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Originally posted by CaptBryan:
I have been in the place of steal or starve.

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Originally posted by Queenofthenorth:
Okay, Citizen, I've just re-read my post and realized I sounded like a complete bitch who was personally attacking you. That wasn't what I was trying to do at all. To be honest, I love arguing and I'm having a right blast having it out with intelligent folk like you and Agentrouka. However, I tend to get a little passionate and black and white in my arguments. So anyways, sorry if I offended you in any way, my humblest of apologies.

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Now, to qualify my arguments and make them grayer and more supportable. Instead of referring to the Alliance as evil, I'm gonna call their system corrupt and say that they do do bad things. I think we can all agree on that, yes? Just because they do sometimes do good things doesn't mean they shouldn't be brought down.

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Not your homeland, not mine, not anybody's.

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For the record, let me state here that I think MAL WAS WRONG for killing that soldier.

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Let me use Wash's words to address that: "Right, cuz I wouldn't get in trouble if we got caught. I could always say I was flying the ship by accident." I figure, any way you look at it, the people of Haven couldn't have been slaughtered without that guy's help. Which makes him guilty in some small way.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

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Originally posted by CaptBryan:
I have been in the place of steal or starve.

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The thing is, though, that Mal isn't in that place.

He could do honest work. He could haul legitimate cargo.

He chooses not to. (Even before the added strain of River's presence on the ship.)



That's an entirely different issue than people who steal because their alternative is starving.

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Originally posted by citizen:
[You didn't, though my reply may have come across in a way that indicated you had done, but that's largely for the same reasons you cite .
So sorry for that. ]

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Originally posted by citizen:
Sorry, I thought I'd read somewhere you were American, I was mistaken, I appologise. ]

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Originally posted Jubel:
mal doesn't live in america or any other democratic nation. he didn't ask to be in the alliance. him and zoe fought againt the alliance takeover of their world.

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what goes on in the 'verse cannot be compared in any way to our culture. closest you come to that is the american indians. what kind of police state does the alliance run?

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except for what is done with river.

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Though I would argue that Mal isn't broken. Deeply hurt, yes. But not broken:)

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Originally posted by queenofthenorth:

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

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Originally posted by CaptBryan:
I have been in the place of steal or starve.

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The thing is, though, that Mal isn't in that place.

He could do honest work. He could haul legitimate cargo.

He chooses not to. (Even before the added strain of River's presence on the ship.)



That's an entirely different issue than people who steal because their alternative is starving.

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To be fair, how do you know he steals before River gets on the ship? Other than the time in the Serenity pilot, I mean. We didn't see anything of what Mal did in the 7 (I think) years between the war and River's arrival. Maybe that was the first time he had to steal, because they were going hungry. And I think that was more salvage than steal anyway. After that, River's presence on the ship makes regular Alliance jobs virtually impossible. Unless he wants to turn River in, which he doesn't.

I know, I know, I'm splitting hairs here. I can't help it. It's a compulsion.

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Originally posted by Bowie:
A Hero would never kill inocent people, but he will kill the bad guys. Personally, I feel any human who would let a man who killed all those peeps walk is not a man. Its a terrible crime, and I think its sick that anyone does not think doing it deserves the death penalty.

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How could they tell they were inocent? Because they had Grammit kids.

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Because they were obviously a mine center, not a army. If they had attacked fighters it would be one thing, they didn't. They attacked people who had almost no defence.

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Anyone on that ship coulda seen that what they were doing was wrong, and that makes them bad. Its touph, they weren't hero's.

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People who do whats right, weathr it mean having that persons head cut off

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Originally posted by XieAining:
To those of you who think Mal shooting an Alliance soldier who's throwing up his arms in surrender is just plain wrong, you really really really need to rewatch the series with particular attention to what the Alliance military says and does. You really really really need to get a grip on what the Alliance and Blue Sun are.

Listen to what the commanding officer says in Train Job. Critical medicine has been stolen. The officer says to mark it as delivered. Orders the attachment of soldiers on. Sends no help to the townsfolk to retrieve the meds. They're on their own.

