Re: war and murder

Submitted by Bader S (United Arab Emirates), Mar 17, 2006 at 17:45

Thank you for the definitions and your compliments.

Who decides what is lawful and what is unlawful? Do you think that the parents of those 20,000 children that were killed by the Christian Orthodox Russians in the Chechen war considered their murder to be lawful because it happened during a war?

Perhaps the Chechen fighters who murdered the 300 kids in Baslan considered their actions to be just as lawful as the actions of the Russians in Chechnya? In their eyes they were fighting a war, and for them holding kids hostage might be part of their fighting tactics.

Did the US not bomb population centers in some of its recent wars? Was that lawful, or was it, according to Geneva conventions, unlawful?
Attacking and bombing civilian population were intentional in some cases.(http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june03/iraq_06-19.html)
Was that lawful ? No it was not.

America thinks its attack on Iraq was lawful, the Iraqi insurgency doesn't think it is lawful (nor does the UN for that matter). So who is right? Does might make you right? Does arrogance make you right? Does wealth make you right? Or is it always "we" are right and "they" are wrong?

Again, thank you for your definitions.

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