Adrian Laguna wrote:No, it's strategic bombardment. It's also legal, de facto if not necessarily de jure.
So you're saying that there weren't nukes pointed at major civilian population centers? Because that's the only way you're proving that point. Moreover, let's not forget that the argument of "If it's legal it must be right" is bullshit, unless you support the MPAA and the RIAA wholeheartedly.
Of course, it's also FALSE according to the Geneva Conventions, but why let a little thing like that get in the way of your argument.
Geneva Conventions wrote:carpet bombing
Area bombardments and other indiscriminate attacks are forbidden. If it becomes apparent that an objective is not a military one, or if an attack is expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects then the attack must be canceled or suspended. (Protocol I, Art. 57, Sec. 2b)
An indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects and resulting in excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. (Protocol I, Art. 85, Sec. 3)
So there is no argument here. Unless you want to argue that strategic bombardment constitutes genocide, that would require a different thread.
It is when you include EVERY CIVILIAN POPULATION CENTER. Just because we did it in World War 2 doesn't make it right. Believe it or not, we weren't total angels in that war, and not everything we did was right, righteous, or even legal. Attacking civilian populations has always been a tactic of terror. It says you're willing to kill anyone and everyone that stands in your way. You can handwave it away and try to justify it, but the simple fact remains that you're saying that wiping out civilians is justifiable in any given war for any reason. Never mind that in the case of conquest you're killing the majority of your trained workforce, you're killing millions, if not billions of sentient beings.
Now it's clear that you are really stretching the definition of a military target by including civilian population centers, but hey, that's okay. That gives us all a clearer picture of what you consider to be right and wrong. Clearly, you think it's just fine to kill civilians until they're all gone or they give up. It's an interesting philosophy, but it's not necessarily "right" or even "legal".
By the way, since you seem to love the letter of the law so much, here's some more:
Geneva Conventions wrote:Indiscriminate attacks are those which are not directed at a specific military objective or those which use a method of attack that cannot be directed at or limited to a specific military objective. (Protocol I, Art. 51, Sec. 4)
This includes area bombardment, where a number of clearly separated military objectives are treated as a single military objective, and where there is a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects. (Protocol I, Art. 51, Sec. 5a)
This also includes attacks where the expected incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects is excessive to the military advantage anticipated. (Protocol I, Art. 51, Sec. 5b)
Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. (Protocol I, Art. 51, Sec. 4)
Combatants must distinguish between civilian and military objects and attack only military targets. (Protocol I, Art. 48)
If it becomes apparent that an objective in an attack is not a military one, or if that attack could cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects, then the attack must be called off. (Protocol I, Art. 57)
Now, obviously, this doesn't necessarily apply to the STGOD, since I doubt the numerous space aliens have signed the Geneva Conventions, or that those even exist as originally written anymore, but the fact of the matter remains that what you consider to be an absolute certainty is in fact not. Granted, it's up to the players to see if they will bother getting upset about someone bombarding a city into rubble from orbit, but that's the gambit you make when you do general bombardment. In some cases, you can get away with it pretty easy. Other times, well, not so much.
