Poll: All's Fair In Love and War?

[Sylocat]

I think that he misjudges the human capacity found in everyone to commit the darkest of atrocities in needed believing everyone has a line they won't cross.

This pretty much summarizes my beliefs on the topic. Humans, on average, aren't driven to play by the rules out of the goodness of their hearts, they're driven only by fear of punishment. Take away consequences, you take away morals.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

ok for the dropping of the bomb during ww2, it was a necessary evil that saved lives on both sides. if you understand japan you'd know they'd rather die than giving up the island. it was also one of the hardest decisions truman made, he actually feared for his soul for that decision. also i do believe both targets were also thought to be secret army bases and manufacturing centers, so they weren't as innocent as you'd think

now for the topic at hand, fairness is VERY subjective, what is fair to one person is not fair to another. my version of fair might be vastly different than the person i'm fighting.

the only fairness i believe in war is the ability to remove the dead, wounded and women and children, after that every thing else is fair. i think what ppl should ask is what is humane and what isn't.

a lot of ppl think of good strategy as unfairness. say you have a large army and severely outnumber the other force, is it a wise idea for the smaller force to go head-to-head with the larger one? no it's suicide.

is it smarter for the smaller force to resort to guerrilla tactics and strikes to whittle down the larger force and their morale? yeah i think it would be, but that's considered unfair to some ppl

i've had this debate, well the fairness one a few times, mostly with "what is a fair (street) fight?" to me that's one i don't get hurt in, i don't care about the other person

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

Didnt know that there were rules in war other than the "no neuculer wepons" thing. Thaught the idea of war was to just kill everbody that wanted to kill you by anymeans nessary other that making half the world go boom.

 

[Whiskyjakk]

War without rules only makes sense if your only aim is to win. The use of genocide or torturing prisoners may shorten the war but it virtually ensures that you will have problems governing or dealing with your subdued enemies when peace is declared.

For example, initially the Ukrainians welcomed the German armies in Operation Barbarossa. When the Germans looted from them and burned their villages partisan groups formed in occupied territory and more villages were burned in a vicious circle of guerilla warfare. If they had avoided harming civilians in the first place this senseless combat could have been avoided.

 

[ShyWinter]

It's impossible to define rules of war. It's not like wars are highly controlled chess games anyway, where you can go back a move if the referee points out an error. Protocol and propaganda sounds great in a politician's speeches but the reality is that war is about killing people, plain and simple. There's no good or evil, no honor, there might not even be God on a battlefield, just surviving.

Look throughout history and you'll see that when a faction gets out of control - like German's blitzing London or insurgents mowing down UN peacekeepers in Somalia or women and children in Darfur - shouting "That's not fair" usually does very little to stem the violence. Be chivalrous all you want, but war's a game were the loser dies and the winner gets to justify everything. That is, if you can say war has "winners". I wouldn't use that word to describe most vets I've met. They seem just happy to be alive.

*sigh* As for love...a blunt "No". Not all's fair there. You don't want to hurt a person that you love.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

But then again you have to look at the justification of the rules. You guys say that there should be rules so that inhuman monstrosities won't occur, so that there wouldn't be a clear wrong in what you are doing. But to the losers losing would be unfair. When you face a mosterous foe that is trampling all that you believe in and their justification for doing so is that they are doing what they think is right and that you shouldn't whine because they are playing by what ever predefined rules that was made before hand. In which would make you believe the rules are unjustice and oyu have to "cheat" to defeat this enemy to create rules that are fair, so in essence you wouldn't be cheating.

There isn't really cheaters as there are people who have differnt morals in what is right. You would think by now people would know what is right and what is wrong, but my belief is that no one really has the right to say that fighting a war is doing what is right unless God himself was standing by his side and the devil was on the other. Hilter I think was pretty close to the devil.

I guess we won't have a unified nation to defend us against the alian invasion...

 

[JakubK666]

@ Nuclear Wars.

Defcon seems to be the best Nuclear War simulator up-to-date.Everybody loses.

 

[Nugoo]

It's impossible to define rules of war. It's not like wars are highly controlled chess games anyway, where you can go back a move if the referee points out an error. Protocol and propaganda sounds great in a politician's speeches but the reality is that war is about killing people, plain and simple. There's no good or evil, no honor, there might not even be God on a battlefield, just surviving.

No, wars are not about killing people. Wars are about defeating your opponents. Killing their soldiers tends to be the simplest method to accomplish that, but the point of war isn't to just rack up a body count. That's why we have a separate word for massacre. That's also why we accept surrenders. We don't want our opponents dead, we just want them to stop fighting us.

