If they are at war yes. But they should not be at war.

It is the international communty's responsibility to stop the war, but it is not against the rules of war to attack the house. It is the fault of country B for putting the weapons with the civilians, not the fault of country A for attacking. If anything, country B has broken the rules of war.

what if country a puts weapons in a civilian house? Same or different

I'm not sure I understand the question Joeman. If the answer is different for you in Country A than for Country B, by all means, please tell us your answers.

Same. Inadvisable in both cases.

Since when did war have rules? :P


In my opnion, the state of war is precisely the cessation of rules between people.

If you can, it is nice to mitigate the terrible effects of war ie. not targeting unarmed civilians. If you want, you can even come up with guidelines for this mitigation and can hope that others follow them.

But never forget that war is always at its heart an ungovernable and brutal aspect of human relations.

If civilian target is hiding a weapon like in your scenario, well, so be it. If you wanted to be a morally praiseworthy actor, either give up or don't fight wars in the first place.

If yu are responding in defense, and the agressive country has placed weapons in civilian targets, then they are no longer civilian targets.


If the Luftwaffe had bombed London with aircraft that carried innocent babies would the British not have shot them down?

And in that instance who is more blameworthy? Those firing the weapons, or those putting innocnets directly in harms way? I think we all know the answer.


In war, anything goes, but everything has consequences that must be kept in mind.

The are rules of war, but essentially, a maxim that is worth standing by is: "Cruelty which does not advance the cause in the war should not be allowable, but cruelty that does will inevitably have to be, because the nature of war is cruel."

TheGhostmaker is far more succint than me I fear. :P

Friendly Sword, it doesn't sound like Ghostmaker is making anywhere close to the same point you are, or else he is far far far far far more succinct than you are, because I didn't get that point from your statement at all.

I'm stunned (and this is no longer directed at you FriendlySword) that some people find this question difficult to answer, and that there pat answer is 'war is bad and immoral'. Great, yes, war is bad but pacifism against an aggressor gets you killed. War is a reality that needs to be recognized. War is to be avoided, but when some nation is out to kill your nation, I hope to god it isn't a pacifist in office.

Thucidydes, you seem to contradict yourself in your two posts. In your first, you said that bombing the civilian house with military weapons in it is "not against the rules of war". In your second post, you write it is inadvisable. I suppose that's not contradictory, but poor leadership. If your enemy has weapons and you know they will be used against you, and you know where they are, you destroy them.

And yes, it is wrong to put weapons in civilian houses. Again, that wasn't the question. I think all agree that it is wrong. The question was what is to be done when there ARE weapons in civilian houses.

"The question was what is to be done when there ARE weapons in civilian houses."

Smart thing to do would be to avoid walking around those houses :P

If country B uses civilian buildings to hide weapons. It does not matter if country A is a higher or lower tech country, you do not get an handycap for having a lower tech. This is not a game of golf. You blow the building up. The leaders of country B than should be held accountable for placing the weapons where they did.

Blowing up a civilian house is no different than bombing an oil refinery to starve a nation of it's oil. There are civilians there, but it is a legitimate military target with military value. Factories making bombers, fighters, and tanks are employers of civilians, that doesn't mean you don't hit them. If there is true military value, then you hit it.

Now, hitting military hospitals where, most likely, the soldiers will be going home and not returning to the battlefield is NOT a valid military target and would therefore be a violation of the rules of "civilized" warfare.

I should have clarified, civilian house with hidden weapons. Sorry.

To Dingleberry Jones:
Sometimes I get rambly. Apologies:P

To Draugnar: Your internal discussion of what a 'legitimate' military target is belays the inconsistency that plagues that line of war action justification.

You say that something can only be hit if it has 'true military value'. Now, you've already established that a military target can be something beyond a weapon or an actor. There is a logical connection between munitions factories and bullets.

If your goal is to win at all costs, then it makes sense to destroy munitions factories. But why not destroy metal refineries, where metal for weapons is purified. Or clothing tannerries. With those clothes, the soldiers kiling your people would have nothing to where.

Doesn't that make them a legitimate military target?

And if you agree with that, then what about killing unarmed soldiers. If you don't kill them now, they will kill you later. They are a very legitimate military target.

And what if I were to extend that to just firebombing houses, apartments, and al manner of civilian targets?


Militarily, the only possible repercussions would be psychological damage to troops, fear of repercussions, or unattainment of military objectives (ie. if you want to keep a population alive and healthy).

But I could envision a situation where someone where those concerns are not militarily valid.

Does that frighten you?

Well thats war.

Sometimes its necessary, sometimes it feels good, but it is ALWAYS nasty and brutal, in both reality and conceptually.

