| Angelo DePalma 2005-08-06, 3:31 am |
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By your definition everyone who wages war is a war criminal, even if the war
is in self-defense. The only way you can win a war, even a just war of
self-defense, is to kill a shitload of people, and not just combatants.
I'm sure you were in favor of WWII because we were fighting the "fascists."
We could never have occupied Germany and Japan without killing hundreds of
thousands of their civilians beforehand. Had we conducted that war as
aseptically (and stupidly, in my opionion) as we're doing now in Iraq we'd
have reaped the same bitter harvest of insurgency, guerilla warfare, with no
end in sight.
If the war in Iraq is a just war, if it's a moral war (and I don't believe
it is, but not for the same reasons as you) then the only way to win it is
to carpet bomb the motherXXXXers, as we did to Hamburg, Hiroshima, Dresden,
etc. Overwhelming force and unconditional surrender are the only ways to
win. Except for a few guerilla wars I can hardly think of a single
significant, successful campaign, just or unjust, that was not conducted in
that manner.
Historically we have given politicians considerable leeway in waging war
before resorting to the term "war criminal."
Your hero, Joseph Stalin, is supposed to have remarked that one death is a
tragedy, a million deaths is but a statistic.
<mike.goodall@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1123258760.289736.288200@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
quote:
> Gambit,
> I'll accept your correction from war criminal to war mongerer, though
> war criminal is stronger. 'War criminal' is usually applied to people
> who do heinous things under cover of war. A stronger term is needed
> for people who actually go out and start the whole bloody war. That's
> mass murder.
>
> I've explained my London bombing remark ad nauseam. I'll admit I'm a
> bit provocative on this forum. I'm trying to put a twist in the tights
> of all the right-wing readers out there.
>
> I leave in a few minutes for Phoenix. I'll be gone for nearly two
> weeks. That's an eternity on the newsgroup. I'm sure this thread will
> have dropped off the page by then. If anybody has any remarks for me
> please save them till I get back-thanks.
>
> Mike
>
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