Up to 85 civilians killed by mistake

unseenfootage · 29-07-2016 10:12PM

Gatling wrote: »

The French government where asked by the Malian government to send troops to help fight Islamists in the north of the country.

How is been invited by a government not respecting borders,

You haven't thought this through

Hold your horses.
It was a question, silly.

Did France respect any borders when it delivered weapons to the Syrian Rebels in 2014 and when it started operations against ISIS in Syria in 2015?

Timberrrrrrrr · 29-07-2016 10:28PM

unseenfootage wrote: »

Hold your horses.
It was a question, silly.

Did France respect any borders when it delivered weapons to the Syrian Rebels in 2014 and when it started operations against ISIS in Syria in 2015?

And indeed do THE US respect borders when they murder people in Pakistan and Yemen?

unseenfootage · 29-07-2016 10:36PM

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

And indeed do THE US respect borders when they murder people in Pakistan and Yemen?

Chomsky says US #1 Terrorist State in the World.

http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-america-worlds-leading-1-terrorist-state
..............
Washington has also emerged as the world champion in generating terror. Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar warns of the "resentment-generating impact of the U.S. strikes" in Syria, which may further induce the jihadi organizations Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State toward "repairing their breach from last year and campaigning in tandem against the U.S. intervention by portraying it as a war against Islam."

That is by now a familiar consequence of U.S. operations that have helped to spread jihadism from a corner of Afghanistan to a large part of the world.

Jihadism's most fearsome current manifestation is the Islamic State, or ISIS, which has established its murderous caliphate in large areas of Iraq and Syria.

"I think the United States is one of the key creators of this organization," reports former CIA analyst Graham Fuller, a prominent commentator on the region. "The United States did not plan the formation of ISIS," he adds, "but its destructive interventions in the Middle East and the War in Iraq were the basic causes of the birth of ISIS."........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRbnPA3fd5U

Gatling · 29-07-2016 10:42PM

unseenfootage wrote: »

Hold your horses.
It was a question, silly.

Did France respect any borders

JCB time .

rjpf1980 · 29-07-2016 10:58PM

Skylinehead wrote: »

Of course blood is on ISs hands, that's obvious. Doesn't absolve the US of recklessness though. If someone takes hostages, you don't shoot through the hostages to kill them.

If there is no other way to take out terrorists who threaten many more lives than just the hostages then yes you do! If Islamic terrorists hijacked planes full of passengers to crash them into skyscrapers we would obviously shoot them down to save thousands more people on the ground. If terrorists took over a university campus and held hundreds or thousands of hostages we would have to assault the campus and fight it out and if hostages were killed it would be just too bad. We cannot give into blackmail. To overthrow Islamic State means civilians will die as a consequence of military action when ground forces supported by aircraft eventually roll into Raqqa

Decent Skin · 29-07-2016 11:44PM

RustyNut wrote: »

Whats your definition of a terrorist?

Depends, apparently. on what you're trying to hide / condone:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/19/assange-high-tech-terrorist-biden

BalcombeSt4 · 30-07-2016 01:56AM

whisky_galore wrote: »

'Neutrality' is a fig leaf and a nonsense that has been trotted out for years.
We don't participate overtly but no way are we truly neutral.

In the eyes of IS and fellow travellers, we are a 'Crusader' (sic) country.

Our saving grace is that we're on the fringes of Europe and we don't have ghettos of disenfranchised people like the uk, France and elsewhere.

Well this is all just based on nothing.

wakka12 · 30-07-2016 02:59PM

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

And when some young Muslim outraged at this committs another Nice or Paris like attack then he will be labeled a terrorist.

And rightly so, because he would be a terrorist. The motive for the attack, justified or not does not make it any less of a terrorist attack

Timberrrrrrrr · 30-07-2016 03:09PM

wakka12 wrote: »

And rightly so, because he would be a terrorist. The motive for the attack, justified or not does not make it any less of a terrorist attack

And blowing up a hospital full of doctors, nurses and innocent civilians with a he'll fire missile (justified or not) doesn't make it less of a war crime but seemingly all the US military have to say is TERRORISTS! !!! and people like yourself think it's fine.

wakka12 · 30-07-2016 03:17PM

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

And blowing up a hospital full of doctors, nurses and innocent civilians with a he'll fire missile (justified or not) doesn't make it less of a war crime but seemingly all the US military have to say is TERRORISTS! !!! and people like yourself think it's fine.

