It's just like dogs: if you see one playing, being a dog, and then killed by a car or whatever, is logical to feel sorry about that dog; but if he's trying to kill you or riping your arm off, your reaction is going to kill it to defend yourself.
This is how I feel when the department gives long lectures and time wasting sessions on use of force and how "the criminal is not the bad guy" (no, seriously). Then when a situation happens and someone gets injured because everyone holds back as the sessions taught us... "Why did you wait?! Are you scared? Your job is to stop the bad guys! You aren't doing your job!" blah, blah...
As a senior once told me: "Sometimes a motherfucker has got to die". I think Yuu learned a valuable lesson in the third panel. :D
Pronak said: It's just like dogs: if you see one playing, being a dog, and then killed by a car or whatever, is logical to feel sorry about that dog; but if he's trying to kill you or riping your arm off, your reaction is going to kill it to defend yourself.
World at War, of all games, had an interesting example. One character in the russian campaign had serious moral qualms about killing surrendered soldiers but no issues about using all means necessary to kill those still against you.
I remember someone gave a specific phrase for that type of mentality, but I forgot.
World at War, of all games, had an interesting example. One character in the russian campaign had serious moral qualms about killing surrendered soldiers but no issues about using all means necessary to kill those still against you.
I remember someone gave a specific phrase for that type of mentality, but I forgot.
Interesting, I didn't know there were alternate routes depending on what you did. Although I killed everyone. Russia is starving and we sure as hell aren't going to tie up our resources taking care of some fascist pigs!
"What did they say?" "Look, I washed my hands for dinner!"
World at War, of all games, had an interesting example. One character in the russian campaign had serious moral qualms about killing surrendered soldiers but no issues about using all means necessary to kill those still against you.
I remember someone gave a specific phrase for that type of mentality, but I forgot.
kek. Really, rules of warfare is pretty stupid. The whole point of warfare is because one country does not like the current authority and chooses to defy it. I'm probably going to take a lot of flak for this, but if you were to have me point out to the most trouble making country, I would actually say the Swiss. They claim neutrality but really what they are doing is protecting themselves by serving corrupt leaderships and helping them out when other countries would not even recognize them due to their actions. Tolerance or compassion towards evil is evil itself.
I'd be more than happy to call you uninformed for those views.
The rules of warfare (Particularly the Geneva convention) are not to prevent war, but to minimize unnecessary suffering during it. To use the current example of killing surrendered and wounded troops, I will give three examples off the top of my head as to why doing so is a really bad idea and why an international credo of conflict is in everyone's best interests.
1) It discourages either side from surrendering - while this means no POWs, this also means that every engagement will be to the death since nobody is going to bother with being captured. This protracts engagements (Very bad thing in urban combat, as enough combat stress will degrade civilian worth), encourages conscription (Hey, you ain't getting those troops back) and generally paves the way for other violations of humane treatment in the field - Knowing that your enemy is going to kill your wounded/captured means they're just as likely to do other shit. Gas attacks, barrel bombs, Whiskey Papa, booby-trapped civvies. Leads to a very kill-everyone-just-to-be-sure and pre-emptive tit-for-tat mentality, which tends to open up a whole barrel of shit.
2) To continue from the above, it makes it incredibly easy to demonize the side that does it first. Hey, if they're going to treat our men like animals, why shouldn't we follow suit? Why not start shooting dumdums, firebomb civilian centers, poison aquifers, gas population centres? Then there's the fact that combat fatigue coupled with intense desires for revenge tends to lead to widespread horrible shit - Think the Red Army matching back through Poland and Germany during 1945.
3) It's actually pretty dumb, strategy-wise, if you want to be utterly cynical. Wounded soldiers need to be cared for - if by your side, it's a propaganda victory (Sapping popular support of the belligerent) and if by theirs, they're spending resources on someone who isn't going to be fighting from weeks to months. Similar deal with captured troops - While you can't use them to fashion war material (Because that just makes your POW camps bomb magnets), you're more than welcome to use them for not-strictly-war material, like food, cloth, so forth. This eases pressure on your logistical requirements (Provided they're making surplus, you still need to feed and clothe them) and once again provides a propaganda victory.
In sum: Fighting alongside the codes of war is for your benefit: You don't galvanize your opponent into fighting even harder, you remain on the lighter side of global opinion and you sap the resistance of occupied territories and domestic adversaries. You also get to keep more of your men for rebuilding a post-war economy, as opposed to putting them in graves, asylums or a noose.
...The rules of warfare (Particularly the Geneva convention) are not to prevent war, but to minimize unnecessary suffering during it. To use the current example of killing surrendered and wounded troops, I will give three examples off the top of my head as to why doing so is a really bad idea and why an international credo of conflict is in everyone's best interests. ...
...In sum: Fighting alongside the codes of war is for your benefit: You don't galvanize your opponent into fighting even harder, you remain on the lighter side of global opinion and you sap the resistance of occupied territories and domestic adversaries. You also get to keep more of your men for rebuilding a post-war economy, as opposed to putting them in graves, asylums or a noose.
Plus we got way too good at making weapons, so any unrestricted warfare with all the gloves off can only end in MAD once things escalate up to nukes.
On a tangential note, sticking to rules or some levels of standards (with some sort of enforcement council derived from mutual assent, official or to otherwise) isn't just something that occurs in war. It's present in everything related to game theory, from economics, politics, sports, education, heck even the sciences, and well, games (computer or otherwise). Otherwise things just end up in a race to the bottom as everyone starts cutting standards to outcompete other players.
