> > People have the right to defend themselves, overthrow tyrannical
>> regimes under which they suffer, liberate their land from colonial
>> occupation, and so on,
>
>Perhaps, but governments and nations do not.
You mean to say, for instance, that the Union didn't have the right to fight against the Confederacy, just because it was "a government"? Left to today's anarchists, maybe there wouldn't have been any Emancipation Proclamation in 1863!
> > Now, a question of means. Some means are justifiable; others are
>> not. For instance, rape, torture, murders and mistreatments of POWs,
>> attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, etc. are war
>> crimes,
>
>Such acts were committed during those wars you consider just.
>Remember Sherman's March? I can't think of any major war which
>didn't have such things.
Sure, but there are much differences in the numbers, kinds, and degrees of war crimes committed by parties to wars. Compare, for instance, the treatment of prisoners of war by the Vietnamese Communists and that by US imperialists and their collaborators.
The side that has a just cause doesn't always behave much better than the other side, but the side that has no just cause tends to commit more war crimes. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>