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What happens if you just abort the mission? Probably nothing, and certainly doing nothing is less likely to provoke war and further escalation than murdering c
by chubot 1y ago
What happens if you just abort the mission? Probably nothing, and certainly doing nothing is less likely to provoke war and further escalation than murdering civilians, hoping no one notices, and then having a front page NY Times article published about it later
If North Korean spies murdered fisherman off the coast of California on a failed mission, you bet there would be blowback
If they were simply noticed, the US govt might be able to and be incentivized to downplay it. Similar to downplaying whatever drones were flying over NJ
- keepamovin 1y agoThat's one way to assess it. Can you take the cost if your presence is detected? Maybe nothing happens. How likely is nothing? And if your presence finds it ways to the authorities, what's the cost? Likely, NK will patch what might be your best chance at advance warning. As fishing is dangerous and many never return, their plausibly 'accidental' deaths provide cover to keep the secrecy and your future access intact. Now the story leaks out from inside - what are the consequences? I don't know.
- impossiblefork 1y agoIt doesn't matter if you can take the cost. It's forbidden to kill civilians. You can only kill non-civilians, and there's nothing allowing you to hide the bodies of civilians or interfere with their burial rites.
- keepamovin 1y agoSpecialist missions normally have custom RoE not always mirroring those in conventional theatre, but nevertheless appropriate for the mission specifics.
- justacrow 1y agoI don't think it's so much about the Rules of Engagement but more about "Don't indiscriminately murder people"
- keepamovin 1y agoIndiscriminate would be nuclear weapons on cities. This mission’s ultimate goal was to prevent NK doing that. If you could stop NK doing that, would you pull the trigger? Would you make a targeted kill of a person who compromised that mission by discovering it?
- iamevn 1y agoNo? I don't think this is the trap you think it is.
- keepamovin 1y agoMaybe it's not, but that's the point: trying to understand what it is from the point of view of people who did it.
- impossiblefork 1y agoYes, but this it's clearly forbidden to make civilians object of attack, and it doesn't matter whether you risk discovery or whatever. Surely the RoE should be at least as restrictive as IHL. I think it might be legal to hide the body, but if you do so you must do something to ensure that it can be recovered, either informing the enemy afterwards or some other measure to that effect.
- keepamovin 1y agoDoes a civilian become a combatant or pose a threat if they could derail, though awareness of your presence, your mission to prevent NK making civilians the object of attack on massive scale with nuclear weapons?
- impossiblefork 1y agoNo.
- keepamovin 1y agoOk. So then, how can you pretend to be against the killing of civilians if you choose more rather than less of it?
- impossiblefork 1y agoI believe that respect for IHL is more important than anything. If IHL were deeply ingrained in international political behaviour and absolutely established I could see deviations from it where such deviations could be justified on moral grounds as acceptable, but since the law is hardly even established it is more important that it be followed than that it minimizes suffering in the now. Furthermore, I don't think that it mattered. Everyone places his tactical concerns very highly in the moment, but over time they are often irrelevant. Do you really think it matters now, whether that information was available or not? I don't really believe there's anything useful that can be achieved when it comes to the North Korea's nuclear weapons. They have them, they'll probably try to build more of them. That sucks, but there's nothing that can be done.
- arcatech 1y agoThe article states that it was NOT forbidden to kill civilians. Or at least, the US considered it justified.
- impossiblefork 1y agoThe US has signed treaties according to which it is forbidden and these treaties are additionally so special that they're treated as applying to even non-signatories, the so-called customary international law.
- chubot 1y agothe US considered it justified s/ the US / "some bureaucratic process within the military" which is almost certainly politically influenced, as many decisions at this level are In this case, I don't think the bureaucracy reflects the will of the people
- w0de0 1y agoThey’re detected now. Right now. Front page of the NY Times. The murders didn’t do shit.