(And in war, well, you hit rock bottom when everyone gets killed.)
All points are very valid, but the question is - should I abide convention rules, if my opponent just does whatever he wants? For example, germans killed literally millions of soviet civilians and POWs in WWII, so it's kinda miracle that soviets took any german prisoners alive at all.
Allaire said: All points are very valid, but the question is - should I abide convention rules, if my opponent just does whatever he wants? For example, germans killed literally millions of soviet civilians and POWs in WWII, so it's kinda miracle that soviets took any german prisoners alive at all.
Well they didn't really treat them well and there was a reason why German was desperately trying to surrender to the western allies since they knew Russia wasn't going to treat them with silk gloves.
Only a fraction of those prisoners taken at Stalingrad, for example, were released and most were released in the 1950s.
Likewise, both the russians and the germans used specialized sniper ammo against each other (Russians using what amounts to an incendiary WP round, the germans using a high-explosive) which was strictly banned.
A bigger issue is the Soviet treatment of a lot of the other nations that either joined the Axis or were caught in the middle (Poland comes to mind).
Prevent war, restrict it, same thing. My point is that the idea that you can control warfare with political authority when war spawns from a rejection of said authority is unrealistic. What happens is one side (usually the one with less political influence anyways) just violates the laws while the other more internationally recognized force walks on egg-shells in fear of being berated by other countries who aren't the ones affected by whoever loses.
The method of warfare has no bearing on the enemies willingness to surrender. Were the Japanese spurred to keep fighting when the Americans dropped the atom bombs on them? Absolutely not. When you are winning, you are winning. The enemy has the option for a commitment bias and keep fighting until they lose by attrition or they can accept the losses or, if they know their own and their enemies forces capabilities, then they will know that the opposition is giving them a way out when they could easily wipe them out with no politics. Unconditional surrender is the only true forfeit.
Whoever starts the conflict IS the one in the wrong. Self defense in response to aggression is never wrong no matter how brutal the means of retaliation is. Is it aggressive and cruel to the enemy? Sure, but being compassionate to evil is not righteousness, it is proliferating evil. Holding back against someone assaulting another or one of your own because you don't want to hurt the aggressor is an extension of bystander effect.
No one says you can't take care of prisoners and soldiers who surrender or defect to your side. However, to the enemy that is still standing and resisting, all bets are off and all methods are justified. Warfare is not a civilized game, it is a brutal and hellish match of wills for survival and dominance. "Even a lion uses full force against a rabbit."
Not acting a certain way in fear of making your enemy fight harder is not how you win wars. The enemy is already warring with you, if they aren't going full force then this is your opportunity to take them by surprise with superior aggression and will to succeed. Global opinion be damned when you are on the defense, you must be prepared for total warfare otherwise you are risking your own men in a prolonged extended battle where the enemy keeps getting up because you hold your punches. This is why Vietnam and the current conflicts in the Middle East stretch out so long and if a military decides on that policy, they shouldn't go to war at all with that half-assed attitude. Because of rules of warfare and policing action vs total war, people have this warped sense of "tolerable" conflict, rather than accepting the full potential of consequences that will happen if war is started and picking their fights carefully and committing when they make the decision to pull the trigger.
Also, there isn't neutrality in warfare, especially if you are a citizen of the countries in conflict. Civilians often whine and moan about their lives being disrupted or being injured during conflict when they choose to do nothing. If you don't like the opposition destroying your country, you don't flee as a refugee like a coward, you fight and defend your country and people. If you don't agree with your country's actions, you defect to another country. Expecting safety due to not participating isn't avoiding participation, it is leaving your fate up to whichever authority comes out dominant in the end.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer applies very well to these situations: "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." A quote I have lived by life by.
79248cm/s said: Also, there isn't neutrality in warfare, especially if you are a citizen of the countries in conflict. Civilians often whine and moan about their lives being disrupted or being injured during conflict when they choose to do nothing. If you don't like the opposition destroying your country, you don't flee as a refugee like a coward, you fight and defend your country and people. If you don't agree with your country's actions, you defect to another country. Expecting safety due to not participating isn't avoiding participation, it is leaving your fate up to whichever authority comes out dominant in the end.
One of my close friends comes from Iran, where his father served as a soldier in the Iran-Iraq War. The irony was that his father resisted the Shah, and when the Ayatollah came in, was resisting him as well until Iraq invaded.
The original plan was to retake lost territory, consolidate and then strike a coup against the Ayatollah, but the use of chemical weapons and the fanatic incompetent zeal of the Revolutionary Guard meant the military was in no shape to actually do so, even before the disastrous counter-attack.
There are times when the writing is on the wall that someone has managed to insert themselves into power, regardless of how marginal they are, and there is nothing you can do to stop them or protect your own home, family or beliefs.
Personally, I would be wary of joining the fight if the faction I am against occupies my home-town, but the factions that are against them never liked me or where I'm from and my own side is too few and ill-supported to do anything, then the only choice is to make a desperate attempt to get out of there. At that point, I am willing to accept poverty in a country where I do not speak the language for the possibility that in 20 years time, I will at least have something rather than continuing to struggle for the most basic of things.
What happened?splkI just don't get kids.I... I don't really think it's that...Oh my~
"Even a 3.3cm insect has a 16.5mm soul" kind of feeling, right?
Parody of "Even an inch-long worm has a half-inch soul", a Japanese equivalent for "Even a worm will turn".Yuu-chan says she doesn't want us to use mosquito coils anymore because she feels sorry for the bugs.