Agreed. I've always thought that they should abandon the international war crimes tribunals in The Hague. It's just an excuse for a bunch of useless lawyers to piss about on the world stage.

Again, it's a funny one, I do think there should be some oversight with acts of war. But... if a country has any fucking sense it'll hide any illegal acts or get immunity or whatever anyway. Trying to regulate war is pretty fucking futile.

And holding people accountable to laws they were never either implicitly or explicitly bound by is... strange.

While it'll no doubt be unpopular I'd argue that terrorism is the 'legitimate' (in a certain sense) response to 'illegal' warlike acts.

Have you seen the stuff? Screw play doh, those Libyans really know their modelling putty.

>>While it'll no doubt be unpopular I'd argue that terrorism is the 'legitimate' (in a certain sense) response to 'illegal' warlike acts.

 

I'd have to agree with that.

 

And also disagree with the notion that it's in anyway less 'honourable' to be a terrorist than a sodjer.

 

A terrorist organisation is, by definition, a group with far less power and resource than a national army, so of course they'll turn to guerilla tictacs (they're the Camo coloured ones) and 'soft targets' to maximise the impact of what they /do/ have.

 

By which I'm not saying I think terrorists are honourable, but rather that armies are not (unless in existence purely for defence and never ever used for first-strike/agression/securing oil reserves. More a peoples millitia than an army, really).

I made a full-size moddle of Challenger out of it once. I left it behind in Florida back in the '80s. Went back to look for it but never did find it. Wonder what happened to it?

The Libyan government where and arguably still are a bunch of bastards, but if the people who paid for and planted the bombs are allowed to walk free it doesn't leave any justification for this case beyond exploited or poorly targeted grief.
In my opinion they should be busy badgering the government for an explaination of why Libya are being brought in from the cold but still get to act like dicks.

Guerilla tactics I'm with you, but there's nothing honourable about targetting civilians rather than military centres.

Bearing in mind that I don't find any form of warfare (except revolution :C ) honourable, I don't find targeting civilians necessarily less honourable than other tactics.

 

Asuming the civilians are from the nation/state that is presumably abusing it's power to subjugate or oppress another (the basis for most terrorism), then there is a legitamate argument that those civilians, as the electorate, are as responsible as the Government or army of that nation.

I dunno... I don't disagree with anything you've said. And I'd say the same. But I also see where Truffy's coming from.

But I think he's comparing the ideal of an army or soldier with the worst example of terrorism. Rather than, for example, comparing the soldiers at My Lai with the French Resistance.

But yeah, there is, I think, a difference between fighting amongst those who have voluntarily put their life on the line for a particular cause and something more 'asymmetric'. Like the difference between a fight and a mugging.

But yeah, in the context of real events and global politics in the world as it is, I agree with you. The time when there could be Just Wars, if it ever existed, is over.

I agree with Kos' response. And I'd add the obvious point that armies target civilians (there's no difference, to me, between intentionally targeting civilians and failing to take necessary precautions against civilian casualties - if you can't be reasonably sure of hitting your target and no civilians then you're targeting civilians).

More to the point, if you want a conflict to end fast, you target civilians. It's always been the way and always will be. It's a necessary part of war and will be while we live in a world where war can exist.

>>But yeah, there is, I think, a difference between fighting amongst those who have voluntarily put their life on the line for a particular cause and something more 'asymmetric'. Like the difference between a fight and a mugging.

 

I'm not sure that the fight/mugging thing really scales to conflict on this sort of level tbh. But fair enough, I take the point.

 

But what of conscription, a practice still used in many countries (including Truffy's Switzerland, although that's a bit different again)?

Its not really something I've put a great deal of thought into, but it just seems fairer and more honourable (note, not necessarily reaching the status of 'honourable', just moreso) to attack someone who has the capacity to defend themselves rather than 'innocent' civilians.

 

If there really is an intent to attack or punish the populace, then they should at least be warned that war has been declared.

 

Then again, the terrorists would probably counter that by saying that the people imprisoned/killed/etc weren't given any warnings, so in actual fact they're being perfectly fair, so I dunno!

Oh aye conscription changes things. As I say, it's an idealised thingy.

I agree with what you said really, I just think there is some... stuff in the middle where things get even muddier.

I suppose part of what it boils down to is that I reckon we both find violence carried out on behalf of states objectionable from the start.

>nothing honourable about targetting civilians rather than military centres

 

Yet everyone does it. Bar none.

I think the label "terrorist" depends a lot on your perspective

To a certain extent, yes. But I'd draw distinctions between the French resistance, IRA, and al-Qaeda as terrorists (I think you meant the resistance as terrorists, in that they often fought without open engagement.)

The French resistance were fighting an aggressor on their own soil. From that perspective they were 'freedom fighters' in the truest sense.

The IRA might be given the same kudos when they maintained the fight on their own soil, except it's arguable as to what level of support they had from the people living in the territory they were fighting for. (But then were those people (the descendents of) invaders?) But when they plant bombs in UK mainland litter bins, killing a 10 year old boy, that is terrorism.

And any invasion is terrorism depending on your POV, I guess. Personally, I thought the British army should've pulled out Ireland right at the start and let the paddies get on with it. But I guess that may not have been totally popular with some sections of society :Y

Yeah, I do feel there's a difference in some way, if only culturally (between a soldier and a terrorist).

Not sure I buy the 'on their own soil' thing. I think that was (and still is) a logistic matter.

And... Up until and including WWII (and for a short time after) wars were mainly imperialistic/colonial/'political/ideological' whereas now the the greater component of the power struggle is economic (that was always there, but it's gone from secondary to primary). I'm not saying "it's all about oil", just that pretty much all international political endeavours since the 50s have really been about creating a stable international trading environment, with all other concerns (ideological, political, cultural and humanitarian) taking a back seat.

So, yeah, that's a roundabout way of saying that I think attacking overseas economic interests of the aggressor is now pretty much akin to what the French Resistance was doing.

I also agree with Kos' thing, I think part of the 'responsibility' of democracy is that civilians become complicit in state actions.

Except the French Resistance fought on their own sovereign territory. The correct analogy with modern terrorists would've been if the FR had killed German civilians or 'economic interests' in Germany. But they didn't, did they? They attacked (largely) legitimate German military targets on their home soil.

Very different, Andrew, very different.

Nah, my point was that unlike in WWII I don't think there is such a thing as a discrete military target. The military is now the arm of an economic system rather than a political or ideological one. And that that economic system is dispersed across a large portion of the globe.

The invasion wasn't (to begin with) physical, it was cultural and economic. There were no physical targets on home soil to attack, certainly not ones which could be described as purely military.

And attacking overseas economic targets has (in my opinion) the same logistic and strategic effect (in context) as did the resistance attacks on german military targets in WWII (I disagree that the resistance's targets were predominantly military, but that's beside the point).

I think taking their very different contexts into account the practises are comparable.

Armies have a long and proud history of fighting for economic reasons. Personally, I cannot be arsed with an in-depth search of the historical record, but off the top of my head: conquistadors, Lebensraum, the Raj, Nazi gold.

Pretty much all exploration has had, at its roots, the search for lucre at its core. And where's there's lucre there's fighting. And when the lucre and fighting get serious enough there's armies.

Now the fighting is over black gold (or the fight against terrorism, which is less economic perhaps and more ideological). But before that is was gold gold, spices, whatever.

Yes, armies will fight over ideology and politics also, but to divorce those from economics is, in many/most cases, naive. Sorry, I said it!