Simeon's murder of Ginn, if Jack Bauer were in similar situation...

[KEK]

They tried to obliterate the capital city of the only superpower on earth. If they are not a nation, then that is terrorism.

Which is, like I said, a completely arbitrary distinction.

If they are a nation then we should approach the other MW powers and have them talk it over and explain to LA that the next action by us is to MK IX their major population areas as a lesson.

So nation status is basically just a weak justification for the slaughter of thousands of innocent people then? Given that the LA are authoritarian, I don't see what relevance the terrorist/nation-state distinction has at all, either way taking their actions out on their people is completely unethical.

[Gatefan1976]

Which is, like I said, a completely arbitrary distinction.



So nation status is basically just a weak justification for the slaughter of thousands of innocent people then? Given that the LA are authoritarian, I don't see what relevance the terrorist/nation-state distinction has at all, either way taking their actions out on their people is completely unethical.

Agreed. +1

[morrismike]

Normally I would be on the same page as you Morrismike, but in this case I agree with KEK. If you look at the actions that the SGC have performed against the Goa' uld, sending small groups of heavily armed combat personel to disrupt and destroy key targets, the SGC are the "terrorists". You can hardly cry "foul" when the very same tactics employed by yourself in the past are used against you.

In this case "morality" is very much in the eye of the beholder.

sg1 works for a government, does the LA?

[morrismike]

Which is, like I said, a completely arbitrary distinction.



So nation status is basically just a weak justification for the slaughter of thousands of innocent people then? Given that the LA are authoritarian, I don't see what relevance the terrorist/nation-state distinction has at all, either way taking their actions out on their people is completely unethical.

We never would have been able to justify killing all the german factory workers with that mentality. You are at war with a country or you are not. The concept is mutually assured destruction. There must be consequences associated with trying to nuke us. Without retaliation in kind they will do it again. If we respond with 100x the force used against us it will make an impression.

[KEK]

sg1 works for a government, does the LA?

Why would that be relevant?

We never would have been able to justify killing all the german factory workers with that mentality.

We never tried. The factories were the targets, the people working in them were collateral. We wouldn't have been able to justify slaughtering the people on Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima however, which I don't think would have been a bad thing. Dresden was never a military mission, it was levelled as a show of force to the Russians. Nagasaki and Hiroshima need not have been vaporised either, but the military and government wanted to see what their new weapons could do to a city.

You are at war with a country or you are not.

If that were the case then the Geneva convention wouldn't exist. Personally I'm glad that there are measures in place designed to stop us sinking to the kind of level that you're proposing.

There must be consequences associated with trying to nuke us.

I agree. I don't agree that those consequences should be turning innocent civilians to ash, however.

[Gatefan1976]

sg1 works for a government, does the LA?

We don't know dude, they may. If "governmental sactioning" is all that is required to take something from a "terrorist act" to an act of war, thats not alot really.

[morrismike]

If the LA is a government we communicate with their populance and tell them your government just tried the nuke the capital city of the most powerful country on arguably the most powerful world in the MW. Inform them that we need to see an indication this will never happen again and all hostilities must cease. If we don't get this assurance in short order we will devastate your world (show them a clip of what a MK IX does). Make it clear the outcome of this situation is in the LA citizens hands.

[KEK]

If the LA is a government we communicate with their populance and tell them your government just tried the nuke the capital city of the most powerful country on arguably the most powerful world in the MW. Inform them that we need to see an indication this will never happen again and all hostilities must cease. If we don't get this assurance in short order we will devastate your world (show them a clip of what a MK IX does). Make it clear the outcome of this situation is in the LA citizens hands.

There seems to be a disconnect in logic here. In what sense is it in their hands? Also, if you hold the people responsible for their governments actions (a dictatorship they have no say in, no less), then you accept that things like the beheading of American nationals in places like Afghanistan and Iraq are entirely justified. I don't understand why anyone would want us to stoop so low so fast and do something as pathetic as threaten civilians, rather than use our superior technology to beat an inferior enemy fairly and squarely.

[morrismike]

There seems to be a disconnect in logic here. In what sense is it in their hands? Also, if you hold the people responsible for their governments actions (a dictatorship they have no say in, no less), then you accept that things like the beheading of American nationals in places like Afghanistan and Iraq are entirely justified. I don't understand why anyone would want us to stoop so low so fast and do something as pathetic as threaten civilians, rather than use our superior technology to beat an inferior enemy fairly and squarely.

They nuke us we nuke them. If the LA citizens (assuming LA is a country) are made aware that their governments actions are about to results in their world getting blown into the stone age they will act. Fairly and squarely will cost a disproportionate amount of American lives, particularly when the enemy is nuking us.

[KEK]

They nuke us we nuke them. If the LA citizens (assuming LA is a country) are made aware that their governments actions are about to results in their world getting blown into the stone age they will act. Fairly and squarely will cost a disproportionate amount of American lives, particularly when the enemy is nuking us.

An eye for an eye? Sorry, I don't subscribe to bronze-age ethics. It's well within the capabilities of Earth to deal a crippling blow to the LA's infrastructure in response, without resorting to such a cowardly response as wiping out civilian lives.

[Gatefan1976]

They nuke us we nuke them. If the LA citizens (assuming LA is a country) are made aware that their governments actions are about to results in their world getting blown into the stone age they will act. Fairly and squarely will cost a disproportionate amount of American lives, particularly when the enemy is nuking us.

The thing people seem to forget is that the LA are a multi-world alliance. If they "nuked" DC, and our response would be to "nuke em back", we may weaken a few worlds true (depending if we know where they are and how much payload we can dish out), Their response would be to anihilate the entire planet Earth. We may have superior tech and such, but sheer weight of numbers would wipe us out.