That statement looks pretty obvious at first reading, but are there any circumstances when killing is justified? War is the main cause of mass killings ,both civilian and combatants.
The reasons to engage in warfare rather than try to sort things out diplomatically may be complex. Aggressors may want to expand their borders or defend an allied nation.
The Falklands War was an example of a former colonial power asserting it’s rights over a territory at the furthest reaches of the Southern hemisphere. Argentina was ruled by a military junta at the time and probably.thought that they could get away with claiming las Malvinas as their own without too much opposition.
Unfortunately, they had reckoned without the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher who needed a successful war to bolster her party’s ratings. With a friend in Chile’s dictator, Pinochet, she got valuable intelligence and sent a flotilla to retake the Falklands.
There were catastrophic blunders by senior British military so that some troops disembarking were sitting targets for the Argentinians. Others ‘yomped’ their way across the island with many sustaining foot rot from the soggy ground.
Bloody hand to hand fighting in places like Goose Green left many young soldiers with PTSD and horrific injuries. The Argentine army was defeated to the relief of the British inhabitants and the Union Jack hoisted once more over Por,t Stanley.
The Desert Storm campaign against Saddam Hussein’s forces proved easier. The combined forces of the UK and the USA outnumbered the Iraqi army and waited for everything to be put in place before launching a massive onslaught on the enemy. Militarily it was successful although the war aims had not been clarified.
The perceived threat of weapons of mass destruction held by Iraq never materialised. Tony Blair was accused of being a war criminal for taking the UK to war on the basis of a ‘sexed up’ intelligence report.
The destruction of ancient cities, civilian casualties and the exodus of Iraqi refugees was the price paid by Iraq for the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
odespinner 