War crimes: A quick hypothetical

[Squilookle]

It could also spark long term social reform that could ultimately save their whole species. I'm just running on the assumption that nearly everything we do would be culture shock to them, so we'd just roll with it.

Especially endangered species preservation. I'll bet they'd never let us hear the end of that one...

 

[WanderingFool]

They probably wouldn't worry about us going for the same planet, as they have ships up and running whereas we first have to understand FTL and we don't even have any ships built yet. Nevertheless, if necessary, we'll add the sweetener of revealing how we were able to see so far into space in the first place, so they can find their own future spots.

We will also need to warn them of our Scorched Earth policy. Make it understood that it may be possible to trade with us in the future, but any further attack on Earth that looks to be successful will be met with a worldwide Nuclear Fallout, rendering the planet useless to anyone.

In the meantime, invite any ambassadors or reserachers they may have -there's bound to be a few no matter how racist they are- down to Earth to understand us better. In particular, teach them about how we use contraception and recycling, renewable energy, terraforming theory, etc. Have this information all part-in-parcel of the whole 'what humans are like' package, so it doesn't seen forced or suggestive.

At the conclusion of negotiations, all alien prisoners are to be returned, in good health, no matter what happened to human captives/casualties.

And that, I think, is how I'd handle it.

Seems pretty good. You might want to be careful though, concepts like contraception might induce culture shock in a species like this.

From the way they reproduce, learning how we reproduce will probably be shock inducing...

 

[6urk17s]

In appearance, imagine a humanoid tardigrade.

To hell with Geneva then.

Kill the invaders, sieze their ships, reverse engineer, some human science magic, build our own invasion fleet, paint some ironic phrase on them and go Terran Empire! Lets show those space scum what happens when someone messes with us!

 

[Slayer_2]

Gears of War... And heck no, burn them all, screw the rules.

 

[Sean Wagner]

When in doubt, do what the Doctor would do. That is really all you need to know. People who use nukes and mustard gas are just being lazy. Surely we are more clever than that. Good thing no one wants this backwater planet.

 

[Ryotknife]

Wouldn't the moon nazis take care of that for us?

OT: What ship types are in their invasion fleet then? By what means did they arrive(FTL, sleeper ships, stargate, e.t.c.) here and are they human like or monsterish?

Only MASSIVE transports with point defence, but they have some large in-atmosphere craft that utilise anti-gravity tech to make them floating fortresses. They have limited FTL; they can't fire FTL projectiles or anything like that, and it still took them quite some time to get here. In appearance, imagine a humanoid tardigrade.

What's the biggest problem that forced them to move- lack of space, food, a spreading disease, or is their homeworld doing reasonably fine, and they're purely expanding for the hell of it?

Lack of space on their homeworld plus a huge breeding rate. They don't have much in the way of terraforming, either, which is why they need a world similar to a more pristine version of their homeworld. Ours will suffice.

dunno, kinda seems like a short sighted plan. I am assuming planets similiar to their homeworld are kinda rare, and they would prefer to find one without intelligent life but cant seem to find one.

It will buy them some time, but the problem is only going to get worse and a whole lot faster as time drags on. Well, unless we kill a bunch of them during the fighting.

Also, lordy. if our planet is a pristine version of their own, i think their race is doomed. If they breed very fast, they probably dont place the same value on life as we do (think insects).

If we are losing, i propose that we nuke the crap out of our planet purely out of spite.

 

[senordesol]

Jeez, this sounds ridiculously similar to a story I'm writing that basically has to do with the same premise.

A colonial alien power takes over, occupies, and enslaves Earth. Plucky resistance develops worldwide, putting humans in increasingly desperate contests with theirs alien overlords.

Basically, this is how I wrote it would go:
Soldiering age is now 12.
Attacking/sabotaging water, food, and medical supplies is standard operating procedure.
All collaborating humans are killed on the spot.
All captured aliens are tortured for information and fun.
When food is scarce, they eat the aliens.

Upon liberation, all surviving colonists are rounded up and executed; all surviving collaborating humans are tried.

Captcha: I think => I am

uh...guys...it's...it's...aware!

 

[Emperor Nat]

This depends on the intelligence level of the aliens. If they have no sense of morality, yet are still rational, sentient beings capable of thought and the experience of pain I would argue that they have certain rights.

That said, I think that in an our-race-must-survive situation we could get away with a whole lot more than is permitted within war - for instance hiding as civilians before attacking, concealing weapons, fighting in religious buildings if necessary, pretending to surrender then exploding them, etc...

