| From: | sp@*****.gr (Stefanos Patelis) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [OT] Re: Sniper rifles (Was: Re: The new SR4 map (removed spoilers)) |
| Date: | Mon, 22 Aug 2005 12:01:06 +0300 |
"The gentleman's agreement" concept is probably what comes as close to
having rules in war as possible...After that it looses any stability and
coherence. I mean frankly where do you draw the line in what is allowed
and not? Can you judge whether it is immoral for your enemy to hide
behind human shields when you are falsely invading their country in an
action that will probably kill even more innocents? How do you justify
millions of innocent life's lost on revenge attacks claimming to avenge
their side's looses? How do you call torturing a prisoner of war wrong
when that same person could have easily pillaged, tortured and raped
women and children?
The need for some unspoken rules is there...That I admit. But what does
that get you? I would not consider war the travesty of what the Enlgish
and French forces used to fight (no offense to native's of those
countries - I can't remember the era name for those pre-Nappoleonean
wars), where officers would arrange how many steps and barrages each
side would take and war was just like playing stratego or chess but with
real life pawn's that did bleed and die for you....
It would be nice to do away with war altogether and sort differences
playing an actual game of chess,quake (or even shadowrun ;-) ) but that
ain't gonna happen; and neither is having a solid rulesystem (even just
for the ethical part of things) that will organise how war is executed.
The human psyche is torn and adrenaline will always take control and
once you set loose a mob with weapons upon another all hell will break
loose whether you like it or not. My military carreer has taken me
through some spots of "modern" results of war and carefully filtered and
dilluted news casts can easily hint at the dark side of war going on
around the world even now. Being Greek earns me the unwanted privilage
of having granparents and close relatives who can easily reccount those
nasties of war and their after effects and I am sure there are people
around in this list who have seen worse things than I have in my 30
years of life. I am pretty sure that most of them will agree:
War is the culmination of man's wildest instincts; whether you are
defending or attacking. To expect from a man who has a weapon thrust in
to his hands and sent into a situation where it is "Kill or be Killed"
to abide by a code of laws is naive...
Allen Versfeld wrote:
>On 8/22/05, snicker@*********.net <snicker@*********.net> wrote:
>
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>>Wounded men got shot again for good measure. Don't think that's approved, but
>>then why there are "rules" for war has always baffled me. Seems like
the only
>>rule in war is "don't be on the losing side."
>>
>>
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>>Snicker
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>
>The 'rules' are, like most international treaties, a sort of
>Gentleman's Agreement - "I won't kick you in the nuts if you don't
>kick me in the nuts". It's kind of like a bar-fight where everybody
>could potentially grab a bottle and arm themselves (or pull a knife,
>or a gun, or...), but nobody does because that raises the stakes from
>'broken nose' to 'cut throat'.
>
>The real reason you stick to the geneva convention and don't torture
>your POW's to death is because if you DO, then your enemy will do the
>same to theirs in retaliation.
>
>It's analogous to the old Mutually Assured Destruction idea: The
>reason neither side launched nukes in the cold war was because the
>enemy would have launched their own in retaliation, and then everybody
>loses.
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