Is it permissable to kill more civilians than enemy soldiers in a war?

[Bandit]

What do the rules of warfare have to say about ratio of civilian deaths to enemy soldier deaths? Has Bush* killed more Iraqi civilians than Iraqi soldiers? I think the world needs to issue a statement about the needless killing of civilians in this war for oil. This is possibly the worst thing America has done since dropping the bomb on the civilian cities of Nagisaki and Hiroshima. I suppose bombing North Vietnam was comparable but I don't know for sure because the Vietnamese people had bomb shel;ters and were fairly prepared.

[wtmusic]

1. Psst

The civilians are the enemy soldiers. Pass it on.

[dmkinsey]

5. You've nailed it

This administration doesn't recognize any authority higher than themselves. Hence they don't respect the Geneva Convention or the normal rules of conflict. "Sept 11 changed everything" y'know.
They also don't acknowledge the existence of an organism called "innocent Iraqi". Therefore they absolve themselves of all concern for Iraqi civilians.

[Failure]

2. in this case, I don't think the soldiers even know who the

enemy is. I mean, they don't have on uniforms, and they're all probably so shell-shocked they'll shoot anything that moves.

eom


failure.

[coloradodem2005]

3. As someone has said...

...even in war there are rules. You don't kill civilians indiscriminantly.

[Vladimir]

4. The rules of war

are nowhere near that quantitative as to stipulate ratios... I suggest reading Michael Walzer's excellent book Just and Unjust Wars as a good primer on questions of leagality during war.

[bryant69]

6. Without hard numbers its hard to judge

And as others have mentioned how do you define an Iraqi Soldier/Civilian.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Jacobin]

7. Only if its just one more.

/sarcasm off

wtf is this post all about?

In all out war, all sides kill and blow up as many of the other side as they can. The U.S. firebombed Dresden and killed 100,000 german civilians in one day. Check out Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Civilian targets.

Which is why a country should NEVER EVER go to war unless they have been attacked and their survival is at stake. War is godawful bloody horrid hell to be avoided at ALL costs.

These neat little "limited war" thingies the repukes love so much are all doomed to failure. The Iraqis will NEVER accede to our conquest and occupation of their country, nor will they accept the puppets we appoint to run their country.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. Yes!

War is Hell!

The Dresden Holocaust

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/usgenocide/DresdenHolocaust.html

Another case of Liberating a Dictator's people!

EDIT I do not agree with some or most of the things on this website, but the story of Dresden Germany should be looked at!

[IrateCitizen]

9. It has been since WWII...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that millions more civilians than troops were killed on all sides (except the United States). Russia alone lost over 20 million people.

[Macadian]

10. Correct. More civilians die in all 'modern' wars.

WW II, Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia (Khmer Rouge), Middle-East, Ireland, Sudan, Rwanda, Liberia.

Only exception I can think of is the Faukland Islands.

[Anjisan]

11. Just FYI

While the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki got all the headlines, the really big fatalities came before that.

March 9-10, 1944, near 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed by dropping napalm on numerous Japanese cities. More than died in the Hiroshima atomic bombing. In the war overall, bombing of Japanese cities might have killed about 337,000, including 165,000 by atomic bombs, the quintessential city and civilian killers. Equally indiscriminate bombing of German cities by the United States and Britain may have killed about 410,000 German civilians.

[wadestock]

12. By making it a WAR, it is legal.....

Don't you all get it.

We started with some semblance of legality...weapons inspections, UN sanctions, etc....

Bush then asked for the "authorization to use force".
That was quickly morphed into "regime change".

Once the bullets started flying it suddently became "operation Iraqi freedom" and a WAR that we were supposed to win, and in winning was everything.

But the ALL OUT WAR which has no regard for civilian casualties was specifically and as scientifically calculated (as well as a lifetime alcoholic and a bunch of Ronald Reagan inspired henchmen could possibly compute at the time) to get Saddam's head. That's exactly what this war was about....getting his head on a platter.

The WAR part of it was an excuse to bomb the chit out of anything, destroy the army, etc, in order to achieve that end.

All the crap about a reconstructed Iraq and bringing democracy and stability to the region was a very ill conceived afterthought.

The regime has been changed (defined as Saddam captured) and the Iraqi's certainly don't want us there. Take any poll you want. They knew us from the first go around and the 50,000 that were killed in that war. They know us from years of sanctions, hardship, and a history of playing both sides.

Without a doubt, based on those dead and every other possible analysis of the situation, they would want us out.

Ironically, those who have made these unwise decisions have done them most probably on a scale of "US threshold of pain" meter to see what they can pull off. They use vietnam and Desert Storm as probable indicators.

from http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/

In June 1991, the U.S. estimated that more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers died, 300,000 were wounded, 150,000 deserted and 60,000 were taken prisoner. Many human rights groups claimed a much higher number of Iraqis were killed in action. According to Baghdad, civilian casualties numbered more than 35,000.

The first war, Desert Storm, was an all out slaughter.
This war, is an abomination.