BF2S Forums Were the World Trade Center's Towers legitimate military targets ?

Anything is legit if it causes great damage to your enemy.

Did you know that on 9/11 four planes were to hit four different targets on the West Coast of the United States?  However they were unable to do anything, either they were caught, or were too late after the first attacks, airports were shut down.

wel in the us's case the Pentagon is the worst place to hti unless you got a big bomb to put in the center of it (Its like a giant target preety much)... The trade centers werent a military building but they sure did a lot of damage to the society...mainyl with fear...although its not really needed for terrorists to instill fear that way the government will do it it anyway whenever there is an election or they are under fire for something.

I would have done the same thing.

You really can’t consider the WTC towers valid military targets, but then again, the attack wasn’t a military strike, it was a fundamentalist terrorist attack.  A valid military target is one that is set forth and approved, so to speak, by LOAC (Law of Armed Conflict) established by the Geneva Convention (the same thing the prohibits the targeting of medical and religious personnel).  These rules are established because nations don’t fight wars…their armies do.  For something to be a valid military target, it would have to have a direct effect on the welfare and abilities of the military targeted.  A purely civilian target is not valid.  But I don’t think we can really consider it really an issue since it wasn’t attacked by a sovereign military, but by terrorists.  The goals and techniques of a terrorist are vastly different than that of an organized military.  A true military fights wars against armies.  A terrorist fights wars against ideas, and attacks symbols of the ideas he’s against (the idea of a terrorist is by definition merely subjective…one man’s terrorist=another man’s soldier and vice-versa). 

Now, of course it’s arguable that the very notion of applying law to war is merely disguising brutality in politics and civility…but I think it’s necessary to clearly differentiate between armies and their nation’s civilians…and fortunately, great strides have been taken since WWII or Vietnam, and I think that’s it’s because of those attempts that we’re not seeing a fraction of the civilian casualties in a war or any other kind of hostile engagement.

That’s my two cents anyway.

ubersoldat...dos sniper wrote:

here is reality. DEAL WITH IT. which means yes they were legit targets. poorly chosen targets i admit, but targets none the less. if you want you can target a nun for all i care. i woulda hit the white house first before one knew that the planes were hijacked and the pres got moved. lol and i woulda shot everyone on the plane hell no one would mess up my suicide run.

MY GUESS IS YOU WOULD HAVE DONE NOTHING

Idiots!

to them it may have been, u killed so many of our ppl we kill so many of yours, but to even try to think like ppl that would do this is an impossible thing unless well u are one of them, the ira bombed innocent ppl for years, dont know how many died in the end, but that gives u a hint.

but whos to say it was the ppl in the twin towers they were attacking, i mean think about it, there were alot of companies in that building and goverment orgis dont usually stamp we are top secret goverment ppl on the door. maybe it was a companie or companies in the buildings they were attacking.

    one thing that always made me wonder about the attacks that happened on that day though, what happened with the pentagon, big hole but no plane wreck or anything u would think would go with it. i did see a video that was floating about afterwords that showed cctv of it but it was a missile that u saw hitting it, not a plane and even the hole in the wall was that made by one of those bunker buster things that dont explode on impact but burry down then go boom.
            was this fake or what, anyone know

Last edited by shingara (2005-12-13 05:08:33)

ubersoldat...dos sniper wrote:

here is reality. DEAL WITH IT. which means yes they were legit targets. poorly chosen targets i admit, but targets none the less. if you want you can target a nun for all i care. i woulda hit the white house first before one knew that the planes were hijacked and the pres got moved. lol and i woulda shot everyone on the plane hell no one would mess up my suicide run.

Wasn't the president in Florida at the time?

ubersoldat...dos sniper wrote:

actually i would after i found out who did it i would send in one guy a undercover iraqy and have him get close enough to the person responsible and assinate him. tho it would be a suicide mission.

Hey, Maybe you could do it ?

Krappyappy wrote:

the geneva convention is a bunch of bollocks. countries only bring it up when it's convenient for them.

how about the firebombing of dresden? carpet bombing of tokyo? napalm strikes in vietnam? v2 rockets on london?

you can always say that attacking a purely civilian target has a direct effect on the troops' morale. don't kid yourself with 'nations don't fight wars, their armies do.' that hasn't been true for centuries.

True...but at the same time, the question was whether or not it was a legitimate military target...not an whether or not it was an effective target.  It was an effective target, but that doesn't make it legitimate.  For example, the targeting of civilian villiages in vietnam, killing innocent women and children...Just because it was done, doesn't make it right...It could be considered effective, but not legit.  Legitimate means being lawful.  And for better or for worse, the law is set forth by the Geneva convention, whether you agree with it or not.  I'm not going to argue whether or not it needs some updating, or more strict enforcement...

Horseman 77 wrote:

ubersoldat...dos sniper wrote:

actually i would after i found out who did it i would send in one guy a undercover iraqy and have him get close enough to the person responsible and assinate him. tho it would be a suicide mission.

Hey, Maybe you could do it ?

hell yeah i'd do it. if i had the proper training and i had time to do it. it would be fun.  then i'd kill some other ppl i recon cause i doubt i'd make it outa the country alive.

I got my information from the Geneva Conventions website:
http://www.genevaconventions.org/
EDIT: I missed this:
"The first Geneva Convention was signed in 1864 to protect the sick and wounded in war time. "

HOwever, it from what I can tell from the Geneva Convention website, it doesn't look like the fourth Convention (Deals with the protection of the civilian population in times of war) was added until 1949.

"In 1949, four Geneva Conventions extended protections to those shipwrecked at sea and to civilians."

Last edited by atlvolunteer (2005-12-13 14:34:48)