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Title: On cutting the crap, breaking the Caliphate’s back, and focusing on America
Source:
Non Invervention
URL Source: http://non-intervention.com/1935/on ... -back-and-focusing-on-america/
Published: Nov 20, 2015
Author: Michael Scheuer
Post Date: 2015-11-20 14:57:48 by nativist nationalist
Keywords: None
Views: 2305
Comments: 39
Honoring Paris’s dead and wounded is now being done with crocodile tears, candles, moments of silence, crowds of strangers holding hands, pledges of solidarity, the endless, pro forma singing of national anthems, and bouquets of followers mounded up as colorful, if wilting, temples to the dead. None of this nonsense honors anyone, it is simply another meaningless iteration of the made-for-TV, post-Islamist-attack “Festival of the Dead”, an event to which Westerners seem to be intensely attached and are now institutionalizing. After all, it’s a chance to get outdoors, walk a bit, and mingle with other self-professed and mourning lovers of humanity. It is, in fact, all hogwash. It allows Western people to feel they have done something to contribute to victory over the enemy when in fact they have done less to honor the dead and destroy their killers than their national governments — and that truly is quite an underachievement. But there is a time-honored and effective way to honor the Paris dead, as well as the U.S. and Western soldiers whose lives and limbs have been wasted since 2001 by national leaders who did not intend to win. If the United States and the West really do not want to do the smartest thing and encourage a Sunni-Shia sectarian war, then it has the near-term option of destroying all those facilities in Syria and Iraq that are essential to the Islamic State’s effort to build a state or, in their words, rebuild the Caliphate. Currently, IS is in possession of: –Highways and bridges Each of these things, needless to say, is part of the IS military effort. They are even more important, however, to its effort to build a state, fund an economy, attract foreign volunteers, and feed, employ, and care for a population. They all are also wonderfully visible, cannot be readily moved or hidden, and are just the kind of targets that Western air forces can annihilate in an air campaign of relatively short duration. For the first time since 1996, the Islamists have acquired a large and valuable set of physical assets that they cannot afford to lose, and they are assets that are perfectly suited to the West’s conventional military forces and so will give Western militaries a respite from the folly of trying to defeat IS by killing their fighters one or two at a time. Destroy the items listed above and you send IS back to being just very good Islamist insurgents; still dangerous, but no longer advancing the reconstruction of the Caliphate.* Moreover, the loss of these productive assets via air attacks, and the high numbers of civilians that surely will die therein, will create an unhappy and restive population prone to rebellion in the regions IS controls. In such a situation, IS leaders will face enemies in each direction they turn, and will have lost the means of appealing to the young Muslims — and many older ones — with the powerfully alluring idea and nascent reality of rebuilding the Caliphate. For the West, the pulverized, smoldering ruins of these state-building assets, which IS has preserved because they cannot be replaced, and the moldering corpses of thousands who have cast their lot with IS or are simply present, will amount to its first strategic success against the Islamists since this religious war began in 1996. For the United States to undertake this campaign as a unilateral mission — let Russian and French warplanes waste ordnance breaking concrete at Raqqah, and the rest of the EU cowers behind cheap bellicosity — would be a chance to, for now, break the back of IS’s caliphate-restoring effort. More important, the mission’s success would allow the United States to truthfully claim it had done its part militarily and return home to a permanent policy of non-intervention, taking none of the resulting refugees, ignoring screeches from the human-rights mafia, the EU, the UN, and the new-age Pope, and spending not a penny to rebuild anything in Iraq or Syria. By attacking and then walking away, the United States would have lessened the IS threat for all and leave it up to Putin, Hollande, Cameron and any other Western leader to decide if he or she wants to stay engaged in the fight against IS instead of getting out, cleaning up the Islamists in their own nations, and letting the Shia-Sunni sectarian war flourish while watching the two sides devour each other. So following, for the United States, is a doable, unilateral, and non-time consuming plan with which to execute the just mentioned campaign, permanently extract the United States from the Muslim world, and let that world go to the hell it has been preparing for itself for a millennium. Let me admit that I have no military experience, but, hey, look where the West Pointers have us after nearly twenty years of failed war fighting and abject loses in Iraq and Afghanistan. –1.) The U.S. president orders the U.S. military to prepare an air campaign against the targets listed above. If the U.S. military is worth the money taxpayers have invested – at this point, an open question — all the targets on the list will already have been located and prioritized. A little time will be needed to move additional aircraft into range, say, three or four weeks.