Was the killing in Woolwich murder or part of the war?

[Casually Red]

For pragmatic reasons as much as anything. A member of the Taliban captured by UK forces in Afghanistan is likely in due course to be a prisoner who is a member of a group that is negotiating peace, and quite likely to be released at some point. In the end, the legal status of IRA killers was different from that of 'normal' killers, and they were released for political reasons. This is not the situation with the two men in Woolwich yesterday.

they were only released ...sometimes after decades in prison...because of their associates propensity to carry on killing if they werent .
All these arguments raged for decades as regards Ireland and the narrative was pretty much the same..crazed madmen..killing for the sake of it etc etc until one morning we woke up and it changed.
And it only changed out of political necessity, in order for Britain to win there had to be a settlement. In order to be a settlement the people you were doing a deal with had to be given a retrospective respectability of sorts. This cartoon was in a mainstream English newspaper in the early 1990s. A few years later Mo Mowlam was calling Martin McGuiness babe

weve been down this road before .

 

[elbows]

Most sides in this have had reasons to resort to the rhetoric of war at certain points. But even the USA made a mess for itself by trying to use this to bypass or alter aspects of the legal landscape. (enemy combatants etc).

Despite attempts by various western nations to remove the 'war on terror' branding, we still see some of that stuff leaking out from time to time.

A not terribly exciting but still vaguely relevant example from today would be that NATO commented. But this is not surprising especially given the victim was a soldier, and note that it as described as a crime.

Nato's secretary general has made a statement on the attack in London. Anders Fogh Rasmussen says: "I strongly condemn this shocking and barbaric crime. Such attacks can never be justified. Our thoughts at this terrible time are with the victim's family and friends. We stand in solidarity with the British government and the people of Britain."

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It's described as a crime, but they also stand in solidarity with the people of Britain. All of them? Including the two men who did this?

 

[Pickman's model]

It's described as a crime, but they also stand in solidarity with the people of Britain. All of them? Including the two men who did this?

they're obviously not british

 

[gosub]

Now don't get me wrong, I think that war is murder, but the law says differently. Killing a soldier in war is not considered murder afaik (I don't think there are particular rules around off-duty soldiers - maybe someone can tell me). So in Afghanistan there are already non-Afghans fighting against British soldiers and this is part of the war there, in which our nation is participating. So was this attack simply a part of the war that happened to take place on 'our' territory? Is it fundamentally ethically different from what is happening in Afghanistan? And is our shock at the brutality of it partly an admission that we don't really think about the war very much and are simply horrified to find it arriving here rather than staying safely over there?

If it was an act of war then it would be in the same vein as the sabotage carried out by American Germans in WW1 that caused the internment camps of WW2, so probably in every bodies interest to consider it a murder carried out by deranged idiots

 

[elbows]

It's described as a crime, but they also stand in solidarity with the people of Britain. All of them? Including the two men who did this?

All part of the rhetoric mess.

 

[cdg]

Well, just to be clear, and for any police and intel reading, I think all killing is murder and is wrong except in immediate self-defence. In that sense I don't think it was 'legitimate'. But from the point of view of the silly rules of war our rulers play by, I'm struggling to see why it shouldn't be considered part of the war. And I do see it as partly a consequence (that's not a justification) of British troops being in a war zone.

Something like this breaks all the rules of war.

 

[butchersapron]

Now don't get me wrong, I think that war is murder, but the law says differently. Killing a soldier in war is not considered murder afaik (I don't think there are particular rules around off-duty soldiers - maybe someone can tell me). So in Afghanistan there are already non-Afghans fighting against British soldiers and this is part of the war there, in which our nation is participating. So was this attack simply a part of the war that happened to take place on 'our' territory? Is it fundamentally ethically different from what is happening in Afghanistan? And is our shock at the brutality of it partly an admission that we don't really think about the war very much and are simply horrified to find it arriving here rather than staying safely over there?

So, do you now think this should be treated legally as war?

 

[sihhi]

IIRC Britain hasn't actually declared war against anyone since 1939, though we've managed to get a hell of a lot of killing in while not being at war.

Perhaps inconsequential, but Britain last declared war in 1942 against Thailand for its effective alliance with Japan that had taken over half the Asian British Empire at that point.

 

[Brainaddict]

cdg: in what way? And if the guys had travelled to Afghanistan to kill a soldier, would it have been different?

So, do you now think this should be treated legally as war?

By and large I think the whole legal category of war is a crime. The guys murdered the soldier. I was just wondering about the consistency of choosing to exclude this from the rules of conflict.

 

[butchersapron]

cdg: in what way? And if the guys had travelled to Afghanistan to kill a soldier, would it have been different?


