SYRIA thread

[rory_20_uk]

As Husar covers:

1. Should there be any standards in international relations? Some standards is demonstrably better than no standards.
2. Are some military technologies set apart from others? It seems pretty clear to me (as well as to a large proportion of the world's politicians over the 20th century) that chemical weapons, for one, are more weapons of terror than weapons of war, and so more like mines designed to maim than a simple shard of metal to the neck.

A key phrase in international laws is "superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering".

Thermobaric weapons are probably illegal by the spirit of international law. Is your complaint then that they are not fully illegal, that the law hasn't caught up to them yet? Hardly a case against restricting chemical weapons.

For further reference, here are the various conventions and protocols on Methods and Means of War, and the titled rules specifying their areas:

IV. WEAPONS
70
Weapons of a Nature to Cause Superfluous Injury or Unnecessary Suffering
71
Weapons That Are by Nature Indiscriminate
72
Poison
Nuclear Weapons
73
Biological Weapons
74
Chemical Weapons
75
Riot Control Agents
76
Herbicides
77
Expanding Bullets
78
Exploding Bullets
79
Weapons Primarily Injuring by Non-Detectable Fragments
80
Booby-Traps
81
Restrictions on the Use of Landmines
82
Recording of the Placement of Landmines
83
Removal or Neutralization of Landmines
84
The Protection of Civilians and Civilian Objects from the Effects of Incendiary Weapons
85
The Use of Incendiary Weapons against Combatants
86
Blinding Laser Weapons

Chemical weapons used in assassinations have been ignored? Those were major international incidents that led to sanctions or other diplomatic retaliation. These didn't go unnoticed.

On the first point:

Every country agrees to follow them unless there is a need not to - those countries with the greatest numbers of cluster munitions refused to sign up, and the UK added wording to ensure that their weaponry was technically OK.
These rules are enforced only when it suits and only against countries too weak to defend - Israel using phosphorous against people was of course overlooked.
Rules enforced in this way only display the rotten corruption of the whole system - trying to make "might is right" slightly more palatable. The "spirit" of international law is another phrase that is taken by the strong to do whatever they want - especially since the UN so often fails to give them the cover to do so.

To the second point:

It is how a weapon is used, not what it is: mines are a fantastic weapon of defence since it has no offensive capabilities whatsoever. You can have a border laced with mines and AA weaponry and be extremely certain it is safe with the country on the other side not worried that they are about to be attacked. A brigade of tanks and attack helicopters might make it equally safe, but they have offensive capabilities. Dropping mines in bright colours to attract children is using them as a terror weapon; randomly bombing a city is pretty terrifying - and drones are so terrifying children in Afghanistan and Pakistan have come to fear the blue sky since it makes attacks more likely.

Superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering is my personal favourite. Only such a phrase could have been created by lawyers who have never been in action. I am pretty certain that those in a war view any and all suffering sustained by their foes is necessary - to make them surrender. Or do the victors then get to take the losers to court for what they did?

[Husar]

Why is Marihuana illegal and alcohol is not?

[rory_20_uk]

Why is Marihuana illegal and alcohol is not?

Political hypocrisy. Certainly in the UK, the politicians have even disbanded an "independent" scientific panel when the findings did not support drugs policy.

I personally think that all should be legal although there should be more barriers to some than others - merely as even making substances as dreadful as methamphetamines illegal hasn't worked so perhaps support and "nudges" onto less harmful options is a better option than all the jail sentences / fines and restricting access to pure, controlled substances has done.

That the USA is (in a very fragmented way) taking the lead on marijuana legalisation I continue to find amazing - but better unexpected progress than none at all.

[Montmorency]

On the first point:

Every country agrees to follow them unless there is a need not to - those countries with the greatest numbers of cluster munitions refused to sign up, and the UK added wording to ensure that their weaponry was technically OK.
These rules are enforced only when it suits and only against countries too weak to defend - Israel using phosphorous against people was of course overlooked.
Rules enforced in this way only display the rotten corruption of the whole system - trying to make "might is right" slightly more palatable. The "spirit" of international law is another phrase that is taken by the strong to do whatever they want - especially since the UN so often fails to give them the cover to do so.