Did I ever say it was fine ?no, But that other poster was somehow claiming that a man shooting civilians in france, who have no say in the government actions in syria, isn't a terrorist attack. What happened was tragic and I hope that whoever was responsible is charged the same way any muslim terrorst in europe is charged. But this is no justification whats so ever for shooting innocent french,american, british people

Timberrrrrrrr · 30-07-2016 03:27PM

wakka12 wrote: »

Did I ever say it was fine ?no, But that other poster was somehow claiming that a man shooting civilians in france, who have no say in the government actions in syria, isn't a terrorist attack. What happened was tragic and I hope that whoever was responsible is charged the same way any muslim terrorst in europe is charged. But this is no justification whats so ever for shooting innocent french,american, british people

And shooting civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and other countries who have no say in things is also imo a terrorist attack.

There is no justification for murdering innocent civilians anywhere!

Decent Skin · 30-07-2016 03:28PM

wakka12 wrote: »

Did I ever say it was fine ?no, But that other poster was somehow claiming that a man shooting civilians in france, who have no say in the government actions in syria, isn't a terrorist attack. What happened was tragic and I hope that whoever was responsible is charged the same way any muslim terrorst in europe is charged. But this is no justification whats so ever for shooting innocent french,american, british people

It's not. If someone murdered your brother and you retaliated and murdered theirs, both are still murders, and both are unjustified.

However it does put context on the second, and it also highlights the double-standards, since you yourself pointed out that "justified or not it was still a terrorist attack", which is a phrase that could - and should - be applied to both; not the passive "tragic", but the active "despicable", combined with "we must ensure that it NEVER, EVER happens again just because someone thinks it okay to murder innocent to further their cause.

As Timberr pointed out, your phrasing in the last line was curious; there is NEVER a justification for murdering ANY innocent people. Period.

Manic Moran · 30-07-2016 06:05PM

wakka12 wrote: »

And rightly so, because he would be a terrorist. The motive for the attack, justified or not does not make it any less of a terrorist attack

Umm.. Yes it does. Though there is no set accepted definition for terrorism in international law, the legal definition in the US is pretty good and shares characteristics with most international attempts at defining it. "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives"

It is the motive which differentiates terrorism from "common" crime.

Decent Skin · 30-07-2016 06:17PM

Manic Moran wrote: »

Umm.. Yes it does. Though there is no set accepted definition for terrorism in international law, the legal definition in the US is pretty good and shares characteristics with most international attempts at defining it. "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives"

It is the motive which differentiates terrorism from "common" crime.

By that definition the illegal invasion of Iraq to depose Hussein qualifies as terrorism.

Manic Moran · 30-07-2016 07:56PM

Depends on how one wishes to define 'illegal'. One of the 'rights' of a sovereign nation reserved to itself is the right to make war.

The international community's description is fickle. As this paper observes (which concludes that the US's position was not persuasive) http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1898&context=faculty_publications , " Indeed, some of the states most vocally opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq on grounds of lack of Security Council authorization, had no difficulty four years earlier in attacking Serbia solely on NATO authorization." The same paper does observe also, for example, that it wasn't only the countries which partook in the invasion who believed it was lawful. Take the case of Spain, which was on the security council at the time, declined to partake in the invasion, but did consider it lawful.

I'll also quote a US Naval War College paper:
"When several leading international law professors were asked by a British newspaper, Was the 2003 Iraq war legal? their responses were illustrative. Professor Malcom Shaw replied: [O]n the basis of the intelligence we had at the time and the publicly available knowledge, there was a credible and reasonable argument in favor of the legality of the war. Professor Christine Chinkin answered no because she believed UN Security Council Resolution 1441 preserved for the Security Council the decision on enforcement action. Professor Sir Adam Roberts replied: There was in principle a possible case for the lawfulness of resort to war by the US and its small coalition. Professor James Crawford answered simply: It comes down to a political judgment. Unfortunately this author thinks Professor Crawford s statement is quite accurate, as it reflects the truism that law and policy are mutually affecting; nowhere is the interrelationship between law and policy more evident than in the jus ad bellum.

