I do not wish to enter this argument, my opinions on the matter would take a ridiculous amount of space to type. So I won't. But I will say that I read the top post as " Burned Jordanian Pilot IS alive" Naturally I was very confused.

"The fact that Japan started the war means nothing when it comes to crimes committed by US forces."

What about the crimes committed by the Japanese forces? Lets start listing them shall we?

1) Laha Airfield Massacre. More than 300 Australian and Dutch POWs were executed after the allies supposedly destroyed one of their minesweepers. No Survivors.

2) Alexandra Hospital Massacre. The day before the British surrendered Singapore, the Japanese stormed the hospital killed all the occupants, even those undergoing surgery. The survivors were then forced to clean the rest of the bodies and then were bayoneted in the courtyard. 5 people survived.

3) Palawan Massacre. Japanese herded American POWs into a makeshift air raid shelter and burned them alive. Less than a dozen were able to escape and live to tell about it.

4) Akikaze Executions. The japanese destroyer Akikaze picked up German missionaries and Chinese nationals en route to the Japanese stronghold in Rabaul. They received orders to execute the Germans and Chinese on the charges of spying. The prisoners were taken one at a time to the rear of the ship then shot and thrown into the ocean. Within 3 hours, they had killed all 60 of the prisoners, including 2 children who were still alive when thrown into the ocean.

5) I-8. Best known for sinking 2 allied cargo ships and their brutal treatment of the crews. When they sunk the Dutch freighter Tsijalak, they took 103 prisoners and massacred them with swords and axes, then bound the survivors with rope and dove with them still on the deck. Only 5 survived. They then sunk the US cargo ship Jean and took +100 prisoners. They forced prisoners to run a gauntlet of swords and bayonets before throwing them overboard. They then dove after spotting an allied aircraft overhead, leaving 30 prisoners on the deck. About 24 prisoners survived the whole ordeal.

6) The Death Railway. Due to the vulnerability of cargo vessels, the Japanese decided to use Allied POWs and Asian conscripts to build a 300 mile railroad from Burma to Thailand. An estimated 13,000 allied POWs died during the year long construction, not to mention 80,000-100,000 asians.

7) When American forces arrived outside of Manila,the Japanese there realized that they were going to die, so they raped, pillaged, and murdered the helpless civilians within the city. More than 100,000 civilians were killed.

Don't go lecturing me on the morality of American war crimes.

Anyone else want a chance at the Soap Box?

The US looks moral only compared to the atrocities of the others.

And others look moral compared to the atrocities of others.

Don't you get it. That's the secret of the universe! No one is moral! There is no definition of morality written in stone out there, it is only what we believe is right is what governs morality.

"Bullshit claim."

Towards the end of the war, the Japanese had largely concealed their war factories inside civilian neighborhoods by doing the bulk of their manufacturing in small workshops, in contrast to the Germans who (most of the time) used clearly-visible factories.

The US could not have won the war without strategic bombing of civilian neighborhoods or a ground invasion (which would have annihilated *Japan*, not just dozens of Japanese cities)

Besides, I argue that the integration of war materiel and civilian neighborhoods by the Japanese constitutes perfidy (feigning civilian status), which is a war crime that entails the removal of normal protections afforded to the abused status, in this case civilian status.

War crimes are meaningless because of national sovereignty. There is no international government that can conduct arrests and demand retribution for war crimes committed by a sovereign nation. If tomorrow the american people decided that it was morally justifiable to release a biological agent on the middle east to "control" the spread of ISIS and radical Islam; who exactly would come to america and arrest our president, our generals, our defense department, who would do it? The next 16 nations below the U.S don't even match up to our naval power; the air superiority of the U.S trumps the next 12 nations and our land forces are more equipped than the only nation with a larger man for man military than ours, China. Take into account that the UN, the group responsible for the geneva convention, is funded primarily by the U.S ; and most of the countries directly below us military power are american allies who would in all likelihood support anything we do. Simply put talk of war crimes is pointless, it is arguing the value of an arbitrary system. War is war. People die. Building get destroyed. families are torn apart. human life becomes a value to judge the success of a military campaign and then the war ends and we return to being compassionate again. The faster we abandon our first world perverted idea of war the better. Why do you think ISIS executes our people? because we don't execute theirs. I say the next american they kill we execute every single last ISIS prisoner.

