Israel

[The Beatles]

1. You didn't ratify the addendum to the '49 Convention. Plus your president violated your own Constitution, so there's little that can be said.

2. I don't respect Australia's stance either.

3. Please show me when the last child sacrifice in Christendom was made and I'll listen to you: not until then. I'd bet it wasn't as recently as 500 years ago. And just because Christians (or people calling themselves that) have not followed all of Christ's teachings does not mean they did not follow some. To put it bluntly, nobody's perfect, and some people just pretend to be Christians.

4. I agree with your main point except the bit about most unstable periods in world history. If you think that, then the Bush administration's propaganda has gotten to you. The fact is, we have the highest life expectancy, lowest child mortality, greatest press freedom, greatest standard of living, of any other point in world history.

5. Also, I disagree with you about the old adage. There are thousands of instances in history of people defending themselves successfully yet judiciously and mercifully.

[Kraken]

1. You didn't ratify the addendum to the '49 Convention. Plus your president violated your own Constitution, so there's little that can be said.

really Beatles, quit talking out of yer butt....

[Gen. Volkov]

1.

As of 2005, 192 countries had ratified (thus becoming parties to) all four of the Geneva Conventions. Additional Protocol I had been ratified by 161 states, and 156 countries had ratified Additional Protocol II. Nearly every country has ratified the Geneva Conventions, so they are now considered customary international law. The United States is a party to the four Geneva Conventions, but has not ratified the two Additional Protocols. The United States refuses to ratify Protocol I because it claims the protocol will legitimize groups involved in wars of national liberation. Although the United States has not ratified Protocol I, it has indicated that most of its provisions are incorporated into customary international law. The United States also decided not to ratify Protocol II, fearing that it might enhance the status of rebels, even though there was little objection by the U.S. military to ratification of this protocol. Without the Additional Protocols, recent conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo might not have been covered by humanitarian law.

-Microsoft Encarta

2. Meh, can't please everyone.

3. How about June 16, 2005 in the UK?

4. Not propaganda. There were either outright wars venting the aggression, or superpowers keeping a lid on things for the last 100 years. This, right now, is the most unstable the world has been in the modern age. While the Mideast has always been a powderkeg, until now, there has been no way to export that violence. There is one superpower left, and we aren't as apt as the Soviet Union was to gobble up territory and suppress populations. Talk all you want about Iraq, the Soviet Union kept large parts of Europe under an iron thumb for 40 years. The liberal western democracies have everything you say, but we represent a small fraction of the world population. Most of the world lives in abject poverty, with short life expectancies, horrific standards of living, and high child mortality rates. In some African countries, life expectancy is down to 35 years.

5. Name one.

[The Beatles]

1. So we agree, right?

3. Sick... Well, never mind that particular point then.

4. We're not a small fraction of the world's population, look at the HDI map. We're about half. The other half is now experiencing standards of living similar to our Middle Ages standards, but that's still up from what it was 100 years ago when they were massacring each other -- those that weren't under the Europeans' thumb. This may be a matter of opinion though. I still sharply disagree with you on it.

5. All right, be back to you in a sec.
[edit]So... It is very difficult to find information about human rights violations in a non-recent war. People have disputed human rights issues in WWII. So I will take as an instance a small and defensive war in which human rights were clearly respected (at least by the defender): the Falklands War. A weaker nation attacked a stronger nation (admittedly not on home territory). The defending force recaptured the occupied territory in a short conflict, in which every single casualty was documented; so there was plenty of data to analyze, and human rights were found to be respected by the defending nation. I don't doubt that similar instances have occurred through history (some of Caesar's campaigns come to mind, at least by the standards of the day) but documentation for those is impossible to find. It does pain me to say it, as I am half-Argentine, but at any rate the dictator did not represent the people (in fact committed copious acts of violence himself).

[Gen. Volkov]

1. We didn't ratify the protocols written in 1977, but we did ratify the Fourth Convention itself. So yes, I suppose we agree.

4. I said western liberal democracies. Europe and America basically. South America isn't much past being Third world, in fact most countries past the Texas-Mexico border aren't much past third world. Very few of the African countries count. India may be a liberal democracy, but the average citizen there isn't much better off than one in China. The standard of living in the Middle Ages sucked. So we are a small fraction. And most of the world sucks to live in.

