Why do we kill civilians?

[Pinoy Jade]

I do believe that we kill other people because of greed. The greed to kill and the greed for money. I can sense the greed for territory now a days and that can bee seen in Europe, the Ukraine and Russia tension while in the Asian countries, the China , Japan and the Philippines. its greed!

 

[Gelsemium]

Civilians are killed because the ones calling the shots simply don't care about the value of human life, imo it's as simple as that. Sometimes "accidents" might happen, but I also feel that many times the authorities are just careless about them when they order the attacks.

 

[jeremy2]

Why is it that during war, it is common for the enemy to drop a bomb on buildings filled with innocent civilians. Why does this happen? The civilians have done nothing wrong, and in most cases, don't even support the war that is being fought, the government and congress do. Why not kill them instead of people who don't have or want any trouble with your country?
I understand that this is a technique used to push the opposing country into surrender, since they don't want hundreds of thousands of their citizens killed, but this is still stupid. Some countries continue fighting wars regardless of how many soldiers and citizens they have lost and will continue to lose in the process. If you want to kill someone, kill the officials who are causing you problems, but don't kill the people who are doing absolutely nothing to you.

In times of war, there will always be collateral damage. That is unavoidable. Even though civilians get killed, it could be intentional or by mistake but the fact remains that everyone is a target of the enemy during times of war.

 

[Gelsemium]

That is true, but sad at the same time. Collateral damage can be a mother that is dead and leave her kid with no one, so there are many tragedies during war and the responsible people should take that into consideration.

 

[sazzydan]

I agree that it is not right to kill innocent people who have done nothing wrong to anyone, but in a war people do not really care who gets killed. I think a war should be about army versus army, without the need of bombing each other!

There should not be any people killed who have done nothing, whether that be a war or a terrorist attack, there is no need for it and it achieves nothing.

 

[Gelsemium]

Yeah, a lot of innocents are killed and we even hear about human shields, can there be anything more scary than that? The fact is that sometimes we do need to make war to achieve peace.

 

[gmckee1985]

In my opinion the United States is far too worried about civilian casualties these days. When you are overly concerned with that it makes it harder to fight a war properly. Just like it's harder to fight a war when politicians are too involved. Too many civilian deaths are of course terrible but in war it is simply unavoidable if you are serious about winning.

 

[Rowe992]

It is always the innocent that pays the highest price during a war. The people involved just don't care who dies as long as the people being killed are located within enemy territory. Civilians are also targeted as a means to further upset the enemey.

 

[Rebel]

War is hell. Sometime civilian deaths are just unavoidable. Especially so in modern times where warfare has shifted to urban conflicts. Instead of the ideals set forward in the Geneva Conventions we now see our enemies in the city streets, without recognizable uniform, and without any identifiable symbolage. Anyone can be the enemy and you don't know who. They commonly hide amongst civilians and then propagandize the death of the civilians they, themselves, got killed. So unfortunately sometimes it just cannot be helped. No major nation can avoid such things.

The Laws of Armed Conflict however clearly state what is a legal target and what is not and the Geneva Conventions are still worth a read too. Even with all this in place we just have to remember - war is hell.

 

[kana_marie]

Why is it that during war, it is common for the enemy to drop a bomb on buildings filled with innocent civilians. Why does this happen? The civilians have done nothing wrong, and in most cases, don't even support the war that is being fought, the government and congress do. Why not kill them instead of people who don't have or want any trouble with your country?
I understand that this is a technique used to push the opposing country into surrender, since they don't want hundreds of thousands of their citizens killed, but this is still stupid. Some countries continue fighting wars regardless of how many soldiers and citizens they have lost and will continue to lose in the process. If you want to kill someone, kill the officials who are causing you problems, but don't kill the people who are doing absolutely nothing to you.

In my opinion, part of it has to do with intimidation. If someone is willin to do that, they'll do anything. I think it's also because during war the people who call the shots get tunnel vision. They don't look at them as civilians or innocent people. They look at them as numbers. Who cares about killing numbers; especially if it wins you the war.