Condemning something you believe to be inevitable is a rather pointless exercise in my opinion. It may not be wrong but it’s not exactly useful either unless you believe it can be avoided, in which case it is no longer inevitable.
In any case, you’re speaking from a UN perspective and I’m speaking from the perspective of individuals. The way we speak of war as if it’s something that can be noble so long as the enemy “deserves” it. Nevermind the fact that your enemy thinks the same of you. We’re fine with dehumanizing and killing large groups of men but women and children is a step too far. It’s perfectly acceptable to bomb a factory full of workers but not a hospital. The concept of innocence in war presupposes that those who participate in it are not worthy of the same consideration as those who do not, despite the fact that in many cases a small group of people directed the actions of everyone else equally. Maybe that’s a valid point but it does seem to clash with Western ideals of equality and judicial review.
Woah dude, you’re putting a lot of words in my mouth.
It may not be wrong but but it’s not exactly useful unless you can believe it can be avoided
There’s no metric saying that war crimes weren’t avoided by condemning them.
Also, we don’t use mustard gas anymore. We don’t use zyclon d. Or agent orange. There are plenty of tools of war we don’t utilize anymore because we condemn them as war crimes, even if there’s no actual, tangible punishment for utilizing them.
There’s plenty of evidence for the effectiveness of just calling those things war crimes and condemning them.
Are you going to say that you prefer a world where we didn’t condemn and phase out more brutalistic forms of warfare in the name of alleviating hypocrisy? Because grandstanding about how not all war crimes, or war, can be averted, is advocating for a world that’s much worse off for the lack of restraint.
Edit: I’m not deaf to your point that the individual participants of war are no more deserving of death than anyone else. But is preventing some death in the name of sparing women and children morally the same as just letting everyone be killed for a concept of equality and justice?
Condemning something you believe to be inevitable is a rather pointless exercise in my opinion. It may not be wrong but it’s not exactly useful either unless you believe it can be avoided, in which case it is no longer inevitable.
In any case, you’re speaking from a UN perspective and I’m speaking from the perspective of individuals. The way we speak of war as if it’s something that can be noble so long as the enemy “deserves” it. Nevermind the fact that your enemy thinks the same of you. We’re fine with dehumanizing and killing large groups of men but women and children is a step too far. It’s perfectly acceptable to bomb a factory full of workers but not a hospital. The concept of innocence in war presupposes that those who participate in it are not worthy of the same consideration as those who do not, despite the fact that in many cases a small group of people directed the actions of everyone else equally. Maybe that’s a valid point but it does seem to clash with Western ideals of equality and judicial review.
Woah dude, you’re putting a lot of words in my mouth.
There’s no metric saying that war crimes weren’t avoided by condemning them.
Also, we don’t use mustard gas anymore. We don’t use zyclon d. Or agent orange. There are plenty of tools of war we don’t utilize anymore because we condemn them as war crimes, even if there’s no actual, tangible punishment for utilizing them.
There’s plenty of evidence for the effectiveness of just calling those things war crimes and condemning them.
Are you going to say that you prefer a world where we didn’t condemn and phase out more brutalistic forms of warfare in the name of alleviating hypocrisy? Because grandstanding about how not all war crimes, or war, can be averted, is advocating for a world that’s much worse off for the lack of restraint.
Edit: I’m not deaf to your point that the individual participants of war are no more deserving of death than anyone else. But is preventing some death in the name of sparing women and children morally the same as just letting everyone be killed for a concept of equality and justice?