no court or tribunal is going to accept your definition if it has the impact that it will.
I agree. My definition is that everyone should agree on a definition, or not use the word. The politicians want to use a charged word for something other than its real meaning. The courts want to use it for various reasons that differ based on their jurisdiction. No one wants to use the word in a clear manner, and thus the word has no meaning. If it doesn't accurately describe a concept, it isn't language. I'm just asking that it be used clearly or not at all, and just about anyone using the word "war" doesn't want clarity.
Sorry, but that's all that matters for considerations of "collective punishment" which is the topic we're all talking about in this article.
That's nice. Talk about that all you like. But I never commented on it, and have no opinion on it. I was commenting on War. It's relevant to the discussion at hand because actions are legal or not depending on how people thousands of miles away define a word. But I'm certainly not restricted to only using the word in that context.
If you want to imagine that war means something else in other contexts, feel free, but don't waste people's time having them chase down rabbit holes only to find out that the whole argument has been pointlessly off-topic.
I've been clear about it. Saying something is ok in war or not in war, and not ok at other times, or vice versa depends explicitly on the definition of war. And so I'm questioning the definition of war and the usage thereof. That you seem to disagree with me, but can't come up with anything other than "because they said so" for it. I've never been good with that explanation. If politicians want to use the "war" word, then they should be held to the tightest standards regarding it. They declared a war, and when people examine their actions in relation to it and find it's a direct violation of the rules of war, their response is that it's a war, and they deserve protections, but not their enemies, who aren't playing by the rules. Interestingly, that isn't a new complaint, but has been used for the past 30+ years for wars all over the world.