By the way, the only way there's no evil on the battlefield is if you define evil as intentionally bad, and there's no rational thought on a battlefield. Otherwise, just because you have to do something to survive, doesn't mean it isn't evil.

 

[nightfish]

All is fair in war.

nah, genocide, rape, child soldiers is not fair by any means.

soldiering is a professional occupation so act like one.

 

[Easykill]

How about this rule: No war.

War should always be the violation of the rule, setting sub standards of what your allowed to do in something that isn't allowed at all undermines the original rule. All rules will be broken anyways if a country deems it necessary, it's better to have only the one rule. Everything else is a farce- when it comes down to it, it will be ignored.

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

How about this rule: No war.

War should always be the violation of the rule, setting sub standards of what your allowed to do in something that isn't allowed at all undermines the original rule. All rules will be broken anyways if a country deems it necessary, it's better to have only the one rule. Everything else is a farce- when it comes down to it, it will be ignored.

but without war we wouldnt be able to kill each-other on a massave scale. Wheres the fun in that?

 

[Zemalac]

I'd just like to point out that you don't have a choice labeled "depends." Because really it does depend on what war it is. If it is a "total war" such as WWII then nations are fighting for their very survival and won't adhere to any foolish notion of rules. However, if it isn't a total war, such as the current US occupation of Iraq, then there are generally some rules that are adhered to because atrocities cannot be excused. In a total war the people fighting just have more to lose. That's the main reason why the US lost the war in Vietnam--the North Vietnamise were fighting a total war, and the Americans weren't.

 

[Easykill]

I'm not saying there should never be war, we needed to fight WWII, but no war should be anything less than total. If there's no reason to fight, don't do it. [This of course ignores the fact that war is good for the economy and pulled us out of the great depression, that's an issue for another time].

 

[stompy]

When you're fighting for your survival, most rules and niceties go out the window pretty fast.

While I believe that civilians shouldn't get in the cross-fire, and the rules of war should reflect this point, I have to agree with WhiteFangOfWar's point. Humans will do anything to survive, and in war, either you survive or not. There's no middle ground.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

IMHO, there should be rules to war; because it gives the Neutrals a clear view of who the bad guys are.

Like not letting people see your WMD's.

Sun Tzu wrote the originals and the Geneva Convention helps to keep some of the true psychopaths out of War.

War is an occupation to some, and has produced some of the greatest Scientific Advancements known to man. (Something that Civilisation really fails at)

Without WW2, for example, we wouldn't have surgery(properly), fertilizer, antibiotics, etc.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, just a necessary one.

 

[stompy]

Without WW2, for example, we wouldn't have surgery(properly), fertilizer, antibiotics, etc.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, just a necessary one.

We also wouldn't have teflon... and it's many uses.

 

[Fire Daemon]

All is fair in war.

nah, genocide, rape, child soldiers is not fair by any means.

soldiering is a professional occupation so act like one.

Just because it is not nice that does not mean it is not fair. And the fact that Genocide, rape and Child soldiers is existant in war is further proof that there are no rules.

On a side note: Did you know that the term Infantry derived from the term Infant.

 

[hughball]

Geneva Convention helps to keep some of the true psychopaths out of War.

The Geneva convention got forgotten right around the time they renamed soldiers to enemy combatants and locked people up indefinitely. Also on another note psychopaths have been more active since its inception.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

IMHO, there should be rules to war; because it gives the Neutrals a clear view of who the bad guys are.

actually neutrals won't care which side is which, hence why they're neutral or do you mean "neutral" like the states was "neutral" before it's involvement in ww2?

Sun Tzu wrote the originals and the Geneva Convention helps to keep some of the true psychopaths out of War.

the art of war is how to win at war and be a successful general in battle

the geneva convemtion doesn't prevent crazies it does provide a way for us to punish them once we've captured them tho

War is an occupation to some, and has produced some of the greatest Scientific Advancements known to man. (Something that Civilisation really fails at)

Without WW2, for example, we wouldn't have surgery(properly), fertilizer, antibiotics, etc.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, just a necessary one.

science achievements have come during war time but the ones you mentioned didn't, some antibiotics were created during ww2 yes but penicillin was created before ww2, surgery has been around for thousands of years and fertilizers was 19th century

 

[Calobi]

Wars should have rules, yes. But as Anton said, war isn't just about winning. And as others have said, someone will, historically speaking, "play" outside of these rules.
As for love, I think there are rules and that, even if you don;t know them, you play by them. This coming from a lonely, single man.

Finally, just for the sheer geek-factor, an Andromeda quote:
"Here's everything I know about war:
Somebody wins,
somebody loses,
and nothing is ever the same again."