** –2.) When the U.S. military tells the president it is ready to attack, the president directs the secretary of state to officially recognize the Islamic State regime as a legitimate nation state and warmly welcome it into the vicious jungle that has been created by that useless, effete, and war- causing entity called the “International Community.” –3.) On the next day, the president calls a joint session of Congress to meet within 48 hours. –4.) When the session convenes, the president asks for a declaration of war against the Islamic State and is given that constitutionally required declaration. –5.) The president then orders the military to attack, and remains silent until the military reports its mission is accomplished. –6.) With that victory in hand, the president addresses the nation, announces victory and the end of America’s war in Syria/Iraq. He then describes what the campaign accomplished, what the campaign cost in lives and money, and why Americans would no longer see their government militarily intervening anywhere in the world unless the United States is attacked or an imminent threat needs destroying. He should end the speech by saying to Americans, “Good night, God bless you, and God Bless America First”. All told, such a U.S. air campaign ought to succeed as it plays to the U.S. military’s skills and will keep U.S. casualties low. If successful, it allows the United States to bid farewell to the Middle East – leaving it to whoever is stupid enough to want to be involved — and begin to focus on genuine U.S. national interests, like reducing the debt, controlling the borders, rebuilding the conventional military, severely limiting immigration, withdrawing from NATO, evicting illegal aliens, eliminating domestic Islamist organizations, and generally minding our own business. Notes: *IS and al-Qaeda will still have forces elsewhere in the world and so will be troublesome. But the lesson taught by the above U.S. air campaign — which is, and ought to be, Americans are overwhelmingly powerful, indiscriminate killers, and a little bit crazy — will not be lost on the Islamists. They will keep contending for Yemen, which the Saudis have made a mess off and should be left to fix; Libya, which is a poisonous gift to Europe from the UK and France — Clinton and Obama simply playing adolescent morons whose democracy mongering gave cover to the Europeans — ought to be left to them to resolve; Egypt, where the Russians seem eager to take on a losing situation; and Afghanistan, where both the Russians and Chinese have no choice but to fight to keep the Islamists out of Central Asia. Regarding Europe, the Islamists have the upper hand there and may win, but only because the Europeans seem to have no pride in their national identities, no respect for, or passion to preserve what their civilization has accomplished over more than two millennia, and no real will to kill the bad guys and save themselves. In non-Maghreb Africa, Americans must attain energy self- sufficiency and thank God for the eternal presence of the Atlantic Ocean. **The only American opponents of such action would be U.S. oil companies who lust for oil and gas from the fields IS holds in Syria and Iraq; U.S. arms makers who sell weapons in the region; Neoconservatives and Israel-Firsters who want endless U.S. engagement in the region so American blood can be shed to protect Israel; and the media, the so-called Peace Movement, and the college campuses, all of which are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party. Opponents like these are all the more reason to undertake the campaign, win, and then come home to democratically or otherwise defeat the vermin. Poster Comment: This guy really thinks like me, it's like he's tapped into my brain.
–Portions of a railway system
–Fleets of tanker trucks, construction vehicles and machinery, and farming equipment
–Cell phone tower networks and overhead power lines
–Improved waterways and irrigation canals/systems
–Potable water and urban sanitation systems
–Hydroelectric dams and reservoirs
–Airfields
–Grain silos
–Mills for processing wheat and other grains
–Facilities for mining minerals
–Oil fields, wells, and refineries
–Gas fields, wells, and distribution systems
–Pipelines for fuel, gas, and water
–Factories, government buildings, warehouses, and military bases
–Farmland that is growing crops
–Hospitals
–Universities
–Police stations, military barracks, office buildings, and hotels that are used to store arms and house fighters
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#1. To: nativist nationalist (#0)
Here is his list: –Highways and bridges –Portions of a railway system –Fleets of tanker trucks, construction vehicles and machinery, and farming equipment –Cell phone tower networks and overhead power lines –Improved waterways and irrigation canals/systems –Potable water and urban sanitation systems –Hydroelectric dams and reservoirs –Airfields –Grain silos –Mills for processing wheat and other grains –Facilities for mining minerals –Oil fields, wells, and refineries –Gas fields, wells, and distribution systems –Pipelines for fuel, gas, and water –Factories, government buildings, warehouses, and military bases –Farmland that is growing crops –Hospitals –Universities –Police stations, military barracks, office buildings, and hotels that are used to store arms and house fighters Here are the legitimate military targets on that list: –Highways and bridges –Portions of a railway system –Fleets of tanker trucks, construction vehicles and machinery, and farming equipment –Cell phone tower networks and overhead power lines –Airfields –Facilities for mining minerals –Oil fields, wells, and refineries –Gas fields, wells, and distribution systems –Pipelines for fuel, gas –Factories, government buildings, warehouses, and military bases –Police stations, military barracks, office buildings, and hotels that are used to store arms and house fighters These are not legitimate military targets unless they are being used to hide troops and military equipment. If you target them without such proof, you are committing international war crimes: –Potable water and urban sanitation systems –Hydroelectric dams and reservoirs –Grain silos –Mills for processing wheat and other grains –Pipelines for water –Farmland that is growing crops –Hospitals –Universities You can destroy the state. You cannot aim to destroy the food or water supply for the people, or medical facilities, or non-military educational facilities. If your purpose is to cut off the food and water supply and you succeed and cause mass death, you are guilty of genocide. To be legitimate, war must be limited. To be legal, you must do more than get Congressional authorization for war. You must also get an authorization for the use of force from the United Nations Security Council. Given that Russia and France are actively at war with ISIS, China cooperates closely with Russia, and the UK cooperates with us, getting that authorization should not be particularly hard. The UN would probably expand the restrictions on the list of valid targets to not include other economic targets such as mines whose produce is not for military purposes, or oil wells, but we would definitely be authorized to destroy the government buildings (not schools, hospitals or sewers and the like, unless they were used for military purposes).