To the second point:

It is how a weapon is used, not what it is: mines are a fantastic weapon of defence since it has no offensive capabilities whatsoever. You can have a border laced with mines and AA weaponry and be extremely certain it is safe with the country on the other side not worried that they are about to be attacked. A brigade of tanks and attack helicopters might make it equally safe, but they have offensive capabilities. Dropping mines in bright colours to attract children is using them as a terror weapon; randomly bombing a city is pretty terrifying - and drones are so terrifying children in Afghanistan and Pakistan have come to fear the blue sky since it makes attacks more likely.

Superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering is my personal favourite. Only such a phrase could have been created by lawyers who have never been in action. I am pretty certain that those in a war view any and all suffering sustained by their foes is necessary - to make them surrender. Or do the victors then get to take the losers to court for what they did?

Ah.

[...] but better unexpected progress than none at all.

The existence of international law of any import is after all a mitigation of the arbitrary exercise of unmitigated power*. If it exists, if it is possible, it deserves acknowledgment. In the case of extant arms restrictions you could possibly demonstrate that many of these are relatively unburdensome for great powers to implement, but "better unexpected progress than none at all". So while it's possible - as America has done since Vietnam - to co-opt the language of Law and Human Rights to serve the pretexts of power, that this is even the direction powerful countries are incentivized to take is probably a good thing.

Now, as far as how to make you care about differentiating modalities of violence - I'll have to think about it more. I'm sure we agree, for example, that sticks and stones aren't fungible with the atom bomb.

Is it really about "how" it's used? Hypothetically a nuclear device could be used to destroy bunkers or in some other limited context, but really it's unacceptable to deploy at all (though as with reprisals against civilian populations, some governments are shy about depriving themselves of the option)

The U.S. finds the provisions restricting reprisals to be “counterproductive [because] they remove a significant deterrent that protects civilians and war victims on all sides of a conflict,” according to the Law of War Manual.

'We have to destroy them to save them...'

Area bombardment is usually acceptable as far as war may be acceptable - but you can't treat a population center as a target.

Meanwhile, you have China and Russia getting ornery at the thought of US missile defense systems in place near their borders, basically because it could reduce the effectiveness of their nuclear second strike.

So what does it all matter? I would say that chipping away at the margins of war's brutality can indeed shift the paradigm over time. I can't source any direct comparison, but my impression is that even the worst excesses of aerial prosecution in the Syrian conflict (or the US drone program) are overall less deleterious to civilians and infrastructure than what was routine throughout the mid-century. We should encourage this, because the development this century of energy, hyperkinetic, and autonomous weapons systems (or that sci-fi bogeyman of "biological", but not bacteriological/virological, weapons) could moot all the elaborations of the 20th century before we know it.


*Arguably why these transient pseudo-interventions in Syria are net negatives for the world, not because of any specter of WW3 but because they undermine what international law there is - and apparently for the sake of nothing other than cheap domestic political points.

[Sarmatian]

If any serious conflict in the vein of WW2 happens again, all those rules and regulations will go out the window, like they did in WW2.

While I do agree that we shouldn't forego of rules because it is hard to enforce them, at the moment it is really a matter of what's the country in question relations with the west rather than what happens on the ground.

If Assad is brought to answer, it won't be because of his crimes against civilians but because he opposed US idea for Syria and the region.

[rory_20_uk]

Civillians in the West are worried about threats that might directly affect them. So Biological / Nuclear and Chemical are all worrying things. Machetes, AKs and so on are not since they happen Over There - with Americans' fetish on shooting each other being the Western anomaly.

Regarding modalities of violence, I think that Tokyo / Dresden firebombings were as horrific as use of the two atom bombs and in both cases the loss of life / general chaos and terror was so high to be almost incomprehensible for me to imagine sitting in front of a laptop in my front room. Ditto the "incident" in Rwanda / Uganda which might have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people but this apparently wasn't an issue for the West. Close to being sticks and stones - knives and cleavers in the main part.

Conflicts have in general terms become less violent but I think that this has more to do with our global economy is now far less "land based" - what is the point of having an Empire and having to suppress all those people when you can get far more money from dominating their markets - and they thank you for this? In essence, killing customers is bad, and outsourcing ownership to a local strong man i one's pocket is much more cost effective. China is trying to take as much sea as they can and control the trade links and view this as far more valuable than trying to stick their flag into (for example) Afghanistan. Better to pay the locals for a mining contract and take what you need.