"War crimes are meaningless because of national sovereignty."

You don't deserve to earn a commission if that's how you fell, Cadet.

*feel

I respect the rules of war. Morally I don't find it okay to use NBC weapons at all; and i don't agree with the unnecessary killing of civillians, I am just saying that the enemy never follows any rules of engagement, and to use war crimes as a valid reason to go to war or not is just arbitrary. There are far more reasonable reasons to wage war.
- National Defense
- Protecting a weaker population from aggression
- Economic security

So for example ISIS:
- It is within our national defense interest to eliminate this foreign and domestic threat
- Yazidi and other peoples are being aggressively killed, raped, and sold by ISIS
- ISIS hurts our economic interests in relation to Oil and other natural resources in the region.

But to say waging war on ISIS is justified because they broke arbitrary rules of war is not at all a reasonable defense of a war against ISIS or any nation for that matter. I will follow with more examples using my template.

Example 2 Syria:
- Does not directly affect threaten our national defense interests
- The use of weapons of any kind against civilian populations is justification
- No serious economic ties
(Not enough reason to invade Syria and oust Bashar Al Assad)

Example 3 WW2 Germany:
- German U-boats directly threatened U.S economic and defense interests.
- Germans killed millions of civilians as they advanced.

Example 4 WW2 Japan:
- Japanese forces directly threatened US economic and defense interests in the pacific
- Japanese forces were responsible for countless atrocities against weaker populations.

Do i need more examples? I am not arguing in favor of war crimes being committed I am arguing against war crimes being used as justification for war.

"I say the next american they kill we execute every single last ISIS prisoner."

And then the next time an American is captured...

Someone has to hold themselves to a higher standard. Eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. Let's not jeopardize our troops for something pointless.

Let me clarify because I think I understand everyone's confusion now. I was satirizing the idea of war crimes being a justification of war when I said "I say the next american they kill we execute every single last ISIS prisoner.". Seriously my position is simple- War crimes don't constitute war, but the risk ISIS imposes to our national economic and defense interests as well as to weaker minority groups in the middle east does.

I also believe that you can't win the war against ISIS or terrorism in general for that matter through an air campaign. It takes people on the ground shaking hands and building bonds that will win the war. Because for every indiscriminate bombing and collaterally killed civilian you breed numerous new recruits for ISIS. But by being on the ground and showing the people of Iraq and Syria that we aren't imperialist tyrants vying for control of their lives but rather concerned global citizens seeking an end to the madness that is ISIS.

"I was satirizing the idea of war crimes being a justification of war"

International war crimes can and should be used for justification for international (UN) intervention. However, in the case of Syria, the Hague prohibition against the use of poisonous gas only applies to international conflict. Tear gas is a poisonous gas and American police use it all the time against American rioters. American police also use hollowpoint ammunition, which is also illegal under the Hague Convention. Doesn't mean that American police should be dragged to The Hague and prosecuted. Same thing with Syria; you can't prosecute a Syrian for committing a war crime against another Syrian.

Also, the Imperial Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a war crime, because it was not preceded by a declaration of war or an ultimatum with a contingent declaration of war. Nazi Germany declared war on us, so therefore nothing is necessary to justify that conflict; as they picked the fight with us.

I refuse to see war crimes as a valid reason to wage war. If the war crime was committed against the U.S then it falls under the national defense aspect of my examples, if the war crime is used against a weaker people than it falls under my aggression actions to a weaker people example. But a Jordanian pilot is not a means to a U.S led ground war and I'm arguing against using the Jordanian pilot as a justification for a U.S war. The Americans killed do justify a war because harming US citizens is directly attacking our national defense. This thread started about a Jordanian pilot I was referring to the Jordanian pilot and tying war crimes and starting a war into my argument.