Watch Safe again and realize that the Alliance officer would have refused medical assistance to Book, thus condemning him to death, had Book not had an ident card that the officer deemed worthy.

The Alliance is an unholy entity. Blue Sun is a corporation that owns just about every damn thing, and is, in most respects, the government. You're looking at a facist government/corporate monopoly that is only interested in its own survival and amassing more power and wealth.

Mal has lived his whole life suffering the indignities, horrors, and injustices of a brutal, oppressive regime. He fought for independence from it and was betrayed by his own commanders in the end, left to watch damn near everyone under his command die AFTER a cease fire, waiting for the med ships that didn't come until the Alliance and the Browncoats worked out a surrender.

Mal has no alligance, nor should he, to the Alliance code of justice. The Alliance code of justice is warped, slanted towards the "haves" and the "have-mores". It seeks to empower the rich and disenfranchise the poor. Why the hell do you think they were trying to rebell? Because they didn't want to pay their taxes? NO! Because the Alliance is evil and indifferent by turns to the beleaugered people on the outer rim planets and these folks had had about enough of being abandoned when they needed help, and being interefered with in the most high handed way imaginable when it suited the Alliance.

He tried to win his independence from the Alliance and lost. So he simply declared his own personal independence and tries to stay as far away from the Alliance as possible. Unfortunately, circumstances keep drawing him and the Alliance face to face.

You cannot judge Mal's actions by your own standards that were forged by living in a prosperous country governed by the rule of law, with democratically elected officals, states rights, and advocacy groups for the disenfranshised. You live in a paradise that Mal couldn't even concieve.

Honestly, seriously, rewatch the episodes and pay attention to what the Alliance is.

That being said, there's another layer.

Inara: I just want to know who I'm dealing with. I've seen too many versions of you to be sure.

Mal: I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see something new.

Mal is no longer a civilian when he lands on Haven and sees what the Operative has set in motion. He's now at war.

If on the beaches of Normandy in the heat of battle, a German solider stumbled out of a bunker with arms raised, after having spent the last three hours shredding the Allied soldiers to bits, do you honestly think any of the Allied soldiers would have stopped, accepted his surrender, and marched him off to a prisoner of war camp? Every last man on that beach would have picked him off--shot, stabbed, or stomped him to death. Because it's war. And unlike our "civilized" wars, in the future Mal lives in, there are no humane Rules of Engagement. Honest to Pete, the Allied solider was, to Mal, an enemy combatant. Maybe not by our rules, maybe not by your priviledged standards, but he was an enemy combatant to a man who's had to live with a regime that's heaped upon him and his nothing but sorrow and pain his whole life. To a man who's fought against this sort of hideous behavior in one war already and finds himself in another war with an Operative of the Alliance and the men at his command, it's a no brainer to shoot anything that moves on a battlefield, which is what Haven had become.

And anyone who's been paying attention to what and who the Alliance and their soldiers are, knows that at the first opportunity, that pilot would have turned on the crew and killed every last one of them if they'd accepted his surrender. Everyone on that rock knew it too.

Mal only kills for survival. The only times he ever killed in the series or movie was to ensure his own life, the lives of his crew, or of innocents that he'd pledged to protect. The circumstances under which he fights cannot be judged by our own society's standards. Look up the definition of "cultural relativitly".

(I'll be in my bunk)

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We wonder sometimes if Mal is happy w/ his choices. When he asks River in the BDM "Do your understand your part in all of this?" & she looks at him & asks "Do you?" Mal answers "This is what I do darlin'." then more quietly & to himself "It's what I do." I am sure everyone saw the look on Mal's face, a mix of pain, resignation, perhaps even fatigue. Is he really happy? He looks like a man with a great many burdens to bear. As he tells Simon jobs are harder to come by, even legit ones, since Simon & River are onboard Serenity.

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Originally posted by citizen:

If an attack helicopter is shot down after attacking a village in Iraq, one that the crew believed was a terroist camp, does the pilot deserve to be summerially executed? Not asking what would happen, just whether the pilot would deserve it.