EDIT: Also, it's interesting to note that those who break the terms of the Geneva convention are not protected by it. If you commit a war crime, for instance by shooting at non-combatants or using them as human shields, then you're a free target for whoever wants to take you out... however they want to do it.

 

[Yopaz]

Uhm, just pointing out a logical flaw in this thread. An alien species at a similar technological level wouldn't be able to invade us since space travel is impossible at our technological level.

However back on topic I think we should follow the Geneva convention as much as we can. If we went killing civilians that would probably make them more determined to crush us and I'd still not approve of torture because it's not needed and we're probably unable to communicate. However they attacked us so I do think that anything that we could do to make sure we'd get an end to all of this more quickly in order to minimize losses should be done. If we have to nuke them and possibly kill civilians then I'd say it should be done if it actually hurts their army too. Execute the wounded rather than taking prisoners sounds fair enough I guess. I'd say we should try to keep this war clean, but be prepared to fight dirty where it's needed.

 

[SckizoBoy]

True, and I don't say we shoudln't fight them in every way possible, all I'm trying to say is that morals are not about what the other thinks, it's about YOU. What YOU think is the right thing to do. What another would do in the same situation should not affect your values, or there would be no point in having them.
(to clarify, I'm talking about horrendously torturing POW's or causing more pain then is absolutely necessary. You know, war crimes, what the thread's about, that's not to say we shouldn't be waging war.)

True, but modern thinking doesn't necessarily preclude methods of war from being warcrimes. The problem comes in that sometimes... what soldiers do to civilians can be as nothing compared to what the civilians do in return.

I point you toward the Peninsular War, where Spanish peasantry were just as guilty of torture and what one would conventially call 'warcrimes' as French soldiers. Much as France and Britain hated each other, French soldiers wanted to be captured by British soldiers more than anyone else given the circumstances.

Anyway, I digress. This is one of those few occasions that one can talk about Clausewitz's trinity, the first one being the relevant one (though there would be some interplay with the second): violent emotion; and the involvement of chance and probability. Some alien creature comes down and kills your family in front of your eyes with the dispassion of a serial killer, you're either going to shit yourself and go nuts or go nuts and think vengeance for a good while. Either way, there will be the inevitability of the aforementioned violent emotion, whether you, another witness or someone you know to whom you recount the scene, it will be felt. While on the individual basis this is understandable, even justifiable, stemming it on the broader scale is what we need to consider.

Now, the idealised purpose of war (IMO - and please note the use of the word 'idealised') is to create a better peace than the peace that led into the war, regardless of motivations of individuals. This can be achieved in only two ways: annihilation of one or both combatants; or removal of the desire for war and any broad possibility for future enmity. The latter is the holy grail of peace treaties and the difficulty in its execution is such that it has only been done on a handful of occasions. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) is a great example of how not to do it, the American occupation of Japan after the War in the Pacific is a great example of how to do it correctly (or at least from what little I know of it).

In the example we thus consider, we have to take into account the fact that the alien mentality is simply and purely annihilation, and considering that is the approach of the soldiery, that is necessarily the approach of the citizenry, otherwise one would wonder at their political system. So how does an occupying soldier deal with civilians when the civilians will take any and every opportunity to kill that soldier, regardless of their own safety?

 

[clippen05]

Greets!

Indeed, dropping two nuke bombs onto major population centers was quite patriotic of the Americans.

good thing it saved many more lives in the end. Still a terrible thing though (second bomb is definetely debatable). not to mention we are defending their country for them now........

No, it didn't save more lives in the end. The Japanese were willing to surrender, their nation was broken. People falsely purporting that they were going to defend the mainland to the last man are liars. The Japanese didn't have the weapons or ammunition by this point to stage such a defence and were basically starved for resources as all of their ships were at the bottom of the ocean, nothing from their colonies that they needed could be imported. (Including food) The Japanese sent envoys of peace to Sweden hoping to go through a neutral party and word did get to the U.S. However, the Japanese demanded that their Emperor retain his position, while the U.S. demanded an unconditional surrender. SO of course, the U.S. nuked civilian centers of NO MILITARY VALUE. I don't see how that saved lives, considering an invasion was not needed; the Japanese WERE WILLING TO SURRENDER. Of course, the reconstruction after the war put the Emperor back on the throne, so the nukes are even more insulting looked at after the fact.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I'd say that we do whatever it takes to make sure that they don't invade our planet and make sure that they won't ever screw with us again.
They're severely overpopulated?
They won't be when humanity's through with them.