The US and other nations are fighting Daesh by invitation, the invitation of the Iraqi government who asked for assistence in defense. That it has spilled over into Syria is because Daesh is headquartered in Syria. On the other side of the argument is the proxy war the US has been fighting against Assad and his allies, Iran and Hezbollah. The edges have become a little blurred but you cannot wait for the UN when no useful declarations can be made which arn't subject to veto by Russia, who is now fighting on the side of Assad. Daesh don't respect UN edits in fact they welcome them so that US hands are tied. Daesh don't respect civilians and civilian buildings so they should be killed whereever they are. This is no time to be fighting with gloves on and the US approach is nothing short of that. I agree it is time the US got serious and either get in and finished it or get out. They are not needed in Iraq to contain Daesh and they are not needed in Syria to remove Assad. Their only purpose now could be to protect the Kurds and they didn't protect them from Turkey so that's a mute point By all means go home and build some infrastructure, there is a wall that needs building, perhaps some coastal defences against the rising tide
Paraclete, I was not responding to the actual situation. I was specifically responding to the hypothetical presented by the original article: that the US government should declare ISIS a state, then declare war on that state and destroy it by cycling through a specific target list. The original article said that by declaring war on a recognized state, the US would gain the legal authority to then carry out the acts of war described. My comment was to take the hypothetical and correct it in two ways. The first was to distinguish what can legitimately be targeted and destroyed in a legal war, and what cannot be. (Military bases and telecommunications, yes; civilan water supplies, schools and hospitals, no.) The second was to point out that for a war to be legal does not simply require a vote of the US Congress. We are signatory to the UN Treaty, which was duly ratified by the Senate and thus, according to the Constitution, has become part of "the supreme law of the land". As such, it is not legal for the United States to declare war and begin military operations without the authorization of the UN Security Council. So, if the US declares ISIS a state, and we formally declare war on that state, those acts create a formal legal structure authorizing war. But our war will itself be illegal (and therefore, anybody we kill in the war will legally be a murder victim of the USA) unless the United Nations Security Council authorizes us to use force. If they do not, we cannot legally wage war, and if we do anyway, our war will be illegal, and the deaths we inflict will be international war crimes. The United States does not have to continue to be bound by the UN Charter. We can withdraw, and nullify our participation in the Treaty. But unless we formally do that, we are bound to the terms of that treaty by our own Constitution (which calls ratified Treaties "the supreme law of the land"). The treaty compels UN Security Council authorization for waging war, and therefore it is a violation of American law for the US to go to war without the authorization of the UN Security Council. Our law, as duly ratified by the Senate, includes the UN Charter and Treaties, and they prohibit us from going to war under such circumstances without UN Security Council approval. We can get out from under that law by renouncing the treaty, but if we do not renounce the UN Treaty, and do declare war and attack (per the scenario) we have committed an international crime AND we have broken the supreme law of the land of the United States also. The whole purpose of the scenario was to find a legal justification for a full-on war, without having to worry unduly about the enemy casualties. To get that, the UN has to approve, or the US has to withdraw from the UN. (If we were to do the latter, the international community would still declare us to be outlaws, but we ourselves would be able to maintain, under our own Constitution, that we acted legally following the only source of authority that we recognize (our own Constitution). That was my point.
You're full of shit.
And you're full of rage and hate that blinds you to reality.
This is irrational. The "restive population" of innocent civilians won't blame Daesh.... they'll blame whoever is dropping the bombs on them.
