Do countries have a right to kill enemy civilians?

[OddBeMe]

Yes, they support the enemy

No. Civilians are off limits

[Skinhead-1979]

The Right to kill civilians? No, Civilians are non-combatants.

However, civilians sadly die in a war... no matter how careful militaries are, this can never be eliminated.

Pictures referring to Japan and Palestine/ Israel feature.

-Japan: America had no right to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Japan had already been defeated. Japan did not refuse to surrender, Japan refused to surrender unconditionally which would mean that their 'God-Like' Emperor could face War-Crime Trials. The US refused to give in to Japanese Demands.

At the same time the USSR had declared war on Japan and had invaded Manchuria. The USSR and US had 'divided' Asia amongst themselves. The USSR was to stop at the 38 parallel in Korea.

The US bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima to force Japan to accept an unconditional surrender and to sent a very clear message to the USSR not to overstep any 'Red Lines'.

The sad thing is... The US never pursued War-Crime charges against Hirohito, and thus the US could have honoured the Japanese demand to turn the Unconditional Surrender into a Conditional one.

The only reason why those 2 cities have been bombed was to sent a clear warning to the USSR.

-Israel: Israel is the aggressor here. While you could make a case for it that Israel has the right to bring the perpetrators of the 7th of October to justice; Turning a whole open-air prison into rubble while killed 40,000 people, who are mostly women and children, and injuring hundreds of thousands more and starving the rest is despicable and unjustifiable. Israel is more than capable taking out Resistance Commanders who are hiding in cities amongst civilians without killing a single civilians; Israel can blow up a floor of a building without damaging the floor below and above it. Israel can execute spectacular military operations to rescue hostages without killing civilians and keeping the total death toll to a bare minimum. This, what Israel does, is Genocide.

[Skinhead-1979]

Nearly a year of fighting between Hamas and Israel now... and Israel claims 20 out of 24 Al Qassam Brigades have been destroyed.

This is a Lie:

-3 Brigades have been destroyed
-13 have been weakened but are still operational
-8 are at full strength

Al Qassam is still very active across all 3 sectors; Israel has claimed several times now that the north and centre had been cleared, yet al Qassam reappears and successfully executes many ambushed.

[OddBeMe]

This is very surprisingly nuanced from a skinhead. Lol

[Skinhead-1979]

We are sadly still being 'haunted' by the fact that some very bad characters, with Far-Right Sympathies, have given us a very bad name... and still many of the racist 'Boneheads' claim they are Skinheads and still dress like us.

I am not holding it against anyone who becomes a bit hesitant when they find out I am a Skinhead and will always, if given the chance, explain that the origins of Skinhead are not Racist.

Skinhead came to be as the result of immigrants from the Caribbean mixing with the British working class; due a shared love for music, Ska and Reggae, and dress style, Skinhead came to be. But British society became Racist/ Anti-Foreigner during the 1970s when many Pakistani and Indian people came to the UK, and many 'Skinheads' followed suit.

[MisterWack]

Civilians are civilians, they never asked for it.
No country has a right to do that especially after the likes we saw on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

[normalice]

The right? Sure. All is fair in love and war, but they can't claim they have the moral high ground. Wars are math problems in which people are treated like statistics. Breaking the enemy's morale and future supply of soldiers is simply good math. If you have the power to win by other means, do it, but not everyone does.

[OddBeMe]

We never learn “the math”. In WW2 we bombed the Germans relentlessly to break their resolve. Instead they unified and refused to give up leading to one of the bloodiest battles in the world: Berlin.

[normalice]

Resolve is never broken instantly or it's not resolve. But on the other hand bombing people to break their resolve and bombing people just to throw fire at them are two very different strategies and while I've seen a lot of people claim the first I haven't seen much in the way of analysis of why anyone believed it would work out that way.

[abc3643]

"Right" or "Rights" are not really applicable because there is no such thing as rights.

No one has a right to survive.
No one has a right to anything.

Rights are a concept created for a civilized society; when you join a society, you give up your "rights" to do whatever is necessary to survive, but, in return, you are given "rights" within the society.

However, you do have expectations and one expectation is that you will do whatever is necessary for survival... and that may include genocide of the enemy. After all, you are here and you are someone who is here because of countless successful past genocides long ago.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JyhfHQ_7Skg

[OddBeMe]

So you have no rights? Right now? (Pun)

[abc3643]

Rights are fiction. Remember that.
In the real world, there are no rights.

If the sun is about to blow up, are you going to say "Hey, wait a minute! I have a right to survive!"
The sun says "LOL! No you don't. I'm going nova in 30 minutes. You have a little over 38 minutes to make peace with your maker. Deal with it."

[Fxjjxhhccbgcfccc]

That guy has some of the worst views on the site. His posts contribute nothing to the community other than bigotry, racism, hypocrisy, lack of empathy about others. His empathy (if he does have any) applies selectively only to those of the same ethnicity, religion and political views..
He's also all snarky comments and sometimes trolls by posting unrelated videos to the question that was asked

[abc3643]

@Fxjjxhhccbgcfccc.

