The "Third Chechen War"
is not a war in the legal sense. There are many things that are called wars that are not wars in the legal sense. The Vietnam War and the Korean War would be two cases in point; neither of these were wars in the legal sense. In fact, the current war in Iraq is not a war in the legal sense; unless I missed it, Congress did not declare war on Iraq.
The controls and forms of war were put into place for a reason, after the Hundred Years War in Europe. These controls and forms were extended over the following centuries to put limits on what could be done. They are part of the West's claims to superiourity. We cannot abandon them without abandoning those claims.
The tragedy that is unfolding is that the west is becoming just like the people they condemn.
