Murder or not murder

[southbiochem]

Was fire bombing German cities during WWII justifiable? Would it have been justifiable if the war could not be done without doing it?

Disclaimer: not trying to start a fight

Disclaimer: completely off topic here..

while there were other ways to put and end to the war, it wasn't the Allied powers who started that state of total war..

at their prime Germans were all too happy bombing Minsk, Dunkirk, London, Belgrade, Kiev, Thessaloniki, Rotterdam, Warsaw and many other cities of the countries they invaded or attempted to invade..

same with US attacks on Japan...nasty situation, but no one forced Japan to attack its neighbours, kill some 6 million Chinese and so on, to begin with..

you can call it "an eye for eye" situation, sure..but you can't put retroactive blame on the Brits or the other Allies by today's standards for war waging..

unfortunately neither Germans nor Allies had precision technology to go along with aircraft technology so for both sides, precision bombing did not do anything else than cost them pilots and planes..hence they resorted to "carpet" fireboming

[onmilo]

The Royal Marine is not guilty of murder.
Geneva Convention applies to armed uniformed personnel conducting a conventional war.
The insurgent uprising is undertaken by a mishmash of people who are working to disrupt the AfghanistanGovernment and force their form of rule upon a people who do not want it.
Furthermore, the individual who was killed in this combat situation was an Afghan National who was cheerfully attempting to kill coalition soldiers and who had accepted a strange form of Islam that requires him to die in combat to gain religious glory;
So, this individuyal was a religious zealot prepared to kill or die to attain his goals while not employed under convention combat rules and as such, he himself and his group do not themselves honor any treaties or conventions of civil warfare.

Killing wounded combatants under these circumstances is not "Sporting" but it isn't illegal and the opposing force would have gladly done the same to the Marine in a reversal of fortunes

[MisterTinkles]

Brigadier Bill Dunham, of the Royal Marines, said the murder - the first case of its kind - was "a truly shocking and appalling aberration".

Blatant lies. This is NOT this first case of its kind. It may be the first case of its kind that the media got ahold of, but its not the first of its kind.

Its WAR, people!!! I dont care how many "laws" and "conventions" and "rules" are manufactured for people killing other people. The FACT is, THERE ARE NO LAWS, RULES, or REGULATIONS in war!!

You kill, or you are killed. PERIOD. You can spout and claim "rules and regulations" all you want, but the truth is, nobody in any kind of war runs by rules and regulations. They do what they want.
Otherwise there would not be any such thing as a government coverup. Everything would be aboveboard and in the public media at all times.

And this soldier is correct, it is nothing more than what the other guys would do to those soldiers if they were caught. In fact, they would probably have tortured a soldier for a long time before shooting him/her. Hell, those others over there have beheaded civilians from other countries that went over there, trying to help with education and medical needs. And they get decapitated for it.

So, Im with this soldier. Speaking in the frame of war.....he did not do anything wrong.

[MisterTinkles]

Edwin Starr said it in his song "War"

War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y'all
War, huh, good God
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
Ohhh, war, I despise
Because it means destruction
Of innocent lives
War means tears
To thousands of mothers eyes
When their sons go to fight
And lose their lives
I said, war, huh
Good God, y'all
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again...........................

[James]

For the record, Lt Willim Cally got caught wasting a village in nam. But was my experiance the orders for such came from much higher up than a Lt, I didn't see any of them court martialed. The same villagers that we would help during the day would come out at night to kill us. Some villages we went to we found bullets hidden in the woven walls, and weapons buried under fire pits. Yeah, very hard to not want to kill them all. A nam saying was "kill them all, let God sort them out" because only God knew what was in their hearts, Jim

[stu]

No, I think it's normal.
When I have difficulties in my job, ,which makes me work in stressful conditions I kill my boss, I don't see the problem actually.

The soldier did not kill his boss or a colleague he killed one of the enemy - he just broke the rules about when he could do it. He kills people for a living you don't. If you broke the rules at work would you spend the rest of your life in prison?

[stu]

For what it may be worth, my own opinion is that it was cold blooded murder.

I think it probably wasn't cold blooded.

[stu]

please don't go off topic. The OP was specifically about this case. To broadedn the subject will just dilute it.

It's not off topic - as already has been pointed out wars aren't about laws and rules they are about when laws and rules break down.

[southbiochem]

For the record, Lt Willim Cally got caught wasting a village in nam. But was my experiance the orders for such came from much higher up than a Lt, I didn't see any of them court martialed. The same villagers that we would help during the day would come out at night to kill us. Some villages we went to we found bullets hidden in the woven walls, and weapons buried under fire pits. Yeah, very hard to not want to kill them all. A nam saying was "kill them all, let God sort them out" because only God knew what was in their hearts, Jim

Disclaimer: off topic somewhat, know master Jim that I respect you.

Not to diminish the service you did to your country, master Jim, but the US had no business being there in the first place..

If the US was invaded a by a foreign country wouldn't you want to defend yourself against them too? You can't really blame them for wanting to get rid of foreign enemies, since they had been fighting them for years, first the Japanese, then the French and then the US.....not really good for those folks..

I do get that war is a nasty business and survival instincts are in their peak..however we now have conventions and rules on how to wage war and they need to be respected..

a lot of Western countries have gone into wars lately "promoting democracy and feedom" but going into the "kill or get killed" bit hardly helps to put an example to these people on humanitarian bahavior

[James]

Just tring to show that others had been jailed for "war" crimes, and the feelings that go through the brain, unfortuatly we were invited by the south vietnamese govt and ours accetpted, Jim