World inaction on Sudan crisis

[kyleb]

you are argueing a straw man there, studentx. in such situations there are no gaurenties at all; but, that does nothing to preclude us from makeing plans which exclude firbombing jungles full of natives with tons of napalm or fireing heavy ordenice into populated areas.

 

[russ_watters]

you are argueing a straw man there, studentx. in such situations there are no gaurenties at all; but, that does nothing to preclude us from makeing plans which exclude firbombing jungles full of natives with tons of napalm or fireing heavy ordenice into populated areas.

Can you name for me a war in which there were no civilian casualties? Conversely, has there ever been a war that has been just (from any side) despite civilian casualties?

lol Russ that is rich; you tell me that "life is far more complicated than you are willing to accept", yet you are the one who keeps comeing back to the highly oversimplified sit on your hands or kill innocent people arguemnt. it seems to me that you are the one who is failing to respect the complexity of life, and have yet to understand that the simple solution and the right one are often two very separate things.

That really makes no sense at all. Are you saying you consider war to be simple? Simpler even than your position of doing nothing? Or are you assuming that its a simple thing for war to be conducted with no civilian casualties? Its simple to make unrealistic assumptions rather than consider the complexities of the problem.

And again - what could be simpler than refusing to do anything at all (such as answer a question), as you continue to do.

you are argueing a straw man there, studentx. in such situations there are no gaurenties at all; but, that does nothing to preclude us from makeing plans which exclude firbombing jungles full of natives with tons of napalm or fireing heavy ordenice into populated areas.

Actually, now you're making a straw man of our own argument. Now you seem to admit that there are situations where you can't be guaranteed not to kill any civilians, whereas before you said one was unacceptable, and at the same time you are using as your example tactics that aren't used anymore or are so nebulous as to be meaningless.

 

[studentx]

you are argueing a straw man there, studentx. in such situations there are no gaurenties at all; but, that does nothing to preclude us from makeing plans which exclude firbombing jungles full of natives with tons of napalm or fireing heavy ordenice into populated areas.

Imagine you come up with the most brilliant plan to end a war Kyleb. A plan which has zero innocent casualties. Unfortunately the probability of the plan being realistic is also zero. Many many people are killed by accident. The perfect plan with zero innocent casualties is a plan which excludes accidents and human error

 

[kyleb]

you should maybe reread what i wrote as you don't seem to understand what i am saying. my comments are not directed at accidents.

 

[studentx]

I know you weren't talking about accidents and human error, that why i pointed you to the fact that they do indeed happen. Which points to the flaw in your perfect plan: it doesn't take accidents into account. Warcrimes are often accidents of human error. The killing of a hostage when trying to free them is not deliberate; the plan always is to kill zero hostages, but plans don't hold up to reality. Some plans predict the loss of innocent life(collateral damage). Other plans which don't predict the collateral damage (in other words they plan zero loss of innocent life, a seemingly perfect plan) will kill just as many, if not more, when executed.

So, once you have found the perfect solution for a problem and execute it, there is no guarantee it works. In war, waiting for this guarantee is sitting on your hands.

 

[kyleb]

I know you weren't talking about accidents and human error, that why i pointed you to the fact that they do indeed happen.

oh, golly jeepers wally, thanks for pointing that out.

man, i think i'd rather beat my head against a brick wall than bother trying any longer to have a rational conversation with you. fortunatly i don't have to do either.

 

[member 5645]

atleast there is SOME action.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3875277.stm