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Originally posted by Jaytee:
There, I've said it. I expect to catch some flack for that for those people here that call themselves Browncoats but are really just poser purplebellies so if I've offended you then all I can say is.....bite me! see ya in 2008 when the tables finally turn.

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Originally posted by RocketJock:
The question here isn't whether he deserved it, but whether he should expect it.

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1. Under the usages of war, no one is required to accept an enemy's surrender. It's generally considered a wise thing to do, when feasible, as it offers your opponent an option other than fighting to the death, but it is not required.
(Specifically, if accepting an enemy's surrender would place your command at risk, you are not to do it. That's standard doctrine.)

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Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
…
Article 4
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

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2. That pilot either knew he was flying an illegal mission under unlawful orders, or he thought it was a legal mission -- in which case, the rules of warfare apply. In other words, he knew, going in, that if grounded, he should expect death.

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Both covered by the Geneva Convention. Breaking the rules of the convention does not mean that a combatant is automatically unprotected, and the rules of warfare blatantly forbid it.

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That Alliance pilot was a member of enemy armed forces. Mal was not only within his rights to to kill him, but, as taking him prisoner would have increased the risk to his command, (he's had enemies escape from his makeshift hoosgow before, and had his ship endangered by loose cannons aboard ship), he was arguably obligated to.

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Not by any recognised rules of war.

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More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

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Originally posted by citizen:

Not by any recognised rules of war.

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Originally posted by JayTee:


If Mal and his crew are just low life thieves then George W. Bush is one of the most honest and articulate men that has ever served in the White House, truly dedicated to preserving and protecting our Constitutional rights

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Originally posted by queenofthenorth:
And does no one have any thoughts on my statement that maybe that guy was suffering and dying, and Mal shot him out of mercy? It's possible, you know.

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Originally posted by Chrisisall:
Here's my real problem: 'Rules of war'?

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Baby, when the lead (or plasma beams) start flyin', there ain't no rules. No commanders, no orders.
There's survival. Anything threatens that, you say bye to it and accept whatever legal repercussions you may face, if you live.
Geneva Convention...peeps signed papers is all. Don't apply in the heat of real life and death.

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Britan and Canada, join us. You don't know the power of the corporate side!

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And yeah, if I went down in Iraq, not in a gunship but even in a passenger jet, and I survived the landing I would expect to be killed for the 'side' I'm recognized as being on.

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Originally posted by queenofthenorth:
Now, Citizen, you've been using the Geneva convention as a reason why Mal shouldn't have killed that dude. Now, as I said before, I don't think Mal should have killed him either. But - how do we know what the rules of war are in Mal's 'verse? How do we know that, 500 years from now, they haven't just scrapped the Geneva convention and went, "you know, you can kill any soldier on an opposing side" or something like that.

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For all we know, killing that guy might have been perfectly acceptable by the standards of Mal's world. By the standards of our world it's obviously not, but Mal's world isn't ours.

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And does no one have any thoughts on my statement that maybe that guy was suffering and dying, and Mal shot him out of mercy? It's possible, you know.

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Originally posted by citizen:
That doesn't make it right; it doesn't mean the officer deserved to be killed. For all we know by their rules of law it might be okay to deploy biological weapons against a civilian population, yet you yourself have used that as a reason why the Alliance is evil.
By these standards killing everyone on Haven is okay, they were under the power of the Alliance, just like the Alliance officer was under Mal’s power, and they were in the Alliance’s way, just like the officer was in Mal’s way.

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Originally posted by citizen:
I fail to see how shooting a wounded casualty as well as a surrendering soldier suddenly makes what he did better? The guy obviously wasn’t on deaths door, that is before he had a bullet through him.

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Originally posted by queenofthenorth:
I'm not saying that it makes it right. You'll note that I still said I believed what Mal did was wrong. What I'm saying is that maybe in Mal's mind, it made it right, or at least acceptable. As a soldier of the times, he likely knows the current "rules of war" and quite possibly believed that what he did was perfectly acceptable, and wouldn't make him a war criminal.