Decent Skin · 30-07-2016 08:06PM

Manic Moran wrote: »

Depends on how one wishes to define 'illegal'. One of the 'rights' of a sovereign nation reserved to itself is the right to make war.

The international community's description is fickle. As this paper observes (which concludes that the US's position was not persuasive) http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1898&context=faculty_publications , " Indeed, some of the states most vocally opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq on grounds of lack of Security Council authorization, had no difficulty four years earlier in attacking Serbia solely on NATO authorization." The same paper does observe also, for example, that it wasn't only the countries which partook in the invasion who believed it was lawful. Take the case of Spain, which was on the security council at the time, declined to partake in the invasion, but did consider it lawful.

I'll also quote a US Naval War College paper:
"When several leading international law professors were asked by a British newspaper, Was the 2003 Iraq war legal? their responses were illustrative. Professor Malcom Shaw replied: [O]n the basis of the intelligence we had at the time and the publicly available knowledge, there was a credible and reasonable argument in favor of the legality of the war. Professor Christine Chinkin answered no because she believed UN Security Council Resolution 1441 preserved for the Security Council the decision on enforcement action. Professor Sir Adam Roberts replied: There was in principle a possible case for the lawfulness of resort to war by the US and its small coalition. Professor James Crawford answered simply: It comes down to a political judgment. Unfortunately this author thinks Professor Crawford s statement is quite accurate, as it reflects the truism that law and policy are mutually affecting; nowhere is the interrelationship between law and policy more evident than in the jus ad bellum.

In fairness that's hardly an unbiased paper ?

A Dub in Glasgo · 30-07-2016 08:11PM

Warmongers will always say wars are just and legal

Manic Moran · 31-07-2016 05:27AM

Decent Skin wrote: »

Manic Moran wrote: »

Depends on how one wishes to define 'illegal'. One of the 'rights' of a sovereign nation reserved to itself is the right to make war.

The international community's description is fickle. As this paper observes (which concludes that the US's position was not persuasive) http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1898&context=faculty_publications , " Indeed, some of the states most vocally opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq on grounds of lack of Security Council authorization, had no difficulty four years earlier in attacking Serbia solely on NATO authorization." The same paper does observe also, for example, that it wasn't only the countries which partook in the invasion who believed it was lawful. Take the case of Spain, which was on the security council at the time, declined to partake in the invasion, but did consider it lawful.

I'll also quote a US Naval War College paper:
"When several leading international law professors were asked by a British newspaper, Was the 2003 Iraq war legal? their responses were illustrative. Professor Malcom Shaw replied: [O]n the basis of the intelligence we had at the time and the publicly available knowledge, there was a credible and reasonable argument in favor of the legality of the war. Professor Christine Chinkin answered no because she believed UN Security Council Resolution 1441 preserved for the Security Council the decision on enforcement action. Professor Sir Adam Roberts replied: There was in principle a possible case for the lawfulness of resort to war by the US and its small coalition. Professor James Crawford answered simply: It comes down to a political judgment. Unfortunately this author thinks Professor Crawford s statement is quite accurate, as it reflects the truism that law and policy are mutually affecting; nowhere is the interrelationship between law and policy more evident than in the jus ad bellum.

In fairness that's hardly an unbiased paper ?

Depends on how much you trust academia, especially an institution whose focus is directly on subject. If you're curious, the paper wasn't convinced of the legality either. This one, though, was a bit more charitable. Both make good arguments. In fact, there's a whole slew of papers on the matter, not necessarily agreeing with each other, in just the same manner as the professors the British newspaper asked did not agree with each other. Complicated legal issues are never cut and dry, ever noticed how there is usually a dissent or two on the Supreme Court for most any country? It's not that the judges are idiots, they're just intelligent folks having a difference of opinion.

Up to 85 civilians killed by mistake

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