Oh, all right, Fred. Pax. Cruzes. Fanites. If you will be civil this time around, so will I. I don't think either of us emerged with that much credit from that previous encounter; so how about we try and forget it? I fear that, try as I might, I am just no good at sulking, and would always rather be on cordial terms with anyone if I can.

So. Hatchet buried? Please...

We obviously differ as to what constitutes 'a war crime', and how far the Belgrano incident met such a definition. Events were explicitly on a war footing. She was a warship belonging to a hostile state in time of war; sailing away for the purpose of recouping and 'living to fight another day'. How far the concept of exclusion zones, especially self-imposed ones, are valid in such situations must obviously be unclear. My view is that the prevention of an enemy warship's re-engaging in hostilities at some future date is an obvious recourse for any commander in the field [or, in this case, at sea] to embrace. But I can see why mileages will inevitably differ, both in general principle and in this specific instance; and do not claim to be enough of a historian, legalist, or philosopher to try dogmatically to argue the intricacies of the matter. It just seems to my lay mind to have been a valid tactic in a war situation. SFAIK no international body or court has ever determined otherwise.

~M~