Nuclear missile reductions was a good thing. Of course, now Russia and perhaps the USA are both in breach of it (and both sides kept enough to sterilise the entire planet for probably tens of metres under the surface).

The UN was a good idea. As was the League of Nations before it. That was scrapped as it didn't work but I imagine they now realise that if we keep scrapping these things until we get one that is actually obeyed we'll be doing it for ever. I do not really see how different countries interpreting UN mandates differently when they get one and have a "coalition of the willing" when they don't. The rules of engagement might have altered, but Von Bismark would fit right in after learning the new phrases.

[Montmorency]

If any serious conflict in the vein of WW2 happens again, all those rules and regulations will go out the window, like they did in WW2.

While I do agree that we shouldn't forego of rules because it is hard to enforce them, at the moment it is really a matter of what's the country in question relations with the west rather than what happens on the ground.

If Assad is brought to answer, it won't be because of his crimes against civilians but because he opposed US idea for Syria and the region.

There is in fact no "last resort" in war, other than the end of hostilities by the total liquidation of civilization. For most, it's not a measurable standard when nothing else matters.

Civillians in the West are worried about threats that might directly affect them. So Biological / Nuclear and Chemical are all worrying things. Machetes, AKs and so on are not since they happen Over There - with Americans' fetish on shooting each other being the Western anomaly.

Regarding modalities of violence, I think that Tokyo / Dresden firebombings were as horrific as use of the two atom bombs and in both cases the loss of life / general chaos and terror was so high to be almost incomprehensible for me to imagine sitting in front of a laptop in my front room. Ditto the "incident" in Rwanda / Uganda which might have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people but this apparently wasn't an issue for the West. Close to being sticks and stones - knives and cleavers in the main part.

Conflicts have in general terms become less violent but I think that this has more to do with our global economy is now far less "land based" - what is the point of having an Empire and having to suppress all those people when you can get far more money from dominating their markets - and they thank you for this? In essence, killing customers is bad, and outsourcing ownership to a local strong man i one's pocket is much more cost effective. China is trying to take as much sea as they can and control the trade links and view this as far more valuable than trying to stick their flag into (for example) Afghanistan. Better to pay the locals for a mining contract and take what you need.

Nuclear missile reductions was a good thing. Of course, now Russia and perhaps the USA are both in breach of it (and both sides kept enough to sterilise the entire planet for probably tens of metres under the surface).

The UN was a good idea. As was the League of Nations before it. That was scrapped as it didn't work but I imagine they now realise that if we keep scrapping these things until we get one that is actually obeyed we'll be doing it for ever. I do not really see how different countries interpreting UN mandates differently when they get one and have a "coalition of the willing" when they don't. The rules of engagement might have altered, but Von Bismark would fit right in after learning the new phrases.

China changes everything, don't they? Including the nuclear balance, despite a formal no-first-strike policy. They are in the position of getting to run a rather efficient non-ideological empire, using the master's economic tools against us...

The civilian, or noncombatant, has always been essential to the prosecution and maintenance of war, often more so than the warfighters themselves. This is part of the reason why civilians have always been targeted from prehistoric times (other reasons including because it is expedient, because it is lucrative, and because it sates carnal impulses). The importance of civilians in and around the war machine relative to the combatants themselves has perhaps never been higher. At the same time, the targeting of civilians has never been less legitimate, and protections extended never greater.

Yet still the most effective means of bringing favorable termination to almost any conflict today would be the ruthless targeting of civilians. We should be very worried - here in the West.

Did they? I wasn't aware that everyone used chemical weapons on a large scale in WW2.

Unless you count flamethrowers, explosives and guns as chemical weapons because they all use chemical reactions.

Smoke and tear gas may technically count.

[Husar]

Smoke and tear gas may technically count.

How many people were killed or hurt directly by smoke?

The civilian, or noncombatant, has always been essential to the prosecution and maintenance of war, often more so than the warfighters themselves. This is part of the reason why civilians have always been targeted from prehistoric times (other reasons including because it is expedient, because it is lucrative, and because it sates carnal impulses). The importance of civilians in and around the war machine relative to the combatants themselves has perhaps never been higher. At the same time, the targeting of civilians has never been less legitimate, and protections extended never greater.

Yet still the most effective means of bringing favorable termination to almost any conflict today would be the ruthless targeting of civilians. We should be very worried - here in the West.

