I can understand those opinions.
But to me its quite simple, there is war and there is peace.
I take the view, that humanity is inherently corrupt and violent, and trying to deny this fact is only serving to prolong suffering and create unrest.
Life is survival, diplomacy is an attempt in keeping the situation peaceful. But as a Marine once said "Diplomacy is saying nice doggy until a recon sniper gets the range".
Sometimes humans are inherently corrupt and violent - but not always. As far as I can tell, the violence and hatred that you see in war only rears its ugly head when confronted with people who are portrayed as being evil, or as deserving to die because of who they are/what they do/what they think. It's easy to see your enemy as nothing more than a target to be eliminated, but at the end of the day he/she is just as human as you are. IMO the more people come to realise that, the less violence and war there'll be.
And I'd interested to hear that marine's views on war as a whole.
Wars will be fought, no war is winnable, but the aim is to lose the least. I have shaken hands with guys who have lost limbs, Ive known people who have been blown to hell and back by an IED in that hellhole of a desert and its been my family going out into harms way for almost 150 years.
Its clear to me that in a war of ideaology, whether it be religion or political difference, or the simplest which has motivated all wars... independence and freedom. The war will be endless until the destruction of the capability to fight, or the annhilation of the populace of one of the protagonists.
Wars are generally waged by a small minority of the population. Look at Afghanistan. Al Qaeda/the Taliban represent a tiny number of people, and the vast majority of the Afghans are just regular civilians who probably want to be left alone to go about their daily lives. So let's say you go and annihilate all Afghans - sure, the Taliban are gone (well most of them would probably have snuck into Pakistan, but that's a different issue). You've now made yourself a mass murderer. And in doing so, you will probably have pissed off regular people from all around the world so much that they'll start coming and shooting at you. What do you do next, blow them up too? In conclusion, annihilating a population does nobody any good.
On Iraq and insurgency, the local populace is not what I was driving at. I was talking about strictly military considerations. The VC, laid traps, ambushes, operated at night, used human shields, booby trapped war dead, used civillian's as weapons traffickers and so forth. The US did its fair share of nasty stuff too, but my point is, they couldnt level a town or carpet bomb Hanoi (rough examples) because the Russians, and the people at home and all other political and "Rules" wouldnt like it. Many Americans and Australians for that matter lost their lives because of these decisions. And even in Iraq, its a repeat, no action can be taken to fight insurgency when the insurgency is the local populace we are trying to help, as well as the fact the rules and opinions prevent us from fighting it anyway.
Either you have those rules and maybe a few more soldiers lose their lives, or you don't have them, and maybe a few, maybe a lot more innocent civilians like you and me lose theirs. And then the families of those civilians may then decide to never support you. I honestly don't understand what you're trying to argue here.
Now I do not pretend to know EVERYTHING about it, but it occurs to me that if America wants to fight wars on principle, it should at least fight on invitation. If it does WITHOUT invitation, then it should fight to win, with no rules.
Thats all I have to say really.
This war is being fought with invitation.
If there were no invitation, why would that mean there should be no ROE?
