Rule of law does not excuse or lessen atrocities, it defines them. Moreover, the laws of war are specifically designed to lessen/avoid atrocities by limiting: 1. When a nation-state may engage in the use of armed force, and 2. How a nation-state may actually use armed force.
Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is specifically targeting civilians, or has simply targeted military actors hiding among civilian populations? No matter what you answer, you must acknowledge IS is responsible for planning/executing military style attacks against civilians specifically.
We can agree to disagree, certainly there is nothing wrong with an all life is sacred approach, but you should not feel deeply disturbed that the law distinguishes between responding to a military attack with the use of force targeted at those most responsible and a non-state actor engaging in terrorist/quasi-military attacks against civilian populations?
Are you saying that codified law is the only thing that determines what is and isn't an atrocity? As in, anything that's legal isn't an atrocity? I certainly do not agree with that.
> Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is specifically targeting civilians, or has simply targeted military actors hiding among civilian populations?
I don't have any clue, but I don't think that's the primary concern. I think there can be unacceptable civilian casualties even if there is a legitimate military target in the middle of civilians.
> No matter what you answer, you must acknowledge IS is responsible for planning/executing military style attacks against civilians specifically.
Of course, but why is that relevant? The existence of a worse actor does not make the acts of another actor more excusable.
> We can agree to disagree, certainly there is nothing wrong with an all life is sacred approach, but you should not feel deeply disturbed that the law distinguishes between responding to a military attack with the use of force targeted at those most responsible and a non-state actor engaging in terrorist/quasi-military attacks against civilian populations?
That's not what disturbs me. What disturbs me is the notion that a formal law in any way determines the acceptability of a violent act.
It matters here because my top level comment was a reply to someone emphatically stating there is no difference between the actions of the US and IS and I disagree. I believe there is a difference in the actions of US and IS, I used the law to distinguish between two acts. If someone said there was not a difference between the act of 1st degree murder and manslaughter, I would disagree and turn to the law to give examples of the differences.
>That's not what disturbs me. What disturbs me is the notion that a formal law in any way determines the acceptability of a violent act.
No doubt, to many laws of war is an oxymoron. However, the laws don't determine what the acceptable violent acts are, instead humankind determines what is not acceptable based on International consensus and through the treaty/UN we codify it into law.
One example, humans decided land mines as a weapon of war were to indiscriminate and had potential to far outlast armed conflicts and were outlawed by treaty and then codified into a UN Resolution, every year since then annual deaths of landmines has decreased from ~10k/year down to ~3.5k/year. Moreover, often times these laws of war have nothing to do with violence, but make sense such as requiring all military actors in armed conflict to be identified by uniform so as to be distinguished from civilians. Other laws such as Arms Reduction Treaty lead to Russia/US disposing of some combined 50-60k nukes.