Before bombarding a city...

[battery]

If I were a military commander charged with assaulting a city under hostile control, I would give a 30-day advance warning to its occupants.

Every civilian is hereby given a choice. He can elect to retain his status as a civilian by leaving the city, or he can give up that status by staying behind. Everyone who remains in the city will naturally be considered as enemy combatants, informants, and assistants. Those in uniforms will be treated according to rules of war. Any person found without a uniform will not enjoy such protection. If captured, he will be executed just like a spy.

A real civilian in a combat zone must not interfere with war operations. His motivation is to stay out of harm's way. Any action inconsistent with this goal will put his civilian status in doubt.

Obviously this goes against the Geneva conventions. But do think about why soldiers want to capture cities. From a military standpoint, a city provides a bunch of hideouts for infantry, making them almost impervious to tanks, artillery, and airstrikes. It is absurd to put "civilians" into the equation. These so-call civilians aren't pure civilians at all! They stay in the city because they want to provide aids to their soldiers. Actual civilians would take the first opportunities to flee the city, because they don't want to be trapped in a besieged city with water, food and electricity supply cut off. My moral standard is that anyone caught assisting combatants directly is a valid miliary target. Feeding soldiers makes you part of the logistic staff. Treating wounded soldiers makes you part of the medics corps. Putting out fire on military assets makes you part of damage control. Calling 911 to report artillery and gunfire makes you part of the milltary intelligence service. All these practically makes you a soldier.

[Bridget]

Or you could, you know, not occupy foreign countries and bomb everything in sight. Yeah, go ahead and give the enemy a thirty-day notice to just pack their shit up and leave, so when you get around to the actual bombing, you are just hitting innocent people who can't just pack up their shit and leave.

[battery]

Originally Posted by Bridget

Or you could, you know, not occupy foreign countries and bomb everything in sight. Yeah, go ahead and give the enemy a thirty-day notice to just pack their shit up and leave, so when you get around to the actual bombing, you are just hitting innocent people who can't just pack up their shit and leave.

This is what the allied forces did in the second battle of Fallujah. Because there was no way to distinguish civilians from insurgeants, they basically told everyone there to leave or get killed.

[Crazycarl]

Yes, leave your home and all your posessions behind and trek over a dangerous warzone to some god-forsaken refugee camp, or we'll kill you as a spy. In a time of war, people are doing everything they can to survive, and sometimes that means hunkering down in your home and waiting for it to blow over.

Not to mention the idiocy of giving the enemy a month's warning of when and where you are going to attack. Even if the civilians did try to evacuate en masse, the enemy would keep them there by force to keep the city running.

[GenghisTron]

It's not our business, period.

[battery]

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

Yes, leave your home and all your posessions behind and trek over a dangerous warzone to some god-forsaken refugee camp, or we'll kill you as a spy. In a time of war, people are doing everything they can to survive, and sometimes that means hunkering down in your home and waiting for it to blow over.

When you invade a foreign land, your responsibility as a soldier is to avoid killing civilians. Survival of civilians depends on their culture, level of preparation, mental and physical toughness, and other things of their own doing. You are not there to feed them.

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

Not to mention the idiocy of giving the enemy a month's warning of when and where you are going to attack. Even if the civilians did try to evacuate en masse, the enemy would keep them there by force to keep the city running.

If your own military is using you as a human shield, you have a tyranny. You are morally at fault for not overthrowing the tyranny with your own blood, but rather letting the problem grow until it finally affects your neighboring states. Oh don't tell me it cannnot be done. The Egytians did it. The Libyan are attempting to do it. There is one thing in common about these people: they are willing to die to set their government right. You want to live? Well you'd better have gut, money, and wisdom. Nothing comes for free. Anyway I digressed. If your soldiers hold you a gunpoint to make you perform military duties, you have the choice to refuse. You can do the right thing by adhering to rules of war, ie, don't participate unless you are in uniform.

[Bridget]

Yeah, it's that easy.

[BinaryLife]

I think if it were so simple then battery would be right. It would be nice if a nation could morally absolve itself of civilian casualties by sending notice of intent to strike a particular region. But I don't think that the notice alone would grant any country such easement.

I do agree that it is frustrating and unfortunate when a people cannot or will not fight their existing dictator but lack of drive or ability does not make them guilty of the same crimes as any particular dictator. An attacking country needs to simply accept that there will be casualties of war as a price of going to war and they need to let the deaths of the innocent weigh on their conscience against the innocent lives that they have saved and protected by their actions. This method will guide them, morally, to just actions of war.

[battery]

Holy Crap, I thought I was just shooting around a random idea, but it actually happened in real life! In the Battle of Grozny, the Russian did exactly what I proposed. Oh well I am not really surprised. They are Russians after all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...9%E2%80%932000)

Siege
The Russian ground troops advanced slowly, Grozny was surrounded by late November 1999. More than two additional weeks of shelling and bombing were required before Russian troops were able to claim a foothold within any part of the heavily fortified city. Russian ground forces met stiff resistance from rebel fighters as they moved forward, using a slow, neighborhood-by-neighborhood advance with the fighting focused on a strategic hill overlooking the city. Both sides accused each other of launching chemical attacks.[9] Claims of chemical attacks may have originated from the observation of unburnt remnants of gaseous explosive from TOS-1 thermobaric missiles or the chemicals may have escaped from destroyed industrial plants. The rumours of gas attacks and the divisions among Chechens (the Islamic extremists were blamed for provoking the war), contributed to the abandoning of Grozny by many rebel fighters.[10] In early December, Russia seized the town of Urus-Martan, the separatist stronghold near Grozny, after it had been battered with heavy air and artillery bombardments for several weeks.[11]