By and large I think the whole legal category of war is a crime. The guys murdered the soldier. I was just wondering about the consistency of choosing to exclude this from the rules of conflict.

Right, so the whole thread is pointless. Did you look up what the rules of conflict are? Why not ffs.

 

[JimW]

cdg: in what way? And if the guys had travelled to Afghanistan to kill a soldier, would it have been different?


By and large I think the whole legal category of war is a crime. The guys murdered the soldier. I was just wondering about the consistency of choosing to exclude this from the rules of conflict.

Well I suppose historically the whole legal /diplomatic framework that's grown up around war, when it was or wasn't and if it was just was all about the interests of the states involved; consistency would only come into it if they were being challenged by some other state actor in a forum they gave a shit about. If it serves their purposes and they can get away with saying so it is war, and vice versa.

 

[sihhi]

By and large I think the whole legal category of war is a crime. The guys murdered the soldier.

This all makes even less sense now.

 

[teuchter]

Did you look up what the rules of conflict are? Why not ffs.

Where does one look up these rules by the way?

 

[butchersapron]

Some sort of search engine might return results something like this (pdf).

 

[butchersapron]

*ooops, wrong thread*

 

[phildwyer]

Excellent Guardian piece by Glenn Greenwald:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

''The US, the UK and its allies have repeatedly killed Muslim civilians over the past decade (and before that), but defenders of those governments insist that this cannot be "terrorism" because it is combatants, not civilians, who are the targets. Can it really be the case that when western nations continuously kill Muslim civilians, that's not "terrorism", but when Muslims kill western soldiers, that is terrorism? Amazingly, the US has even imprisoned people at Guantanamo and elsewhere on accusations of "terrorism" who are accused of nothing more than engaging in violence against US soldiers who invaded their country.

It's true that the soldier who was killed yesterday was out of uniform and not engaged in combat at the time he was attacked. But the same is true for the vast bulk of killings carried out by the US and its allies over the last decade, where people are killed in their homes, in their cars, at work, while asleep (in fact, the US has re-defined "militant" to mean "any military-aged male in a strike zone"). Indeed, at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on drone killings, Gen. James Cartwright and Sen. Lindsey Graham both agreed that the US has the right to kill its enemies even while they are "asleep", that you don't "have to wake them up before you shoot them" and "make it a fair fight". Once you declare that the "entire globe is a battlefield" (which includes London) and that any "combatant" (defined as broadly as possible) is fair game to be killed - as the US has done - then how can the killing of a solider of a nation engaged in that war, horrific though it is, possibly be "terrorism"?''

 

[Crispy]

They should have mounted their machete on a drone.

 

[dylanredefined]

Excellent Guardian piece by Glenn Greenwald:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

Maybe when he learns what terrorism is then he could comment

 

[butchersapron]

Maybe when he learns what terrorism is then he could comment

What is it?

 

[TopCat]

What is it?

US foreign policy.

 

[JimW]

Pro-Afghan invasion Glen Greenwald, the political perceptive's perceptive.

 

[agricola]

then how can the killing of a solider of a nation engaged in that war, horrific though it is, possibly be "terrorism"?''

When one of the people who carried out the killing comes from Romford?

 

[butchersapron]

Just that? Nothing else? Or is US foreign policy(why not domestic they burned down a whole block to terrorise people in 1985/MOVE) an example of terrorism?

 

[Teaboy]

Just that? Nothing else? Or is US foreign policy(why not domestic they burned down a whole block to terrorise people in 1985/MOVE) an example of terrorism?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

You've got dwyer on ignore, probably best because he's been sniping at you all thread.

 

[butchersapron]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

You've got dwyer on ignore, probably best because he's been sniping at you all thread.

I haven't got him on ignore, i just ignore him. I was asking topcat if the definition of terrorism is only US foreign policy. Or if terrorism contains US foreign policy.

 

[dylanredefined]

What is it?

Using violence and intimidation to acheive a political aim.
I didn't know muslim civilians were special and could only be killed by other muslims?

 

[butchersapron]

Using violence and intimidation to acheive a political aim.
I didn't know muslim civilians were special and could only be killed by other muslims?

You what. In what way does the pro-iraq war Greenwald not understand this definition?

 

[butchersapron]

From that article:

It is very hard to escape the conclusion that, operationally, the term has no real definition at this point beyond "violence engaged in by Muslims in retaliation against western violence toward Muslims".

Now, apart from being wrong, 'western violence' - jesus the fucking guilt is dripping off him - but no, he thinks he's definitely right this time and so he gets published. As he did when he was definitely right last time. The war one.

 

[JimW]

Yep, I don't get what's of any value in that. At best the utter banality of "one man's terrorist...", at worst a failure to offer any sort of useful analysis of exactly how the definition as terrorist or not is used.