Posted on 08/11/2009 4:09:30 PM PDT by naturalman1975
AUSTRALIANS' attitudes to the ethics of war are nothing short of conflicting, a new Red Cross war survey has found.
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Convention, the Australian Red Cross interviewed more than 1000 people on what codes of conduct were acceptable in a combat situation and the results were mixed.
More than a third of people surveyed said it was acceptable to torture a captured enemy soldier of war to obtain military information and 26 per cent said it was okay to attack civilians who had given food and shelter to enemies.
However, 60 per cent said they would save the life of an enemy who killed a person near to them in a battle and the same number said captured soldiers never deserved to die.
Helen Durham, the Red Cross’ international law advisor said Australians seemed to “cut and paste the laws to suit the situation”.
“People seem to be saying that it’s okay to do bad stuff to others,” Dr Durham said.
“It’s cutting and pasting the laws to suit the situation; Australians seem to have strong case for ‘us versus them’ when it comes to the laws of war.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
I will always have a strong case of 'us versus them' when it comes to the enemies of my country. I am amazed anybody would expect me to think otherwise.
There was a reason the Japanese rated the Australian soldiers very highly in WWII. That toughness, pragmatism and endurance was like turning the tables on them. They feared the American firepower (for good reason) but respected the Aussies as soldiers above the other allied troops.
Personally, I wish our populace was more like you guys...:)
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