Quote:
Originally Posted by cmac2012
More hair splitting. Whether the Geneva Conventions existed or not in 1776 has nothing to do with natural human inclinations under such circumstances.
I'm not asking anyone to excuse any enemy, just to note what is likely to happen under long established norms of human behavior. If you were a poor farmer and some foreign force invaded and your neighbors were clamoring for a force to oppose them, and tomorrow if not today, I seriously doubt you'd say, "Oh but wait neighbors, we must first sew uniforms so that we will abide by their rules of warfare."
These characters are not the well developed societies of Germany and Japan circa 1938.
Behaving in such a way as to insure a centuries long animosity from people for whom vengeance is like mother's milk is likely to result in "a higher likelihood of dead American soldiers." Doesn't sound preferable to me.
You apparently think we can insure peaceful compliance with force alone. I do not.
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Go reread the line of argument that you attempted to advance in which you excused the bloody murder of whomever the Al Qaedistas could capture because the American colonies behaved in the same fashion against the English soldiers during the Revolutionary War for Independence.
Ignoring the part about Washington's men behaving in a similar fashion to Bin Laden's (I don't recall the precise number of civilians that Washington tortured, I expect you must have the figures or you wouldn't have advanced such a specious argument), you opined that they colonies didn't follow the Geneva Conventions. Well no shirt, Sherlock, there wasn't any Geneva Conventions back then. Asking them to abide by that which wouldn't exist for another 50 years (in it's early form) is a high bar, indeed.
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10-23-2007, 07:23 PM
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