They're Muslims, and they're going to hate the non-Muslim "Crusaders" dropping bombs on them. The Americans believed that firebombing Germany would make the Germans more likely to surrender. Nope. The Germans believed that bombing civilians in London would soften the British up and make them more likely to surrender. Truth is, bombing civilians made them hate more, and ready to fight harder. Once their homes were destroyed they'd ALREADY lost everything but their lives. And if they lost a child, their hatred was deeper.
Dead people can't blame anyone.
No you're just full of it. Congress can declare war any time they want to.
Your statement is true, but war cannot apply to an armed conflict with ISIS. If discussing international law and armed conflict, a conflict without at least two recognized nation states, fighting each other, cannot qualify as an international war, but only as an armed conflict of an non-international nature.
Now we can get beyond hypotheticals, here is the authorisation you wanted to put boots on the ground The United Nations Security Council has called on all able countries to join the fight against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria and Iraq and redouble their efforts to prevent further attacks by the group. The 15-member council unanimously adopted a resolution drafted by France in the wake of a series of deadly attacks in Paris, claimed by IS, which killed 130 people. "The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Daesh), constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security," the resolution said.
This is not correct. ISIS would need to have international recognition as a "High Contracting Party." https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/548/557/opinion.html http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/548/05-184/opinion.pdf OPINION OF THE COURT SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES At 67-68 (paged on the pdf):
No, with the exception of a few quibbles I've posted, Vicomte13 is stating applicable international law.
Frankly SCOTUS can dance around the issue, but The US is bound by treaties and if the UN declares war the US goes to war unless of course the cowards in the Congress delay for their own reasons
A resolution under Chapter 7 is the only way for the U.N. to authorize the use of military force. The just approved resolution does not come under Chapter 7 and does not authorize the use of military force. As ISIS is not a recognized nation-state, it is impossible for its participation in conflict to constitute war. It is impossible for its fighters, upon capture, to qualify for prisoner-of-war status.
Congress can declare war, yes. But for that war to be a legal war, the terms of the UN Treaties must be respected. The UN Treaties have been incorporated into American law through the constitutional process of ratification by the US Senate. Therefore, according to the Constitution, those treaties, which we signed, are the Supreme Law of the Land. We can declare war, but for it to be legal for us to go and use force, we would have to get Security Council approval. We could, of course, tear up the treaty. But we cannot follow our own rule of law if we declare war and attack without honoring our treaty obligation. You can rage belligerently that we can do whatever we want to, and we may indeed have the power, at present, to behave that way, but it is not lawful under our own Constitution for us to do that. You like to simply disregard facts that don't fit your worldview. You do it with Scripture, and you do it with law. But facts are not as malleable as that. All you do is blind yourself to the truth when you do that, which is your loss. Spitting at me does nothing to change any of that either. It doesn't even really make you feel better.
I don't want to put boots on the ground in Syria under the present circumstances. I will only be willing to see US forces committed as part of a tripartite alliance consisting of the United States, France and Russia. The crucial thing is that the United States and Russia be military allies in the venture. In that fashion, we have agreed on targets, and we fight cooperatively. I do not in any sense want to see the US on the ground fighting against one type of terrorist, arming another type of insurgent, against whom the Russians fight. If there are three powers involved: the US, Russia and France, and we are cooperating, then I am willing to see US boots on the ground.
I agree with your quibbles, by the way. You are correct as to the details. I was playing with a theoretical, making the point, really, that no, the US cannot just legally go to war by declaring war. We can't do it under international law, certainly, but we can't do it under our OWN law either, because we've signed - and duly ratified - treaties that say we can't. We can always just break the law by main force, of course, but then the whole exercise isn't LEGAL, which was the point of the original hypothetical: to have a legal pretense to go do something. The real purpose of my message was to point out that America is bound by international treaties to which we are a signatory, that they are incorporated into American law by ratification - indeed the "supreme law of the land" per the US Constitution - and that the sort of wild-west "We can do whatever the f we want" cowboy attitude that seems to prevail more and more often is childish, and untrue - and ineffective as politics also. Nobody is going to listen to man-children acting out their Rambo impulses, and there are not enough Rambo-esque men-children in America to cause the law to go that way. So really I'm tweaking some noses while making a call to be serious. I agree with your assessment of the law in its details.
Also, I was focusing on a part of the law of armed conflict when it came to the target selections. Sure, if we just bombed EVERYTHING it would damage the enemy - and that was that list: bomb farms, bomb water supplies, bomb universities, bomb hospitals! F Yeah! Those are war crimes. If we're going to go to war, we have to obey the law of war. We are, after all, Americans, not barbarians.