I have loads of empathy. It's why I am here. However, Nature does not. We meed to stop anthropomorphize Nature and assuming that it has emotions such as empathy and mercy that we do because that leads to making potentially deadly errors

https://youtu.be/wC-JxwEnBd0?feature=shared

[RebelinSteel]

There is no right to, also a lot has changed since WW2 and most Western countries tries try very hard not to hit civilian targets. All targets need approved and where there is a high chance of civilians being hit, then a review is carried out as to validity of target. Some can be cancelled just prior to release of weapons.
This gets complicated if you are not fighting against uniformed troops and if they also setup in civilian areas. Some deliberately setup there as they know an attack will kill civilians and can get points in the media.

[OddBeMe]

Definitely. And coming from Iraq and Afghan, US should know that every civilian killed creates 5 more insurgents.

[Agape93]

Nope, but if one government and its people attack another nations civilians and soldiers, kidnap, rape, butcher and mutilate them, and the combative nations citizens hide the victims and hide the aggressors, then those citizens are valid targets for as I'm concerned.

The attacked nation should wipe them out. Every building, every man woman and child. No exceptions. They had the chance to do the right thing.

[OddBeMe]

Just to clarify: Israel should wipe out every man woman and child, regardless of their involvement in Hamas? You think kids voted Hamas?

[Agape93]

I don't care about kids. But their parents statistically supported them before, during and after the attack. Polls reported them having 90% support in Palestine. And even the son of a hamas leader openly said that he sees no difference between Palestinians and hamas.

[Agape93]

So yes, they should wipe em out but sadly they're showing a frustrating amount of restraint I simply don't have.

[OddBeMe]

50% of Gaza are kids. So care about where the bombs fall.

[Agape93]

47% and I sincerely don't care if the kids get hit in the face with a rocket. I said no exceptions and I mean exactly as I say. They should thank their lucky stars im. not prosecuting this war. They'd have a week to turn over heir hostages safely and every hamas fighter and sympathizer to be executed. If not, Palestine would just become a radioactive slab of glass and ash

[OddBeMe]

Sometimes I wish America was invaded.

[Agape93]

Same. It would be pretty fun, kinda like expecting to rob a gas station only for that gas station to be the host of the local NRA convention

[OddBeMe]

If we’re not bombed

[Agape93]

They'd have to be nukes smuggled in because of our missile defense systems and air force.

[OddBeMe]

We nearly nuked ourselves when a missile fell out of a plane.

[Agape93]

Talk about getting blueballed

[goaded]

It'd be great if it was possible not to, but it's countries that are at war, not just their armies. It's also getting harder to distinguish civilians from militants. Unfortunately, that gives the advantage to invaders, since their civilians are safe...

I don't know.

[Sevenpointfive]

i don't think they go out of their way to do it but it does happen every single time. if you're being invaded and the warzone is populated by civilians, then it's gonna happen. but you don't just carpet bomb a city the way israel is doing. that's not war

[purplepoppy]

If those civilians are working in factories producing weapons or anything supporting the war effort then they are a legitimate target. War is also expensive so hitting a countries economic centres makes sense too.

[OddBeMe]

And killing children.

[psychobabble]

Yep. The cases where it is acceptable under modern military law are clearly defined in the Law of War Manual. Obviously civilian causalities are avoided these days more so than they use to be in history, but they are still acceptable to some degree deepening on the circumstances.

[Juxtapose]

War sucks, that's the reality. Civilian casualties are inevitable. If you don't want that, stop war.

[OddBeMe]

Excluding Gazans from life. Keep on excluding people.

[Juxtapose]

2 million Germans died during World War 2 yet I don't see you bitching about that.

[Juxtapose]

Civilians by the way. 2 mil.

[OddBeMe]

I have “bitched” about the German deaths. Allied bombings were supposed to break their war spirit. Instead unified them into the most devastating battle on earth ever. Battle for Berlin.

I think I posted here that majority of Germans died in the last 6 months of the war than anytime five years previous.

And we never learn and are doing the same in Gaza. And in Russia, allowing Ukraine to bomb Russia is stupid beyond stupid.

[Juxtapose]

You don't know what you're talking about. You would let terrorists attack you with impunity just because they use human shields.

[Juxtapose]

I recall the atomic bombs working quite well and preventing us from having to conduct a full ground scale invasion where the civilians would have been more than willing to fight.

[OfMiceandMen]

Civilians are suppose to be off-limits as they are not soldiers, but some dumbass movements/countries chalk it up to collateral damage.

[NathanDavis]

there are no rights in war... only what's left...

[exitseven]

Itis not an optimal situation but to make n omelet sometimes you have to break some eggs.

[Dargil]

If they stage armed invasions like the cartels, yes.

[Anonymous]

If it happens as collateral damage in the pursuit of enemy combatants, then yes--absolutely.

If they do it deliberately, then no.

[msc545]

Absolutely not, but they will anyway.

[noohair]

You are not going to change war.