TL;DR: [h4]BREAK OUT THE NAPALM, BABY![/h4]

 

[Commissar Sae]

I'm actually having a pretty hard time remembering a war where just plain humans stuck to the Geneva conventions. We break those rules so routinely that I doubt we would stop bending the rules even if our enemies were adhering to some moral principle.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Greets!

Indeed, dropping two nuke bombs onto major population centers was quite patriotic of the Americans.

good thing it saved many more lives in the end. Still a terrible thing though (second bomb is definetely debatable). not to mention we are defending their country for them now........

No, it didn't save more lives in the end. The Japanese were willing to surrender, their nation was broken. People falsely purporting that they were going to defend the mainland to the last man are liars. The Japanese didn't have the weapons or ammunition by this point to stage such a defence and were basically starved for resources as all of their ships were at the bottom of the ocean, nothing from their colonies that they needed could be imported. (Including food) The Japanese sent envoys of peace to Sweden hoping to go through a neutral party and word did get to the U.S. However, the Japanese demanded that their Emperor retain his position, while the U.S. demanded an unconditional surrender. SO of course, the U.S. nuked civilian centers of NO MILITARY VALUE. I don't see how that saved lives, considering an invasion was not needed; the Japanese WERE WILLING TO SURRENDER. Of course, the reconstruction after the war put the Emperor back on the throne, so the nukes are even more insulting looked at after the fact.

Also if one reads the Japanese high command communications following the Hiroshima bombing, most of the more panicked letters were about the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the fact that several thousand Russians just wiped out their armies there in a matter of days. A second front had jusst opened and they had basically already lost the first one.

There were a lot of ulterior motive to the use of atomic bombs in Japan that had nothing to do with a fear of continued Japanese resistance.

 

[Ryotknife]

Greets!

Indeed, dropping two nuke bombs onto major population centers was quite patriotic of the Americans.

good thing it saved many more lives in the end. Still a terrible thing though (second bomb is definetely debatable). not to mention we are defending their country for them now........

No, it didn't save more lives in the end. The Japanese were willing to surrender, their nation was broken. People falsely purporting that they were going to defend the mainland to the last man are liars. The Japanese didn't have the weapons or ammunition by this point to stage such a defence and were basically starved for resources as all of their ships were at the bottom of the ocean, nothing from their colonies that they needed could be imported. (Including food) The Japanese sent envoys of peace to Sweden hoping to go through a neutral party and word did get to the U.S. However, the Japanese demanded that their Emperor retain his position, while the U.S. demanded an unconditional surrender. SO of course, the U.S. nuked civilian centers of NO MILITARY VALUE. I don't see how that saved lives, considering an invasion was not needed; the Japanese WERE WILLING TO SURRENDER. Of course, the reconstruction after the war put the Emperor back on the throne, so the nukes are even more insulting looked at after the fact.

Also if one reads the Japanese high command communications following the Hiroshima bombing, most of the more panicked letters were about the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the fact that several thousand Russians just wiped out their armies there in a matter of days. A second front had jusst opened and they had basically already lost the first one.

There were a lot of ulterior motive to the use of atomic bombs in Japan that had nothing to do with a fear of continued Japanese resistance.

Like how the US did not want Russia to begin a land invasion of Japan so they could not claim a portion of it seeing how it was obvious by that time the hostilities between russia and US were likely?

Or how we had to show not only the destructive power of the A bomb, but also show that we were willing to use such weapon.

Im sure both of those were also factors.

 

[bauke67]

True, but modern thinking doesn't necessarily preclude methods of war from being warcrimes. The problem comes in that sometimes... what soldiers do to civilians can be as nothing compared to what the civilians do in return.

I point you toward the Peninsular War, where Spanish peasantry were just as guilty of torture and what one would conventially call 'warcrimes' as French soldiers. Much as France and Britain hated each other, French soldiers wanted to be captured by British soldiers more than anyone else given the circumstances.

Anyway, I digress. This is one of those few occasions that one can talk about Clausewitz's trinity, the first one being the relevant one (though there would be some interplay with the second): violent emotion; and the involvement of chance and probability. Some alien creature comes down and kills your family in front of your eyes with the dispassion of a serial killer, you're either going to shit yourself and go nuts or go nuts and think vengeance for a good while. Either way, there will be the inevitability of the aforementioned violent emotion, whether you, another witness or someone you know to whom you recount the scene, it will be felt. While on the individual basis this is understandable, even justifiable, stemming it on the broader scale is what we need to consider.