[The Beatles]

4. You'll excuse it if I jump on your generalization, as my father is Argentine. Take a look at the First, Second and Third worlds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HDImap.PNG
Argentina is a first-world country (as apparently, is Chile) in every sense of the word. I know the standard of living in the middle ages sucked, but would you please add up the numbers and realize that half the world is right here in the twenty-first century?

[Gen. Volkov]

Mexico is not a First World nation. It's Second World. I'll accept Argentina as First World, but I know Chile is on about the same level as Mexico. There's no legend, so I'm assuming green is first world, yellow second, red third. I don't know how they are defining them. Now, adding up everyone who is in a country colored green on that map, I come up with around a billion people. That is not half. That's 1/6th. A fraction.

Here's my figuring.

Europe: about 400 million
US: about 300 million
Everyone else in green: about 200 million

equals around 1 billion.

[The Beatles]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Life_expectancy_world_map.PNG

Most of the world has a life expectancy of 60+ years. About half have 70+. Not counting standard of living here. Not really sure what we are arguing about. You are saying these are unstable times, which really has little to do with standard of living, that's not something that usually goes down.

[Gen. Volkov]

You started the whole standard of living debate. I'm just saying the world is about to go down the toilet. Probably starting in the middle east. I think my basic thought is, we are at the beginning of a very long war which will see us become radically different in the way we fight and dispense justice. Now maybe part of that is Bush propaganda, but I think 9/11 and the various train/subway bombings by Muslim terror groups is just the tip of the iceberg. But I could be (and hope I am) wrong. I'd really rather not see New York incinerated by a nuclear device.

And about the Falklands War, it was not a defensive war, and I don't care what the British say. The Falklands are a useless bit of rock with no strategic value whatsoever. There was no need to attack Argentina over them, except to maintain British pride. And while it's true human right violations did not occur, it was a needless war. Not that I didn't like seeing the British spanking them for having the indecency to land troops on British territory, I'm just saying that it wasn't actually a defensive war. The Falklands probably should belong to Argentina anyway.

[The Beatles]

1. OK, let's agree to disagree.

2. The Falkland Islands had people on them, which you conveniently forget -- although you wouldn't if you had been born there. It was not a case of someone wanting to leave the Commonwealth (that happened all the time), but of an external entity attacking UK territory, when the residents did not want it. It was certainly a defensive war.

[Gen. Volkov]

1. Fine by me. *laughs*.

2. I'm sorry, I did forget that the Falklands is home to 2,967 people. Which could have all fit in a couple of ships and sailed to England. Or a few flights of a Boeing 747. But ok, you can have your defensive war. That lasted all of a few months. I'm sure there are examples of short wars where countries didn't conform to the old adage, but in any long war, it's almost inevitable.

[The Beatles]

2. Right, so if I decide to take over your flat, it's OK, because your family can fit in a big SUV and go to Chicago. Great.

You said "name one", which I did. But now I challenge you to find violations of the Geneva Conventions that existed during the First or Second World Wars by the Entente or Allied powers.

[Gen. Volkov]

2. Alright alright, point taken.

I've got one right off the bat Beatles. The Allies used gas on German forces in WW1. Or how about the firebombing of Dresden? The mass executions of the German soldiers by Soviet forces? The firebombing of Tokyo? Or the executions of German prisoners by American troops? (That last is not verified, but appears in many memoirs) The Allies were alot better about it, but we weren't innocent. And ok, the firebombings don't really count. But I think the gassing does.

[The Beatles]

Dresden was a strategic base (as you acknowledge). Correct on Soviets. Can you find violations by Allies in WWII not by Soviets?

BTW, was using gas illegal at the time of WWI?

[Gen. Volkov]

Any verifiable Allied violations not by Soviets? No, just personal accounts of pissed off GI's shooting Germans who had surrendered. Killing injured enemy combatants as well. Usually there would be no court marshal, because the soldier could claim they had weapons or were lifting a pistol or something. And the generals were just as susceptible to anger as the GI's, so they'd go along with it. Hence the lack of verification.

And gas had been made illegal to use during the war. At first it was using it in a special type of canister, then I think in general.