posted by A Karenina
'm not sure if you're implying that by only promising, not actually signing, they are somehow exempt? I'm just asking - I know it's phrased badly, and may appear aggressive on the first read
I was just being pedantic, they never formally agreed to abide by the conventions so it's a bit unfair to condemn them for not abiding by conventions they never subscribed to. They also had concentration camps where they tested biological weapons on chinese prisoners.
There have always been "conventions of warfare" throughout history and condemnation of those who violated them bearing in mond history is often written by the winners Warfare brings out the best and the worst in humanity there were despicable acts on both sides that are easy to condemn from the safe distance of 60 years.
In Germany the British were destroying cities with deliberately created firestorms an act that is condemned now but at the time I doubt you would have found many of the ordinary British people had much sympathy for the civilians being deliberately targeted. If we (the British that is) had had nuclear weapons and the Germans did not do you really think we would have hesitated for very long to use them? We didn't use chemical weapons because germany had their own, one of the first things Churchill did was to warn hitler that if he used them we would, Hitler was gassed in ww1 and knew we were more advanced in the field than they. Total war is just that, total war.
posted by a karenina
Please don't take that as me being ultra-sensitive to attacks on my country. It's not the case.
I didn't think you were referring to exclusively american pow's since the majority were probably british or australian. The link was because it it relevant to the current war in Iraq and the policies being adopted towards terrorist suspects. It's relevant. It's kind of hard to talk about this without the US coming in to it somewhere so ignore any feeling anything i say is specifically anti american. In truth I care more about what we are up to than the US
In the UK there is a debate raging because the high court has told the government that it is illegal to hold foreign nationals indefinitely without trial. Our govt is responding by moving to extend the legislation to UK nationals so they can be held indefinitely without trial. It is a fundamental basis of our freedom that you cannot be arrested and held on suspicion alone. We were the first country in the world to have a habeus corpus act passed primarily to control the power of the king to arrest who he liked. king/government the principle is the same if you want to live in a free country then it is open to abuse, that does not mean you should allow yourself to become less free. If you allow one person to be arrested because you think suspect they may be plotting to bring down the government where do you draw a line? You can attend a meeting of a militant group before you appreciate their true nature, does that make you a terrorist? They are also tryimgb to bring in ID cards and other daft ideas that will do nothing to diminish the threat. They haven't gone as far as to say it is K to torture prisoners I would like to think that is because the resulting condemnation would embarass even them, on the other hand they are not openly criticising the americans about guantanemo.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/sto ... 51,00.html
you said it beautifully
Just as bad?...If we compare our goodness or badness to any other country/person/set of values than our own, then we've already lost. Here's where I get my hard edges...We either believe in the intent of the Geneva convention - to treat prisoners humanely - or we don't. It doesn't matter what our enemy does. We need to judge ourselves based on what we do.
I feel that the question is not "are we just as bad?" but more along of the lines of "Are we behaving according to our values?"
It's a moral dilema we present to our soldiers in Iraq, if they get it wrong they are condemned out of hand. On the other hand is you have a leadership that says it is OK not to respect the rights of these people then is there not tacit condoning of their actions? At the Nuremburg trials the precedent was established that it was not a defence to claim you were following orders and that each indivudual was culpable for his or her actions.
So the abuse at abu grahb (can't remember the spelling) was it a few individuals that should have known better or were they part of a culture that condoned what they did and the mistake was in taking pictures, that rather suggests they saw nothing wrong in what they did and did not expect censure from higher command.
posted by der wulf
Assume that the none of the competing ideals is absolutely and exclusively "right", and that either is capable of producing a technically satisfactory, but for some of the individuals, culturally untenable result.
Each faction within the group will have it's own strengths, skills, and ideas. A negotiated settlement that accomadates fundamentally different and often incongruous elements is usually deemed to be socially progressive, and politically correct. The sad truth however is that the net result often serves to dilute rather than enhance the group's ability's.
A better solution often, is to carefully define the group's ultimate objective [in this case survival] by the will of the majority, then carefully, unemotionaly, examine the alternatives. Making the final decision in a dispassionate, intellectual manner.
It's an age old question but what would you do in those circumstances in order to survive.
What if your survival depended on getting away-escaping-but you knew that you doing so would mean sanctions being taken against those that were left (I.E. some would be executed which was the case) but staying would mean your death, what would you do? Thankfully I never have and hopefully never will have to find an answer because in truth I don't know what I would do, I think i would incline towards getting out
I tend to wonder off topic a bit but a blast from the past, brief autobiography of Bomber Harris, thought this quote might be of interest.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ai ... harris.htm
When World War One started in August 1914, Harris joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment. He fought against the Germans in German South West Africa but returned to Britain in 1915 where he joined the Royal Flying Corps. In 1916, Harris qualified as a fighter pilot and joined 44 Squadron in France. It is said that what he witnessed in France - the futility of trench warfare - shaped his views on aerial bombing in future years. Before the war had ended, he had taken control of 44 Squadron. In 1919, Harris became a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force. In this capacity, he served throughout the British Empire (India, Iraq, Iran and the Middle East) during the 1920's and the early 1930's. During this time, the RAF used bombing raids against tribes people in Iraq who had rebelled against British rule. Some of these raids included the use of poison gas and delayed action bombs. Some in the RAF were appalled by this (Air Commodore Lionel Charlton resigned his commission regarding this) but Harris said:
"The only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand."
The more things change the more they stay the same.