Exactly. Notice how judgmental the generation that has not won a war, Grenada excepted, is so eager to judge earlier generations who actually won the wars they fought. We were done with WW2 in less than 4 years, the judgmental generation has been mired down in their Muddle Eastern exercises in nation building for far longer. The author's suggestion that we should be most happy to allow Sunni and Shia to kill each other is even better when taking into account the kind of schizophrenic ROE the judgmental generation will have them operating under. JAG fags like Lindsay Graham will get a lot of good Americans killed with their virtue signalling. Genghis Khan knew what it took, when we're not eager to embrace his tactics, we're not eager to win. The biggest war crime is sending guys to die in a war you have no intention of winning. Go Genghis on them or get out. Non auro, sed ferro, recuperando est patria
You're as full of shit as a commie. We don't need UN approval for shit.
You can lie. But it doesn't make it the truth.
No that is what you do. For example you think it rained windex for 40 days and 40 nights.
Then God is a war criminal. Either that or you are a fool. Sorry to focus on you so much. It's just you are so foolish.
That's true. They can also stop war anytime they want by cutting off funding. Congress refuses to do either. Voting does nothing, because whatever the voting results, nothing changes. Obama, Bush, Boehner, Ryan.... no change at all. Increase the debt ceiling, spend more.... buy Chinese stuff..... repeat.... The D&R party is a parasite. Then vote Trump 2016 and things will change. Rand Paul wasted his chance. Wasted it being stupid.
Why, because he ordered the clearing of Canaan by the Israelites? God kills everybody. He killed the Canaanites, AND he killed all of the Israelites that killed the Canaanites, and everybody since, and he's gonna kill you and he's gonna kill me too. He kill every individual in every other species too. If God were a human, that would make him a mass xenocide. But he's not human, so the whole comment is just stupid. Had the Israelites gone into Canaan and committed mass genocide WITHOUT it being God's direct command, they would have all been damned for genocide. Carrying out a sentence pronounced by GOD is justice. Carrying out such a sentence pronounced by YOURSELF is murder.
We don't need UN approval for shit. You're a child.
Yes, things WILL change. But if you're expecting Trump to behave as though there is no international law, as though America isn't bound by the treaties we've ratified as law, then you're going to be bitterly disappointed in him when he's in office. You think we can do whatever the fuck we want. You're wrong. There's a reason why even Obama doesn't do whatever the fuck he wants, and that is that there are real limits on power, and real limits on the willingness of the opposition, either side, to let leaders just break the law and do whatever the hell. Just because you're not willing to admit that there are limitations doesn't mean that the limitations don't exist.
Shut up you fucking moron. The constitution is the only restraints that our leaders have. Screw the UN. Screw all UN supporters. You're a supporter of the antichristas globalism. You will cheer the mark of the beast when it comes. You will say we have to because it is the law. You have a form of godliness but deny the power therof. Think on that one.
The devil is the murderer not God. I see your problem. You see satan as God. God doesn't kill he gives live. You're such a cluesess fool. You think you know so much that isn't true.
God isn't a war criminal. But according to your words he would be considered one by you.
I do?
The constitution is the only restraints that our leaders have. Bellow away, you man-child who should have grown up decades ago. The Constitution you pretend to revere includes a clause in it that says that treaties ratified by the Senate are the "Supreme Law of the Land", meaning that they are the law. Like the rest of our law, they are adopted BY our constitutional order INTO our constitutional order, and it becomes LAWBREAKING to do what you suggest, which is simply do whatever the fuck you want. The UN Treaty is PART OF OUR LAW , BECAUSE OF the Constitution. If you want to just disregard treaties, then you are saying that the part of the Constitution that says that duly ratified Treaties are "the Supreme Law of the Land" doesn't count. What sort of respect for the Constitution is THAT? It's a complete lack of respect for the Constitution, and the rule of law, on your part. It's Rambo does what Rambo wants. There's a REASON why you are politically frustrated, bellow and rage, and always will. That reason is because neither the Heavens nor the Earth actually run anything like you want them to. If you were king, you'd have things the way you want. But you're not, and won't be, and people who think like you won't be either. You keep being defeated because what you stand for is a sort of chaotic scream of rage. You[re mad, therefore, smash all the furniture, burn up the Constitution, ignore God, make the Constitution and Scripture and everything else out to be whatever you want it to be at the moment, to slake your rage. This is why you are always defeated. And why you always will be. It's senseless. I'm not a fucking moron. I will not shut up. You are a man-child, though. You certainly have the power to cause me to go silent by banning me. And if you choose to do that, you will very much resemble Henry Plantagenet sending his knights to chop off the head of Thomas a Backett for telling Henry to restrain himself on many areas where the raging king lacked restraint. Henry sent Beckett strsight to Heaven and himself to Hell by doing so. Do as you please, but no, I will not shut up because an ignorant and petulant man-child stamps his feet and spews