The majority of the city's civilian population fled following the missile attacks early in the war, leaving the streets mostly deserted. However, as many as 40,000 civilians, many of them ethnic Russians, often the elderly, poor, and infirm, remained trapped in basements during the siege, suffering from the bombing, cold and hunger. Some of them were killed while trying to flee. On December 3, about 40 people died when a refugee convoy attempting to leave besieged areas was fired on by a group of masked special forces troops.[12] Around 250 to 300 people who were killed while trying to escape in October, 1999, between the villages of Goryachevodsk and Petropavlovskaya, were buried in a mass grave.[13][14] The Russian forces besieging Grozny planned to attack the city with a heavy air and artillery bombardment, intending to level the city to the extent where it was impossible for the rebels to defend it. On December 5, Russian planes, which had been dropping bombs on Grozny, switched to leaflets with a warning from the general staff. The Russians set a deadline, urging residents of Grozny to leave "by any means possible by December 11, 1999:

“ Persons who stay in the city will be considered terrorists and bandits and will be destroyed by artillery and aviation. There will be no further negotiations.[15] ”

The Russian commanders prepared a "safe corridor" for those wishing to escape from Grozny, but reports from the war zone suggested few people were using it when it opened on December 11. Desperate refugees who got away were telling stories of bombing, shelling and brutality.[16] Russia put the number of people remaining in Grozny at 15,000, while a group of Chechen exiles in Geneva confirmed other reports estimating the civilian population at 50,000. The Russian troops repeatedly fired on the refugees fleeing along a designated corridor.[17] Russia eventually withdrew the ultimatum in the face of international outrage from the United States and the European Union. British foreign secretary Robin Cook "wholeheartedly condemned" the Russian move: "We condemn vigorously what Milosevic did in Kosovo and we condemn vigorously what Russia is doing in Chechnya".[18]) But the heavy bombardment of the city continued. According to Russia's ministry for emergency situations, civilians remaining in Grozny had been estimated at anywhere from 8,000 to 35,000.[19]

[WiFiDi]

it give the enemy time to prepare and a due date as they are mixed in the civlian population 2. the reality is that it sounds nice but reality isn't that nice.

[battery]

Originally Posted by WiFiDi

it give the enemy time to prepare and a due date as they are mixed in the civlian population 2. the reality is that it sounds nice but reality isn't that nice.

I agree that such warning basically allows the insurgeants to sneak away. But if the objective is just taking over a city, I think evacuation is the way to go. Wait for deadline, then saturate the city with all sort of lethal artillery shells, and just walk in. Saves lots of casualties on the invading troops, and spares lots civilian lives.

[Iggy]

Wait..... what did I miss here?

Originally Posted by battery

I agree that such warning basically allows the insurgeants to sneak away. But if the objective is just taking over a city, I think evacuation is the way to go. Wait for deadline, then saturate the city with all sort of lethal artillery shells, and just walk in. Saves lots of casualties on the invading troops, and spares lots civilian lives.

Enlighten me as to how this is possible?

[battery]

Originally Posted by Iggy

Wait..... what did I miss here?



Enlighten me as to how this is possible?

By leveling the city with intense bombardment, the would be only a few building left standing. Defenders would have no place to hide, and mopping them up becomes a safer job.

Civilians who heeds the warning would have left the city, suffering some causualties due to starvation but not gunfire.

Those who stay behind are
1) partisans willing to directly aid military operations (ahem, "soldiers-outside-of-their-uniforms")

2) too sick to be relocated

3) reckless fools thinking the warning is a bluff.

[Etzell]

So if there's no one in the city when you strike, and there aren't any buildings left... What, exactly, have you taken?

[Lost]

Baghdad!

[battery]

Originally Posted by Etzell

So if there's no one in the city when you strike, and there aren't any buildings left... What, exactly, have you taken?

The goal of combat operation isn't always body count. Taking or destorying a city is good move for avoiding urban, room-to-room fighting. Assualting a city is very expensive in terms of time and manpower. The assulting army need to devote lots of resources to eliminate just a few defenders hiding in buildings. If you have superior firepower on your side, then you would prefer in an open battle field where your foes can't hide from airstrikes. Similarly, you don't mind fighting in the woods if you have napalm at your disposal. But streeting fighter put both sides on relatively equal footing.

Sometimes, killing insurgeats may seem a good trade for civilian lives. But Iraq has taught us that hitting civilians simply breeds vengeance, which in turn leads to more recruits for the insurgency.

[Iggy]

So.... killing innocent people(possibly whom are being used as human shields against their will), is perfectly fine with you? Yeah, that'll get sympathy on our side.

[Innoc]

Flattening a city to get to an entrenched enemy is not something that the US has to do. Our goal should be deployment of precision munitions and personnel who are implementing precision tactics. The goal needs to be zero collateral damage. It's an unrealistic goal but it needs to still be what we hope for. This gets more complicated is fighting in an urban environment where foes do not wear a uniform and look identical to noncombatants.