Normal people don’t win counterinsurgencies. COIN is typically won by the most ruthless genocidal maniacs. Genghis Khan never had much trouble with insurgents. Dont think there were insurgents, as we understand the term, in existance back then !What you consider war crimes is the way COIN has been won for thousands of years.So rape, murder of innocent civilians, deliberate & targeted shelling of a hospital, murder of those who have surrendered ISNT a war crime in your book? Amatures are those who don’t understand this. Do you mean Amatuers ?
This kind of war is not going to be won by what you consider civilized means, and is best avoided altogether if you disapprove of it. No war is civilised but there are rules which most “normal” people,military and civilian, regard as being non-negotiable, especially when they are applied to non-combatants.
The Brits always had a soft spot for the Tamils. Maybe it’s a colonial thing. But this is the way it must end. Either the Tamil Tigers get their way through terrorism, or the government gets it’s way through war crimes. 1. I am not British, 2. It might be more a question that people in general expect a government NOT to act like some sort of blood crazed madmen rather than any Colonial sympathy.3 Your statement that this was the only way to win that particular war is to be frank nonsensical.
I presume that if this crime had been perpetrated against members of Western Armed forces or for that matter Western civilians it would be equally acceptable ? Were the crimes of Japanese forces against the resistance in the Philippines okay? or against American POW’s on the Bataan Death march? What about the actions of the SS against civilians in Oradour-Sur-Glane ?
Your arguments excusing the actions of the government of a “civilised” country are better left to history…a history that no one in the right mind would should be held up as something to be repeated.
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