nonsense. I'm going to keep on throwing your stupidity to the ground and pinning it with fact, in the hope that somewhere within you the glimmer of realization that you are proposing burning down your own house through lawlessness, because you're man, is what you are doing. You are behaving in your own here like the people you call "niggers" behave in their neighborhood. You are destroying your own foundations and diminishing the respect that everybody has for you. Snap out of and be quiet for a bit. Of course we have to obey the law of war. Of course we have to obey our treaties. Of course our constitution encompasses the treaties into the law of the land. Of course it's unconstitutional to just blunder forward doing whatever the fuck, because we're pissed off. Rioters do that. It doesn't improve their scenery. You're doing it now. It would be very good for you to stop it. Trump may well win, but when he does, he's going to behave a lot more like me: a rational, calculating, law-bound adult man, then like a raging foot-stomping, above-the-law man child. You're going to be very disappointed with Trump because he's not going to go bat-shit crazy. You don't need to either. Snap out of it, man, you've gone nonlinear, and it reflects badly on you. I'm not your enemy. And I'm not an agent of THE Enemy either. The opposite. YOU sound like somebody who has been possessed by a demon. So stop it. You're not actually possessed by a demon. You're just losing emotional control of yourself. And it's making you say a whole stream of really stupid things. Calm down, Pull back. Take ten deep breaths and reassess.
You're such a cluesess fool. You think you know so much that isn't true. You do not read your Scripture, and you do not think things through. The Scripture tells you that God sends good and evil unto men. The Psalm tells you that God sends his breath and takes it away. Jesus tells you that not a sparrow falls without it being the will of the father. Can Satan create life? No. God creates life. All life. Who, then, created the Bubonic plague or the AIDS virus? Satan? No. Satan cannot create live, and pestilence is life. Look at revelation. Whence do the riders bringing pestilence, famine and death come - from Satan? No, they ride out of Heaven, at God's command. Who opened the floodgates of the sky and broke open the fountains of the great deep to destroy and drown all breathing things on the land? Satan? No, God. Of course God is the source of both life and death, and the Scripture TELLS YOU THAT. The saving grace is that death is not the end. It is only a portal to the life of the spirit that continues afterwards, by grace of God. You are very much mistaken about the nature of God. Satan is not a creator. He cannot create life. He cannot heal the sick and the blind. Nor can he create plagues, or bring down floods. All Satan can do is twist men's minds so that they do evil things, polluting the world and causing God to kill everybody, to cut off the evil and cleanse the world. Satan cannot give life, and he can't actually give death either, for the physically dead are still alive. Only God the judge, who first gave life, can also give final death, by hurling the soul into the Lake of Fire for utter destruction. Don't call God Satan. Don't blaspheme the Holy Spirit. In your rage and wrath you are tripping into the pit or error. Stop it and THINK. Your traditional view of things does not hold together. The logic falls apart utterly, on the very Scripture in which you THINK you put your faith, but which you do not really KNOW. You've relied on bits and pieces and what other people preach at you. Pick up your Bible and READ IT THROUGH, and THINK of who is not only creating life, but also sending plague and death. God SAYS SO throughout. It's all THERE. If you listen to men, they will make things up, but if you actually READ THE TEXT you worship, you would see it right there and you could open your eyes. That God kills us all does not make him bad, for if we do not shed this corrupt chysalis of flesh, how will we ever go to Paradise and then into the City of God?
If a man, any man, ordered a human army to enter a region and to slaughter every man, woman and child, without mercy, to accept no surrender but to uniformly slaughter all, that man would be a war criminal, and the acts committed would be crimes against humanity. God commanded precisely that in Canaan. So was God a war criminal? No. Because God is not a man. God gave life to everybody on both sides - each spirit is a breath of God. And God withdraws his breath as he pleases, when he pleases. It pleased him to withdraw the breath of the Canaanites, for their societal sins, and to completely cut off their line, through a human genocide. He commanded the Israelites to do it (and then they didn't do it fully). He ALSO removed the breath of every Israelite who lived them, each in his time, cutting them off, killing each of them. So, Canaanite and Hebrew all ended up in the same place: mouldering in the grave, because God withdrew his breath, killing every one of them, on both sides. The WAY that he chose to kill them gave a moral lesson to men, but the actual disposition of their spirits does not change - their spirits went on after death, for God to do with them as God pleased, and God never revealed to us what it pleased him to do with each spirit slain in the war, or that died afterwards. That part of the story is between God and each individual long dead. The fact remains that it was God who commanded the genocide. It is not a crime for God to do that, because he's God and he kills everybody. But it would be a crime against humanity for any human being to order the same thing, because men are not granted the power of life and death over other men, let alone over other whole civilizations. All of this is perfectly obvious. There's no reason to resist it.
