that it is flawed and it has been allowed to report bad information like it's truth. So when someone questions Wikipedia as a source, they have a right to do so. Also with all your other obviously fictionalized numbers I'd like to see you prove that "100 people" before I even begin to take that seriously

I think alot of the attacks in scholarly circles come for a few reasons 1 being the potential for incorrect information.

I've just proven it isn't just potential, Wikipedia has in fact printed incorrect information, and/or removes information that the subject does not want disseminated about them.

2: Scholars are anal and like to have impeccable sources, they spend weeks often time gathering and collating these sources.

Yes, you know WHY they're anal? Because when you go to a publisher they have this pesky habit of wanting to make sure that you can prove that what your publishing is the truth, or they'll file it under fiction. That requires careful research, citing credible sources, and proving your facts. Did I really need to explain that to you?

3: Scholars have a need for accountability, they must be able to go back and check the original form the source was taken from, a site like a wiki is constantly being changed making this sometimes impossible.

And therein again is a reason why you can't say Wiki is a really great source of information. Because slant and opinion can be added into otherwise factual articles and presented as fact. Happens even in scholarly circles too, but that's why texts, articles, or other things that do that are usually disgarded.

4: Scholars themselves have an interest in information being private (as they tend to make their money doling it out) and don't like public education resources any more than media companies. The point of a school is to make information profitable, in order to do that you want to limit universal access to information, and monetize teh exchange of it. If you work as a contributor to various media outlets so much the greater bias.

That's all true, but has nothing to do with my points about Wikipedias inaccuricies that I've noticed. You seem to want to cling desperately to the idea that Wikipedia is unfairly being maligned. Maybe it is in some cases, but not ALL attacks on it's credibility are unjustified.

All encyclopedias get changed from time to time, then they issue new editions, the same goes for online encyclopedias. It's one of those things thats bad in theory but actually works very well, and is a fine source for fairly casual forum discussions.

But print encyclopedias get changed when new facts are uncovered and they've been proven. Wikipedia can be changed around simply because a user has decided they have an ax to grind and want to distort the truth to suit their own interests. Take a look at the entry for Newgrounds.com on Wiki, especially how the section on moderators is handled. Do you really think something like that could get published in a print encyclopedia? Or one that has to worry about it's factual basis to keep it's funding and relevance going? Of course it wouldn't, but wikipedia obviously is not worrying about these things, or maybe more accurately the community which is updating it and helping maintain it don't as a whole care all that much since they're the ones making the distortions.

[Tancrisism]

At 11/23/08 10:19 PM, MultiCanimefan wrote:

At 11/23/08 09:30 PM, Tancrisism wrote: War... War never changes.

Don't kill the messenger - that sort of thing. Lay off McCain.

Are you suggesting we take a Nuremberg defense approach?

I felt the Nuremberg trials were actually pretty botched.

No, what I am saying is let bygones be bygones; let's not focus on incarcerating the people who were part of fucked up wars in the past, let's make it so these fucked up wars don't happen in the future. What good would putting McCain away do for anybody?

[aviewaskewed]

At 11/24/08 08:13 AM, XaosLegend wrote: If you agreed with my point that mccain knew what he was doing,

Yep, I agree. I believe John McCain had full mental capacity to know comprehend that an order was given, what that order was, and he was expected to carry out said order to the fullest. I agree with that/

that our military targetted civilians in that war,

Oh, no, I don't agree with that. I believe we targeted the enemy, we targeted the buildings, supply lines, and people who were helping the enemy. We attempted to win, sometimes innocent people die in a war when you're trying to win, and shut the war down more quickly, sometimes you have to sacrifice a few thousand to save a few million. A terrible thing? Oh yes, but it's a choice between the lesser of two evils. Hiroshima and Nagasaki anyone?

and that he had a responsibility to refuse than using a nazi or 9/11 comparison would not seem so out of wack,

No, we've proven the 9/11 part is entirely out of wack because it in no way works as war crimes as defined as international law because it wasn't an act of war. Stop using 9/11, it doesn't apply. Also there wasn't a Geneva convention or really set war crimes precedent in Nazi Germany at the time, even if we did have it, they probably would have simply flouted it. I also do not believe the situation in Vietnam is applicable to Nazi Germany, as I've said from the start.

when your country conducts frivolous wars of politics and aggresion upon other nations and your nation kills millions of civilians (not that killing enemy soldiers isnt nearly as bad if not just as bad when yours is a war of aggression) it's time to start taking things seriously, and to realize that if your nation is in the wrong it's guilty of the illigitimate killings of most of those people, and if you participate in the greatest source of those killings then yes you are like a nazi, you are a terrorist and a murderer and I will not apologize for making a case for the victims of my country, the victims whose memory incriminates our entire nation for it's complicitness, and shames us all, just as the more than one million esimated Iraqi civilians now dead in a country with around 30 million people shames us, shames me and shames you until we own up to it and it stops.

