How violent should war be?

Given the situation in the Middle East, it should be no surprise to people that the current hot topic in the blogosphere is about the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.

Over the past 3 days, a heated discussion took place(and is still taking place) at Samizdata. I'm too lazy to check if it was Johnathan Pearce or Perry who started it, but in the midst of arguing the points, some of us in the commentariat lost our cool and flung accusations at one another. I would like to think I kept my composure, but there were words written that, upon hindsight, seemed too harsh. Check out the various comment threads. Plenty of good points on both sides, both for, and against expanding the conflict, especially considering the necessity, or lack thereof, of playing by the rules of civilised warfare.

If there is even such a thing as civilised warfare in the first place!

Sadly, in the current age of the war of ideas, my own fear is that to destroy or discredit an idea, civilization might have to expell it and its followers completely... or kill them all. As long as a significant enough number of people believe in that -ism(fanatism, communism, anarchism etc) fervently enough to inflict physical violence upon others, the threat of terrorism will never be over.

The idea of German military superiority died with their defeat in WW2, hastened by the destruction of their infrastructure by Allied bombing. The idea of Japanese imperialism died on the altar of nuclear fire. Many civilians lives were lost, but were those civilians truly innocent? They supported their troops, spiritually, logistically. They did not pull any triggers but they certainly made it possible for their boys to do so.

In the war of -isms, there are no real innocents any more, only friends and enemies. To the commie, I would be a lackey of a capitalist regime, and thus worthy of death. To the islamist fanatic, I would be an infidel, and thus worthy of death. To the anarchist, I am trampling on his liberty and his rights, and thus worthy of death. I am a civilian, I'm not holding a gun to threaten their lives, and yet I am an enemy.

And strangely enough, I agree with them. Which is not to say Israel should go bonkers and start targeting civilians. Rather, they should stop placing so much careful emphasis on collateral damage and just get the job done by wiping out Hezbollah.

Plenty of nations condemned the Mumbai bombings. Big fucking deal. Talk is cheap. Why don't they back up some of that with blood and guns?

It's becoming a predictable pattern. Islamic fanatics commit act of terrorism. World condemns them. World does nothing. US takes some action. World condemns US for doing something, anything.

What a load of facetious liars. Especially those bureaucrats over at the UN.

TWG

Whew, just finished marking the Block Test 2 scripts for chemistry! Before I move on to the final SPA skill, I need to find out exactly what's going on for the blasted Battletech event for this year!

Vengeance Gambit, or some such for the (post-historical?)battle on New Avalon during the great big Wobblie offensive in 3067(or is it 3068?). Sounds great, except I have no idea how to get the details here or at the online Commando HQ, and Clutch, the head Commando, hasn't emailed me back yet. If there are, by any chance, fellow FanPro BTeching Commandos reading this, please email me ASAP to tell me what to do!

If not, the local players are going to lynch me!