You say that then don't quote any scripture to back you up. You do that regularly. Like your King James thread that had hardly any scriptureal references.
You do not read your Scripture, and you do not think things through. Hebrews 2:14King James Version (KJV) 14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
[A K A Stone] Then God is a war criminal. Actually, Vicomte13 is correctly stating the applicable international law. The requirement for limited force is stated explicitly. As a saving grace for your desires, while just declaring a war and having at it would be unlawful, it is very unlikely that the U.N. Security Council would ever vote to condemn it as long as the U.S. has a veto, and no matter what legal forum held it illegal (perhaps some Spanish judge or international court), there is no way to enforce such a decision against the U.S. or other major power. International law, in practice, functions as inapplicable to the powerful except for PR purposes, but enables the powerful to condemn the weak and justify military action. The law itself is quite clear. There are only two statuses, combatant and civilian. Civilian is actually defined as anyone who does not meet the definition of combatant. The two definitions combine to include every human on earth. Combatants engaged in armed conflict are not criminals and cannot be prosecuted for engaging in acts of war. They may be held as POWs until the war is over. Fighters for non-state actors, such as ISIS, do not meet the definition of combatant. If captured, they cannot qualify for POW status. They can engage in armed conflict, but not war. They are civilians and not combatants. The waging of such armed conflict by ISIS fighters is unlawful, criminal activity. Legally, it is just a very big gang. They are civilians engaged in armed conflict who do not enjoy the rights or protections of combatants engaged in war. All wars are armed conflicts, not all armed conflicts are wars. To make a distinction, when the Taliban were the official government of Afghanistan, the Taliban fighters were combatants. When the Taliban was overthrown, the Taliban fighters were no longer qualified for combatant status. As for the term unlawful combatant, (or unlawful enemy combatant) that is a made up obfuscatory term for a civilian unlawfully engaged in armed conflict. It is not a combatant at all. Any and all who do not meet the definition of combatant are civilians. The definition leaves no room for any third category, no matter how it is wordsmithed. As for the applicable international law, it is what it is. Under Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, Paragraph 50.1, Article 4 of the Third Convention pertains to Prisoners of War. Article 43 of the Protocol pertains to members of the Armed Forces. Under The Geneva Convention, everyone who does not fall under the definition of Armed Forces or Prisoner of War is a civilian. - - - Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977. 1. A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons referred to in Article 4 (A) (1), (2), (3) and (6) of the Third Convention and in Article 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian. 2. The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians. 3. The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character. Art 51. - Protection of the civilian population 1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances. 2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited. 3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities. 4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: (b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. 5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: and (b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. 6. Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited. 7. The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations. 8. Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures provided for in Article 57. - - - 1. The armed forces of a Party to a conflict consist of all organized armed forces, groups and units which are under a command responsible to that Party for the conduct of its subordinates, even if that Party is represented by a government or an authority not recognized by an adverse Party. Such armed forces shall be subject to an internal disciplinary system which, inter alia, shall enforce compliance with the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict. 2. Members of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict (other than medical personnel and chaplains covered by Article 33 of the Third Convention) are combatants, that is to say, they have the right to participate directly in hostilities. 3. Whenever a Party to a conflict incorporates a paramilitary or armed law enforcement agency into its armed forces it shall so notify the other Parties to the conflict. - - - Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949. (1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces. (2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions: (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. (3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power. [...] (6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war. - - -
#2. To: Vicomte13 (#1)
(Edited)
To be legal, you must do more than get Congressional authorization for war. You must also get an authorization for the use of force from the United Nations Security Council.
#3. To: paraclete (#2)
#4. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
The second was to point out that for a war to be legal does not simply require a vote of the US Congress. We are signatory to the UN Treaty, which was duly ratified by the Senate and thus, according to the Constitution, has become part of "the supreme law of the land". As such, it is not legal for the United States to declare war and begin military operations without the authorization of the UN Security Council.
#5. To: A K A Stone (#4)
You're full of shit.
#6. To: nativist nationalist (#0)
Moreover, the loss of these productive assets via air attacks, and the high numbers of civilians that surely will die therein, will create an unhappy and restive population prone to rebellion in the regions IS controls.
#7. To: Willie Green (#6)
#8. To: Willie Green (#6)
#9. To: Vicomte13 (#5)
You're full of shit. And you're full of rage and hate that blinds you to reality.