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Well, I think everybody's agreed that Mal killing that other guy at the beginning of the BDM because he was about to suffer and die was merciful. So, if this guy was wounded, suffering, and possibly about to die, couldn't Mal's shooting of him also be construed as merciful?

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by citizen:

Not by any recognised rules of war.

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Here's my real problem: 'Rules of war'?
Baby, when the lead (or plasma beams) start flyin', there ain't no rules. No commanders, no orders.
There's survival. Anything threatens that, you say bye to it and accept whatever legal repercussions you may face, if you live.
Geneva Convention...peeps signed papers is all. Don't apply in the heat of real life and death.
The whole world's awash in a sea of RULES that don't mean a damned thing when the one(s) in power say 'not in this case' or 'doesn't apply to him'. We're all in this big game of chess, where the castle can move diagonally, 'cause one of the 'players' says so.

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Originally posted by citizen:
I think we're arguing different things is all. I'm saying it's wrong, making no mention on whether it's justifiable. If an action is wrong it is still wrong whether or not it is justifiable. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
You seem to be saying it's justifiable whether or not it is wrong.]

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That's somewhat of a murky issue though init. Mal shares the blame for putting that guy in that position, and not trying your hardest for everyone was a reason you gave for the Alliance being evil.

As a side note what I do find interesting is that some people I've seen saying euthanasia is wrong and is murder will also defend Mal's actions here, which really were euthanasia, except Mal may have been able to save that guys life. ]

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As an aside to citizen: I very much enjoy reading your arguments and find myself nodding along. It's nice to see the things that I would vaguely think, already out there and much better phrased, hehe. ]

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Originally posted by queenofthenorth:

You coward, Agentrouka. Hiding behind Citizen's arguments, are you? Just kidding.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

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Originally posted by queenofthenorth:

You coward, Agentrouka. Hiding behind Citizen's arguments, are you? Just kidding.

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Hey, let someone have her little random and impersonal fangirling moment, will you?

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Originally posted by FollowMal:

It's really easy to brand people crooks and brigands when you are comfortable and well fed, but when life is rough ( a rough most folks where I'm from have never seen) the rules change.

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Originally posted by citizen:

The ship looks like it was at least the size of Serenity, which is large enough to have a galley. You don't know what he did, I don't know what he did, and Mal didn't know what he did. He shot him for wearing an Alliance uniform.

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Originally posted by Chrisisall:
But the particular and precise circumstances privy to us through the movie medium show us actions that are just and/or understandable by the hero, and if events were to play out similarly in real life, a court would dismiss any charges against him.

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We can never know everything about real-life events, but in this case, knowing most of the facts, we can say Mal did no wrong in shooting that pilot/gunner/stowaway boyscout- whatever he was.

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Can we agree that that man's appearance at that time was adding an element of possible danger to the crew had he been allowed to take up their time with the tying up and lookin' after and tending to, taking at least one of them out of action for the urgent work needed for their escape from Haven and such?

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The surrendering soldier deserved to die. If heard by an impartial jury and judge, he'd be found guilty of murder himself, it's unfortunate that Mal was left with the unpleasant job of dispatching that shmoe. Mal didn't feel good about it, but then, he really didn't have time to feel much of anything at the moment, he had another job to do.

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Originally posted by citizen:


So back to my original question:
If an American or British Aircraft is brought down in Iraq, irregardless of whether the pilot should expect to be killed do they deserve it?

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Originally posted by Chrisisall:
It would depend upon whether they had just been targeting and killing defenseless civilians, if so, then yes (My appologies to Mr. Collateral Damage).

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There has to be some responsibility at the action level.

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And the fighter weren't that big

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Originally posted by Chrisisall:
It would depend upon whether they had just been targeting and killing defenseless civilians, if so, then yes (My appologies to Mr. Collateral Damage).

What if they didn’t know that it was a civilian settlement?
what people tend to be missing here is that a soldier tends not to know what the hell their doing or why.

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Originally posted by Chrisisall:
All right, gorram it! You win, Citizen, IT WAS A BIG ATTACK SHIP!!!!

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