Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
...I'm sure we agree on the first sentence too. I don't think genocide, or ethnic cleansing, are ever justified. You probably don't consider them military tactics. My only comment is that if you don't clearly state they're never justified, some nut will attempt to justify them as military tactics. (Sadly, some nuts already have.) But at least once we had to go nuclear. Hopefully, we won't need to again, but we might.
but you're correct, genocide or ethnic cleansing are not military tactics in any sense, though such tactics may be used in the process of committing the crime. To my mind it is a crime -- but a difficult one to curtail. We can say they're never justified and most of the world does and has for some time said just that. Unfortunately, saying so doesn't seem to stop it from occurring even today.

As to whether it's a justification for war, my sensing is that it is not. If it were wars would be started to stop it at each occurrence yet they rarely are. The few occasions like Kosovo where that was invoked generally end up causing more problems than they solve.

United external pressure from the rest of the world is more effective -- IF one can develop a united front. That seems to be almost impossible; nations tend to be far from altruistic and to be pretty selfish. Bad problem with no easy solutions.