Now, the idealised purpose of war (IMO - and please note the use of the word 'idealised') is to create a better peace than the peace that led into the war, regardless of motivations of individuals. This can be achieved in only two ways: annihilation of one or both combatants; or removal of the desire for war and any broad possibility for future enmity. The latter is the holy grail of peace treaties and the difficulty in its execution is such that it has only been done on a handful of occasions. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) is a great example of how not to do it, the American occupation of Japan after the War in the Pacific is a great example of how to do it correctly (or at least from what little I know of it).

In the example we thus consider, we have to take into account the fact that the alien mentality is simply and purely annihilation, and considering that is the approach of the soldiery, that is necessarily the approach of the citizenry, otherwise one would wonder at their political system. So how does an occupying soldier deal with civilians when the civilians will take any and every opportunity to kill that soldier, regardless of their own safety?

I must say, you've really put some effort into this!
But in this case were talking about an invasion of earth, which would probably just include the earth, and everyone and everything on it, and an alien invasion fleet. It would be logical to assume that there are no large numbers of alien civilians aboard an invading fleet, as that would be rather nonsensical.
So, taking into consideration that we have no means to get to their homeworld, there would almost no civilians for us to deal with.
I can't vouch for the behaviour of our civilians, but it's most likely none of them will ever get to see the enemy up close, since it'd be safer for them to stay in their ships.
Because of this, I don't think behaviour of civilians, cruel as it can be, plays any large part here.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Greets!

Indeed, dropping two nuke bombs onto major population centers was quite patriotic of the Americans.

good thing it saved many more lives in the end. Still a terrible thing though (second bomb is definetely debatable). not to mention we are defending their country for them now........

No, it didn't save more lives in the end. The Japanese were willing to surrender, their nation was broken. People falsely purporting that they were going to defend the mainland to the last man are liars. The Japanese didn't have the weapons or ammunition by this point to stage such a defence and were basically starved for resources as all of their ships were at the bottom of the ocean, nothing from their colonies that they needed could be imported. (Including food) The Japanese sent envoys of peace to Sweden hoping to go through a neutral party and word did get to the U.S. However, the Japanese demanded that their Emperor retain his position, while the U.S. demanded an unconditional surrender. SO of course, the U.S. nuked civilian centers of NO MILITARY VALUE. I don't see how that saved lives, considering an invasion was not needed; the Japanese WERE WILLING TO SURRENDER. Of course, the reconstruction after the war put the Emperor back on the throne, so the nukes are even more insulting looked at after the fact.

Also if one reads the Japanese high command communications following the Hiroshima bombing, most of the more panicked letters were about the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the fact that several thousand Russians just wiped out their armies there in a matter of days. A second front had jusst opened and they had basically already lost the first one.

There were a lot of ulterior motive to the use of atomic bombs in Japan that had nothing to do with a fear of continued Japanese resistance.

Like how the US did not want Russia to begin a land invasion of Japan so they could not claim a portion of it seeing how it was obvious by that time the hostilities between russia and US were likely?

Or how we had to show not only the destructive power of the A bomb, but also show that we were willing to use such weapon.

Im sure both of those were also factors.

Yup, hit the nail on the head. Also part of it was the need to justify the millions spent on research into atomic technology to the American public. It would have been sort of embarassing to have that kind of spending brought up during an election and basically ave nothing to show for it.

Politics can be really callous sometimes.

 

[platinawolf]

What we think is right vs what we do,,, Should we use every page of the book of badness (Read WMD) against the big bad alien scum?

What we think is right: We uphold our Values and follow our laws, treating the aliens with dignity and respect.

What we'll do: War going badly? Humanity is favored by GOD! We will use whatever means necessary to survive, ethics be damned!

Humanity has never been very good at upholding its rules about whats right and wrong, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? WTC, Afghanistan, Irak,,, History is littered with excamples of how we will disregard all rules of combat to get the job done.

In fact, WTC and the "wave of terrorism" probably describe exactly how we would act against an alien force trying to exterminate/suppress us. A few will do whatever is needed to cause as much damage as possible.

It only takes one...

 

[Aeshi]

They're basically invading our world because they were too stupid to keep care of their own?

Yeah, I say Nuke the bastards. You can have your Moral Victory, I'd rather have an actual one.