"Rules of War" is a blanket term for an unspoken agreement between two sides when war has been formally declared. These are rules of courtesy, which both sides are expected to abide by.

And what happens when someone doesn't follow the rules of war? The injured party gets upset and the nature of the conflict changes.

See: change from 17th century to modern warfare for loads of examples.

What if country B's culture does not recognize the difference between civilian and military? They are just putting that rocket launcher where they have the space, next to the kitchen.

Rules of War are not used these days, thanks to jihadists who believe that every non-Muslim deserves to die.

Jihadists are not the ones using laser-guided bombs dropped from military jets on top of civilian homes in countries who didn't even have a war declared onto them by their own country.

War isn't black and white, neither is choosing military targets. For instance, no one seems to have a problem hitting an oil refinery to starve the nation of that precious resource, yet hit a steel mill and watch the UN scream foul. Hit a plant that makes bombers, no problem, but hit Parris Island, where they make Marines, and everyone is in an uproar.

If I were in charge during a time of war, I'd say "If the target directly contributes to the front line or is exclusive to the enemy's offensive and defensive capabilities, then it is a valid target." So, weapons hidden in houses, take out the house. Bomber plant, bomb it. But I think hitting a house that is the home to someone who happens to be in power is unacceptable. That should have to be done with a surgical strike to avoid killing his or her family and friends. I don't agree with killing or even prosecuting someone based on guilt by association (i.e. Saddam's limo driver, manacurist, personal fluffer, etc.). I also don't agree with taking out oil refineries as that hurts the civilians working there, and the civilians trying to live out their everyday lives, but we (America and her allies) have been known to do it.

But Draugnar, how much of your military advantageare you willing to sacrifice in the name of humanitarian concerns?

If the US didn't care about killing civilians at all, it might have forced Afghanistan into submission.

And if it refused to countenance civilian deaths at all, then, well, it might have lost every war before it even started.

I don't think he distinction between a valid and no valid target even deserves the appellation of 'fuzzy line'.

Maybe 'largish blur'. That sometimes kills people for no reason at all.

Agreed, which is why I'm an IT guy and not a politician...

That's very similar to asking a policeman if it is legal to raid a house or business if he suspects that it is a front for illegal activity. The answer is yes in war. There will be civilian casualties, usually on both sides and that should not stop a military force from making sure that it is nearly impossible for the enemy to pose a threat.

Hey, we A-bombed two entire cities in WWII. Granted, we told Japan we were going to do it and gave them time to evacuate, but that is what I consider to be our one criminal act of the war. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a military outpost and, in the end, we not only hit Tokyo (albeit, military/factory targets and mostly to prove we could),but we decimated two complete cities. Our willingness to use atomic weapons was why we even had a cold war with Russia. The US bombings CAUSED the current nuclear climate. The argument that it saved lives over all doesn't fly as we don't know for certain what would have happenned.

"If the US didn't care about killing civilians at all, it might have forced Afghanistan into submission." How true. If the US had done what Mongals had done to Iraq, there would be no resistance or Baghdad. Instead just a stack of skulls. Lets get real the US and the Western powers have often gone to great lengths to avoid civilian deaths. When compared histroical and many current belligerents the US and it's allies use kid gloves when dealing with the civilian populations.

The Rules of War as a concept only work in conventional warfare, as seen in World War II and earlier. In today's world, they have become increasingly difficult to define. When fighting terrorists, for example, it is almost impossible to discern civilians from legitimate targets, and it is even more difficult to justify restraint when the other side intentionally targets your civilians.
In Gaza at the moment, we see a situation unfolding where the rules of war principle has been challenged. Can we really expect Israel to practice restraint on an enemy that indiscriminately tries to murder Israeli civilians? I would argue that Israel is following the traditional rules of war (don't kill civilians) as best it or any other nation can in such a situation. When one considers that 75% of the targets Israel has struck have been military casualties, it looks a lot better.

As for the house, it is a perfectly legitimate target. A notification to the innocent civilians inside the house would be ideal, but that is the responsibility of the government watching over those civilians, which could build warning sirens in areas of impending attack.

Draugnar:
WWII was an entirely different situation. Both sides had all but stated from the beginning that they would be fighting a total war, especially the Axis; see the Luftwaffe bombings during the Spanish Civil War.
And the Cold War was inevitable. Plans were made on both sides as to how to conduct themselves after the Axis was defeated long before the Axis had been. Those plans were very much aggressive.

Which is why a moral relativist arguement for the legitimacy of certain targets is a valid point.

But I find the Cold War interesting in that Russia was our ally at the end of WWII. Of course, they wouldn't have been had Hitler not tried to do something no one had ever successfuly accomplish: conquer the Motherland.

No one?

Ask the Mongols.

Mongols came from the wrong side, the eastern ;)