That's actually a valid point, but civilians can be very divided, as in one half can be in favor of a war and the other half not. By targeting them all indiscriminately you're essentially punishing the ones who oppose the war effort just as much as the ones who don't. And in dictatorships, you may even have 80% opposition etc., etc. I would assume that and the fact that a cleaning lady does not consider/realize herself as contributing to the war effort even though she pays income taxes, is where the protections come from.

[Montmorency]

How many people were killed or hurt directly by smoke?



That's actually a valid point, but civilians can be very divided, as in one half can be in favor of a war and the other half not. By targeting them all indiscriminately you're essentially punishing the ones who oppose the war effort just as much as the ones who don't. And in dictatorships, you may even have 80% opposition etc., etc. I would assume that and the fact that a cleaning lady does not consider/realize herself as contributing to the war effort even though she pays income taxes, is where the protections come from.

From wiki on chemical weapons:

The Nazis did use chemical weapons in combat on several occasions along the Black Sea, notably in Sevastopol, where they used toxic smoke to force Russian resistance fighters out of caverns below the city, in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol.[59] The Nazis also used asphyxiating gas in the catacombs of Odessa in November 1941, following their capture of the city, and in late May 1942 during the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula in eastern Crimea.[59] Victor Israelyan, a Soviet ambassador, reported that the latter incident was perpetrated by the Wehrmacht's Chemical Forces and organized by a special detail of SS troops with the help of a field engineer battalion. Chemical Forces General Ochsner reported to German command in June 1942 that a chemical unit had taken part in the battle.[60] After the battle in mid-May 1942, roughly 3,000 Red Army soldiers and Soviet civilians not evacuated by sea were besieged in a series of caves and tunnels in the nearby Adzhimuskai quarry. After holding out for approximately three months, "poison gas was released into the tunnels, killing all but a few score of the Soviet defenders."[61] Thousands of those killed around Adzhimushk were documented to have been killed by asphyxiation from gas.[60]

From same link, the Italians applaid mustard and tear gas liberally in Ethiopia before the war. Similarly with the Japanese in Asia, though over a longer time period through the war.

Can't find anything about specific application or morbidities from tear gas/smoke on Western Front. For smoke, I assume, most of the (unintentional) effect must have to induce chronic conditions in one's own troops.

How many people were killed or hurt directly by smoke?



That's actually a valid point, but civilians can be very divided, as in one half can be in favor of a war and the other half not. By targeting them all indiscriminately you're essentially punishing the ones who oppose the war effort just as much as the ones who don't. And in dictatorships, you may even have 80% opposition etc., etc. I would assume that and the fact that a cleaning lady does not consider/realize herself as contributing to the war effort even though she pays income taxes, is where the protections come from.

If you're directly targeting civilians to destroy morale or the war economy, as in WW2 or Vietnam, the political opinions of individual civilians aren't relevant to you.

[rory_20_uk]

A squad of soldiers are patrolling Iraq / Afghanistan / Somalia / other lawless hellhole of your choice. From in front of them a person with a assault rifle suddenly emerges from a building and sprays a whole clip into the squad. Some miss, armour stops some but this is 30 bullets at close range - some soldiers suffer injury / death.

He then drops the now empty gun and legs it into the house and out the back.

The soldiers now catch up with who they think did it - this happened in a few seconds after all:

1) Execute him as an illegal combatant - without a uniform the Geneva Convention does not apply. He is an irregular or spy. Is there even now a war between two sovereign states? If not then again the entire framework isn't applicable.
2) Take him as a POW. Although he does not appear to be in an army, so this doesn't really apply - better whip up a "competent tribunal"
3) Arrest him. Although under what laws? Soldiers rarely have powers of arrest. Evidence is finger prints if they're lucky and even if it can be proved he recently fired a gun there are many who might have done so; will the local police even be able to protect his Human Rights?

So... how much effort to get the first person through the system? Which part of the system should even be used? No wonder that in such a case the soldiers probably just shoot him and be done with it.

[Husar]

If any serious conflict in the vein of WW2 happens again, all those rules and regulations will go out the window, like they did in WW2.

Did they? I wasn't aware that everyone used chemical weapons on a large scale in WW2.

Unless you count flamethrowers, explosives and guns as chemical weapons because they all use chemical reactions.