“Destroy.”
Not that easy. What you’re describing is what we might have done 200 years ago. We have rules now. And these rules, with their intent to humanize us, don’t include what some would considered senseless killing.
Since the Korean conflict in the early 1950’s, war changed. Chinese and North Korean forces captured American military personnel as prisoners of war. Unlike America’s previous wars, these American prisoners then faced a deadly new enemy, the Eastern World’s POW environment. It was the first American war that U.S. prisoners of war were viewed by an enemy as more than soldiers from the other side temporarily restrained from conducting war and whose desire to control the minds of U.S. prisoners extended the war into the POW camps. We do the same thing today as they did 60 years ago.
In 1954, the Geneva Accords were written by 4 countries: the USSR, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. This tried to civilize war, even though on the battlefield it didn’t. But when dealing with non-combatants, it did. So we are only allowed to fight against the enemy even though the enemy is supported by the non-combatants. Like I said, there are rules.
rwood
It is time to make our own rules. I consider it commonsense killing, not senseless killing.