RE: Infantry Combat Vehicles

The Yugoslav arms industry experimented (not entierly unsuccessfuly) with the ICV concept and came up with the BVP M80 and it’s succesor the M80A. Now, I’d what I’d really like are some pics of these rare but useful ICVs and maybe some pics of other little known armour from nations such as Romania etc.

RE: IDF/AF F-16 attack goes wrong

According to the Geneva Convention it is a “war-crime” to target or attack military personnel or objects if there may be civillians near-by. Now, I don’t know whether Israel is a signatory to the GC or what but it’s a fairly useful guideline to go by…

RE: Sociological question

I’ve lived in Britain for a long time but am not British. To me it looks like Britains (more accurately the English) need to have an enemy. The Germans, the Argies etc etc. I’ve heard English footie fans shout things about the Germans which I wouldn’t expect from Serbian fans when chanting about Croats. Considering there hasn’t been a war on English soil for almost a thousand years it often preplexes me how much hatred can be mustered.

RE: US-rogue nation in the making?????

Question: How many US servicemen have (in the last 12 years for example) been convicted of wrongly targeting civillians during a combat situation? I’m sure the answer is zero.

Even Russia, with it’s crumbling, red-tape laden beurocracy has convicted it’s own soldiers of acts which amount to warcrimes.

If a power like the US is prepared to intervene in/start conflicts around the world but isn’t prepared to control it’s own soldiers then we need a world court to control it for us. The failure to sign up to the world court is similar to failing to sign the Geneva Convention (although the US has seen need to ignore that in the past so maybe it doesn’t much matter).

Sauron,

If you define a rogue state as one capable of flaunting international law in order to further it’s own interests. A state which commits human rights abuses and doesn’t answer to anyone for them, a state which has a dubious system for selecing governments. Then surely the US falls right into place.

RE: US-rogue nation in the making?????

tomel,

“(rogue nations)-for me,the US are slowly becoming one.”

In my mind the US has been a rogue nation (as in one which disobeys international law to further it’s own interests) since the collapse of the USSR.

Dazza,

The International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (or a similar organ for Rwanda) is region specific. They cannot deal with war crimes commited outside the region they are assigned with. In fact, the War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia declined to investigate possible war crimes committed during the NATO aggression on Yug simply because NATO are outside their very specific area of juristiction.

The international court is a concept intended to create a world wide, permanent war crimes tribunal. The US isn’t interested because they’re already guilty of war crimes and intend to committ more.

RE: What did hoppen at the wedding?

I take it that the Taliban aren’t dead then? If US combat aircraft, helicopters and ground forces are still running around the country shooting at everyone with an AK surely that means the Taliban are still around. In fact, if they suspect that the Taliban are setting up anti-aircraft bases etc they must still be around in some strength. Weren’t we reliably informed that the war was over months ago?

RE: Investigation continuing

The exaggerated numbers of killed in Kosovo came almost directly from the KLA (UCK/OVK – whatever) via their paymasters in NATO defense ministries. The numbers for killed and wounded in Afghanistan come from The International Red Cross and Red Cresent and from some other NGOs. The fact that they were reported on by the same TV News channels and Newspapers is less relevant (although I concede your point about the general inaccuracy of media reporters).

All those PGMs, all that technology, all the effort they went to, all the spin-doctoring and yet it still seems clear that the US has killed hundreds, nay thousands of civillians in varrious countries around the world. Frankly, I’m not surprised few other countries are prepared to spend all that money, they seem to be doing fine with dumb-bombs and rockets :-).

RE: Wedding gift from United States

Ok, I didn’t want to be drawn on this but what can I say, I’m weak.

Firstly, I have read very little about what is happening in Afghanistan as there seems to be quite an effective media-block on almost all military operations. However, I have read several differnt newspapers and seen a couple of interviews on TV news which seem to suggest that the number of civies killed in ‘stan is between 2,000 and 5,000. Also, I would like to suggest that the Iraqis have suffered a great deal of civillian casualties, not just from the IIPGW but also from subsequent sporadic bombing raids (I won’t even bother to go into the damage done by the sanctions).

This is of course only in the last 12 years. How many civillians have to die in the next 12 before we realise that something needs to be changed.

Finally, Garry is right to mention atrocities commited before 1990. Many civillians died in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia but that’s ok, nobody was counting back then so we can just forget about it. And then there were the two greatest acts of murder mankind has ever seen (short of the holocaust – well pointed out Sauron).