#10. To: Vicomte13 (#1)
To be legitimate, war must be limited.
#11. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
paraclete, I was not responding to the actual situation. I was specifically responding to the hypothetical
#12. To: Vicomte13, paraclete (#3)
So, if the US declares ISIS a state, and we formally declare war on that state, those acts create a formal legal structure authorizing war.
HAMDAN V. RUMSFELD
548 U. S. ____ (2006)
NO. 05-184 The Court of Appeals thought, and the Government asserts, that Common Article 3 does not apply to Hamdan because the conflict with al Qaeda, being “‘international in scope,’” does not qualify as a “‘conflict not of an international character.’” 415 F. 3d, at 41. That reasoning is erroneous. The term “conflict not of an international character” is used here in contradistinction to a conflict between nations. So much is demonstrated by the “fundamental logic [of] the Convention’s provisions on its application.” Id., at 44 (Williams, J., concurring). Common Article 2 provides that “the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties.” 6 U. S. T., at 3318 (Art. 2, ¶1). High Contracting Parties (signatories) also must abide by all terms of the Conventions vis-a-vis one another even if one party to the conflict is a nonsignatory “Power,” and must so abide vis-a-vis the nonsignatory if “the latter accepts and applies” those terms. Ibid. (Art. 2, ¶3). Common Article 3, by contrast, affords some minimal protection, falling short of full protection under the Conventions, to individuals associated with neither a signatory nor even a nonsignatory “Power” who are involved in a conflict “in the territory of” a signatory. The latter kind of conflict is distinguishable from the conflict described in Common Article 2 chiefly because it does not involve a clash between nations (whether signatories or not). In context, then, the phrase “not of an international character” bears its literal meaning. See, e.g., J. Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation 6, 296 (J. Burns & H. Hart eds. 1970) (using the term “international law” as a “new though not inexpressive appellation” meaning “betwixt nation and nation”; defining “international” to include “mutual transactions between sovereigns as such”); Commentary on the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, p. 1351 (1987) (“[A] non-international armed conflict is distinct from an international armed conflict because of the legal status of the entities opposing each other”).
#13. To: A K A Stone, Vicomte13 (#9)
No you're just full of it.
#14. To: nolu chan (#12)
(Edited)
#15. To: paraclete (#14)
if the UN declares war
#16. To: A K A Stone (#9)
#17. To: paraclete (#11)
Now we can get beyond hypotheticals, here is the authorisation you wanted to put boots on the ground
#18. To: nolu chan (#13)
#19. To: nolu chan (#10)
#20. To: A K A Stone (#8)
Dead people can't blame anyone.
#21. To: Vicomte13 (#16)
Congress can declare war, yes. But for that war to be a legal war, the terms of the UN Treaties must be respected.
#22. To: Vicomte13 (#16)
You can rage belligerently that we can do whatever we want to
#23. To: Vicomte13 (#16)
You like to simply disregard facts that don't fit your worldview.
#24. To: Vicomte13 (#1)
To be legitimate, war must be limited.
#25. To: A K A Stone (#9)
Congress can declare war any time they want to.
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#26. To: hondo68 (#25)
#27. To: A K A Stone (#24)
Then God is a war criminal.
#28. To: A K A Stone (#21)
You're as full of shit as a commie.
#29. To: A K A Stone (#26)
Then vote Trump 2016 and things will change.
#30. To: Vicomte13 (#29)
(Edited)
#31. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter, don, garyspfc (#27)
God kills everybody. He killed the Canaanites, AND he killed all of the Israelites that killed the Canaanites, and everybody since, and he's gonna kill you and he's gonna kill me too.
#32. To: Vicomte13 (#27)
Then God is a war criminal. Why, because he ordered the clearing of Canaan by the Israelites?
#33. To: A K A Stone (#23)
For example you think it rained windex for 40 days and 40 nights.
#34. To: A K A Stone (#30)
Shut up you fucking moron.
#35. To: A K A Stone (#31)
God doesn't kill he gives live.
#36. To: A K A Stone (#32)
God isn't a war criminal. But according to your words he would be considered one by you.
#37. To: Vicomte13 (#35)
The Scripture tells you
#38. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter (#35)
K A Stone God doesn't kill he gives live. You're such a cluesess fool. You think you know so much that isn't true.
#39. To: A K A Stone, Vicomte13 (#24)
[Vicomte13] To be legitimate, war must be limited.
A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons referred to in Article 4 (A) (1), (2), (3) and (6) of the Third Convention and in Article 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian.
Art 50. Definition of civilians and civilian population
(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects;
Art 43. Armed forces
Art 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
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