"'God grant, more for their sakes than ours, mose especially for the sakes of innocent females and children of both races, God grant their leaders see reason and capitulate before we hurt them too badly.'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT Chapter VIII, p. 526.
By "'...both races,'" he means not "their race and ours" but "the two intelligent species that have jointly colonized Avalon."
No, Cajal. If you hurt the Avalonians badly, killing innocent females and children, then you, not the Avalonian leaders, are responsible for the consequences of your actions. Civilian deaths are not just something that happen. They are something that you do. Attitudes and cultures can change rapidly:
"'...remember all the crap we went through in the war, keeping civilian casualties down? Even when it meant taking losses ourselves?...in the war John Rolfe fought they burned whole enemy cities to cinders and never thought twice about it; carpet-bombed targets in France, too, and if French civilians got caught in the middle - hard cheese, there's a war on. And they stuck the honorable Yasujiru's folks behind wire without a moment's hesitation.'" (pp. 197-198)
-copied from here.
Cajal referred to this war, in which he will kill civilians, as a "lesser evil."
(Yesterday, we visited the nearby village of Hornby to see snowdrops at the Castle (see image) and attend a book fair at the Institute. No sf, though.)
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm sorry, but I disagree. My view is that Admiral Cajal fought the Domain and Avalon as honorably and humanely as possible. And unlike far too many other civilian and military leaders in history he was not callous about the harm done. Moreover, you overlook how the Imperials the leaders of Avalon that cities like Centauri were legitimate targets of war, and subject to likely attack. That means it was the AVALONIAN leaders who were responsible for any civilians left behind following an evacuation.
Beginning with Grotius and culminating with the various Hague and Geneva Convetions on the laws and customs of war, reasonably decent people HAVE worked out ways attempting to limit the harm done by war, the ways and means by which civilized can wage war without going too far.
Moreover, as we know from Chapter 14 of ENSIGN FLANDRY, these laws and customs of war (and diplomacy) were adopted by Merseia in the Covenant of Alfzar (which was probably being negotiated about the same time as THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND. As Commander Abrams said in that chapter: "By the Covenant of Alfzar, Merseia confirmed her acceptance of the rules of war and diplomacy which evolved on Terra. They evolved, and you took them over, for the excellent reason that they work." And it's reasonable to think the other civilized space faring powers, such as the Domain of Yhtri, also accepted the Covenant of Alfzar. After all, we see no mention of the Domain, then or later, complaining that the Empire had waged war too brutally.
Sean
Sean,
WWII involved the Blitz, the fire bombing of Dresden and the detonation of two atomic bombs. Some subsequent wars have been pretty horrific.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But that meant the Allies, meaning the UK and US (Stalin, of course, did not care darn), failed to live up their own standards, which I agree was our disgrace and shame. But at least we did have those standards and it's my view the US has tried harder to live by the laws and customs of civilized warfare. I don't think even the use of nuclear weapons would always be wrong, esp. if used only with low yield tactical nukes on legitimate targets of war. As we see the Empire doing in "Outpost of Empire."
Sean
There's no rule against -killing- civilians; there's just a rule against -targeting- civilians.
If you target a school, that's a war crime. If the enemy put a garrison in the school, it's a legitimate target, and if the kids get killed, that's the enemy's fault for fighting there.
Eg., in the month before D-Day, we switched our bombers from what was called "de-housing" German civilians to smashing up the French railway network so the Germans couldn't use it to move their reserve troops against the invasion beachheads.
This worked pretty well; it also killed 30,000 French civilians who happened to be in the wrong place when the B-25 came calling, about a thousand a day.
Not even the Free French objected to this -- and if there's one thing Le Grande Charles was not shy about, it was complaining to FDR and Churchill.
C'est la guerre.
See the contrast between the behaviors of Hamas & the Israel Defense Force in the 2023 conflict in Gaza.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Jim!
Mr. Stirling: That makes sense to me. I agree!
Jim: Absolutely! The Hamas scum are responsible for non-combatant deaths in its war against Israel. I recall Hamas' habit of hiding in hospitals and schools, cowering behind non-combatants.
Merry Christmas! Sean
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