A Controversial Idea: War and civillians

Kytro · 07-29-2006, 10:51 PM

The idea of killing civillians as an morally wrong in war is a reasonably new one, and it causes a great deal of claims and counter claims about what exactly consititutes a civllian, and how many of them can be killed befre it become unreasonable.

The scaredness of the civillians seems to be derived from the idea they are innocent. Of course this isn't strictly true. They have an opinion about those they are in conflcit with, and more often they not they support thier "side"

Each side demonises the other, and the tatics they use. Those who support any given side believe in it is acting with the best of intentions, while the enemy randomly striks without cause or reason.

Terrorism, a tatic that has been used successfully by nations and other groups for a long period is now considered evil. Mostly due to the fact it can be used by small groups against large groups, something that will not work with conventioal warfare.

Carpet bombing is terrorism, so is pyscops.

Diesel66 · 07-29-2006, 11:07 PM

Originally Posted by Kytro

Carpet bombing is terrorism, so is pyscops.

Not all psyops is terror though. Telling the enemy to surrender or encouraging resistance groups for example

Kytro · 07-30-2006, 12:07 AM

Originally Posted by Diesel66

Not all psyops is terror though. Telling the enemy to surrender or encouraging resistance groups for example

Depends. If they are supposed to scare people into submission, that sounds like terror to me.

Donkey® · 07-30-2006, 12:12 AM

Is the IDF terrorizing the people of Lebanon? Most certainly. Just like Hezbollah is terrorizing the people within 30 miles of the Israeli border.

Kytro · 07-30-2006, 12:18 AM

It is certianly a relevant example.

It is how we label those we don't like. In this day and age, major combat between nations is a little more rare. it's hard to develop a standing army to oppoe one in existance. Hence there are small groups that adopt tatics that work in that environment