h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There has never been a chivalruous war - nor can such a thing happen, because people are not rational and objective in times of war.

Well, I am not sure I can agree with you there. Throughout history there have been numerous examples where participants have agreed to refrain from certain actions (such as the deliberate targeting of civilians. It was only in the 20th Century that civilan populations came to be regarded as 'legitimate targets', especially through the use of strategic bombing raids on enemy cities.

I would also argue that the decision to go to war can be a very rational one. Decision makers are usually well aware of the potential consequences of hostilities (particulalry in the era of total war). As Clauswitz stated war is the continuation of state policy by other (violent) means and therefore war is very much limited by the political objectives set for it (though the exception would be wars of national survival such as WWII).

The crusades were a pretty nasty business altogether, the French cavalry slaughtered the civilians accompanying the knights (including young boys) after Agincourt, in medieval seiges it was the norm to catapult animal cracasses into castles in the hope that disease would kill off all the inhabitants, in world war 1 indescriminate use of chemical weapons started, in world war 2 a country who had not been invaded deliberately targetted civilians with nuclear weaponry twice, in vietnam civilians were routinely doused in chemical defoliants, in the gulf the retreating Iraqi troops set the oilfields on fire, in the Kosovo conflict a neutral embassy was deliberately targetted and bombed and right now there are children being coerced into arms in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and the Congo.
All nasty, but all most effective at winning wars.

All's fair in love and...

In World War II, we flattened Tokyo with carpet bombing, and nuked two cities when we had already effectively won the war!

In Vietnam, (a war the USA never actually declared) we bombed them more than all theatres of WWII put together, torched villages, raped, pillaged, used napalm and agent orange (which is still causing some major problems with general health of the people and the jungle), and generally got away with it.

In Yugoslavia, our bombing has had an extremely small effect on Milosevic's forces, but much havoc on the civilian population. There's no such thing as a war winnable all from the air.

And the USA is the self-proclaimed "policeman of the world", standing for democracy and human rights! ha!

Hmmm, which wars were they? Rarely did that ever happen. The non-combatants (read 'peasants') were always fair game, even during times of 'peace'. Slaughtering non-combatants, butchering prisoners of war etc. have been going on for a long, long time. We're much better at it now, but the basic attitude remains quite consistent as far as I can see. From the Romans to the Wehrmacht and the Red Army, few indeed have ever disobeyed an order to slaughter, and so many people didn't wait around for such an order anyway, and just did what came naturally to them.

Yes, non-coms have been targeted throughout history. However this does not mean that rules against this have not existed for some time; and in many circumstances these rules have been adhered to. I am thinking of the period from the mid 1600s in Europe (the Age of Enlightenment) up until the Franco Prussian War of 1870. It was only as a result of mass armies and the idea of nationalism which grew out of this period that civilan populations began to be seen as legitimate strategic targets (hence strategic ie carpet bombing). Of course on the tactical level civilians will get caught up and there is little to be done to control the actions of individual units/troops.

But then again, there are rules in the Christian doctrine on "Brotherly Love", which are rather impossible in a society based on fiefdom.

War is war, and the general idea to encourage the troops is "we're right, they're wrong/oppressive/bad in some way". If the believe it, all the population of the opposing country deserves, in their minds, to be killed, not just the opposing soldiers.

We live in strange times, indeed.