iirc, we had a similar discussion during Gundam SEED. When Yzak blew up the shuttle filled with civilians, there was some discussion about his intentions (he thought it was full of military personnel). The end result of that discussion was the idea that yes, it's okay to shoot fleeing troops. If they don't want to be shot, then they need to surrender.
Of course, the Gundams might find it a bit difficult to accept surrenders (what do they do with prisoners?). The GN units would probably settle for destroying military equipment after allowing the crew to bail out of any vehicles, while the Trinities seem sociopathic enough to kill everyone (one even takes the time to vaporize a wounded AEU soldier in a burning hanger at the start of episode 18). During World War 2, the US engaged in daylight precision strategic bombing, which meant that a bunch of bombers flew over the target in broad daylight and tried to hit it from several thousand feet up in the air. Their bombsites were quite good for the time, but I still wouldn't have wanted to live next to one of their targets. The British, from what I understand, conducted most of their bombing at night. Remember that this was before infrared and lowlight vision, and draw your own conclusions on what happened. Also, the allies conducted firestorm bombing raids, which basically set entire cities on fire. Dresden suffered from one of these, and the results weren't very pretty. Now that we have precision weapons, and special aiming systems even for 'dumb' bombs, we expect a lot more out of Western militaries (particularly the American military). And so I'd feel perfectly justified in lashing into anyone who firebombed an entire city. But an industrial target that directly contributes toward the military effort of a country is still a fair target, no matter how many civilians are around. There is a question, of course, regarding where exactly you draw the line. But the ammunition factory was a legitimate target regardless of how many civilians were working there. And given what an ammunition factory produces, it probably doesn't take much to turn the place into a huge crater. Though performing the attack at midnight would have reduced the number of casualties (I'm guessing it took place at dusk, since it looked dark but there were still a lot of people on the premises, and Graham and Billy were both at work in the hanger). junior Subject : Re: [gundam] Gundam 00 Episode 18 *spoilers* Date : Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:35:21 -0500 >From : "Dr. Core" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To : [email protected] wrote: > Yeah, but do you go out of your way to kill them, even if they are already > running away? Actually you do. In the US ROE, the term is "active pursuit", it's even allowed to pursuit them into countries not at war with you. Cambodia then, Iran now. > Thrones certainly does. People were discussing before, when Setsuna and > company attack > civilian related sites, they give them enough time to get away, if they want, > before they That's one of the things that drove me nuts. No one fights wars like that in reality. Joseph already gave the example of Allies bombing industrial and population centers in Europe and Japan. Avoiding current examples, Bill Clinton directed bombing of civilian TV, radio, telephone and electricity infrastructure without warning. Old Bill also bombed a alleged chemical weapon plant (turned out to be bogus intel, again), the civilian factory workers were also treated as legit target. The worst example in G00 was the bombing of narcotic field while leaving the narcotic farmers alive. Childish as GI Joe.