Should we have been there? No, no we shouldn't have. I'm not disputing that. But the crimes of Nazi Germany were a whole different kettle of fish. Unless you want to back off the concentration camp aspect and focus on Hitler's military actions, you have to stop bringing that up. Anyone we killed was killed under a context of part of a war, German concentration camps were a sick and horrific matter of government policy, the only thing they had to do with German military action is that when Germany captured new territory (say Poland for instance) they then spread the already existing policy into that new territory. You're still off base with the way you're presenting the Nazi's as comparable here. But also if you look at how the war started, it was South against North anyway, and we merely went in and backed the South. We didn't start the problem, we just used a misguided policy as a justification to stick our noses in. That does not make us akin to some of the monsters you want us lumped in with. It just makes us stupid, and that we hurt people we shouldn't have, but at the time it was believed to be for the greater good.

When we prosecuted the nazis at Nuremburg we prosecuted them for waging a war of aggression

Again, the US was part of a coalition, so I'd like to see you not just targeting the one country, or one individual, but target the others in the coalition as well.

"Crimes against peace:
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression... "

The war was officially between the North Vietnamese Government and the South Vietnamese government, america just lended support, as others did on the north side. Can't try America on this one because we only stepped in after the thing was happening.

"War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or illtreatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, WANTON DESTRUCTION of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity. "

We did have a few instances of Wanton destruction, but none of those I've seen really linked to McCain yet. Bombing a hospital from a moral view is pretty low, sure. But from a military standpoint it's smart. It's the same as if you see a truck of enemy supplies coming you should either steal that truck, or blow it up. You don't let that truck go to the enemy. The whole point of war is to make your opponent surrender to you, so anything within the confines of international law being done to get definable military targets destroyed is justified. Blowing up a hospital could be seen as military neccessity here.

Oh, let's talk about POWs too. John McCain was one of those, and the VC tortured him pretty dang good...FOR 5 YEARS. You want John McCain tried as a war criminal? Fine, but if any of his captors are still alive, they need to be tried to, and probably they're leaders. So really, in the end, we're going to have to try both Vietnam and the United States and everybody else together and count up offenses because EVERYBODY did terrible things in that war.

The more and more I talk to other people the more I come to question wether they care about justice at all, or only their own self interests.

Of course people care about their own self interest, it's a sad fact of life. I believe in justice, but sometimes justice is not as clear cut as we want it to be. Sometimes the complexities of borders, politics, and other things get in the way. I think it's getting in the way here, you want the US held up for it's atrocities against you, but you forget the atrocities that were done to Americans as well. We shouldn't have been there, no. But we were, and on both sides people died, people got maimed, and people suffered psychological scarring that has lasted forever, and sometimes resulted in violent episodes with tragic results. I think we ALL on all sides paid a heavy price in Vietnam, and we're going to pay a heavy price for the frivoloty of Iraq too.

[JudgeDredd]

At 11/24/08 07:53 AM, LazyDrunk wrote:

At 11/23/08 09:07 PM, XaosLegend wrote: based on your logic here civilians are ALWAYS A LEGITIMATE TARGET in war because civilians ALWAYS SUPPORT THEIR TROOPS WITH THEIR ECONOMY AND MEDICAL INFRASTRUCTURE.

When they're on their home turf, if they aren't friendly, then yeah.. I guess pretty much everyone trying to kill you is fair game. You understand me well.

I think i understand. Bombing remote villages with PILOTLESS DRONES on the off-chance that the villagers are aiding and abetting an insurgant group, is like killing all first-born males of a city on the rumor that one boy called Jesus is destined to lead a revolt against you.

Youre basically saying the twin towers in 9/11 were valid military targets because they are the civilians that support the military industrial complex in the US that targets middle east interests.

They would've been valid military targets if they were targetted militarily. Of course, you can't militarily attack America because then you'd die.

Bin Ladin and his ilk were trained by 1 super-power (America) how to defeat another super-power (Russia) without a formal militry machine. Pretty much that means taking pages out of Sun Tzu's book on the Art of War; "..use your enemies strength".. ie. absolute air superiority.

[MultiCanimefan]

At 11/24/08 05:38 PM, Tancrisism wrote:

At 11/23/08 10:19 PM, MultiCanimefan wrote:

At 11/23/08 09:30 PM, Tancrisism wrote:

I felt the Nuremberg trials were actually pretty botched.

No, what I am saying is let bygones be bygones; let's not focus on incarcerating the people who were part of fucked up wars in the past, let's make it so these fucked up wars don't happen in the future. What good would putting McCain away do for anybody?

Ok, now I understand what you're saying. No, putting McCain away isn't going to help anyone.