Actually, the medevac choppers have this very thing. The red cross on a white background is on a foldable side panel that you can open or close. As I recall from my Army days around 2005, you were limited in what armaments the chopper could carry if it had the red cross out. I vaguely recall it didn’t have to be unarmed, but it couldn’t have the .50 door gun either. Theoretically, you could run medevac missions escorted by armed helicopters, and legally the enemy is only allowed to blow up the armed helicopters. The medevac ambulances are the same way. If you wanted to send fresh troops to the front using the ambulance, you’d run outside, close the panels (basically saying “time in!”) and haul the troops to the front. Then, when it’s loaded with casualties, you redeploy the red cross (time out!).
In reality, all these laws do not apply to an enemy that chooses to ignore them. In actuality, the US is not bound by the Geneva conventions or any other agreement when fighting in Iraq/Afghanistan because the enemy forces are (1) not a signatory. (2) openly and consistently ignore them. Legally, the U.S. is permitted to use anything they want including poison gas, land mines, blinding lasers, and so on. They only choose not to do so for political reasons. This is also why medics do not bother with the armbands because they know the enemy has not shown any sign of willingness to adhere to any rules whatsoever, and that red cross/white patch makes you an easier to spot target.
Yes, but you could not do the opposite. You could not legally send out that marked ambulance, and then decide in the middle of an operation to start using it for hostile acts. If the vehicle leaves the wire marked as an ambulance, it must be an ambulance for the duration of the operation. You can only reconfigure it upon its return. Any weapon carried by a medic or a medical vehicle must strictly for self defense against an enemy that is specifically targeting them. If the armed helicopters are being shot at, the medevac helicopter cannot just decide to help out and claim it is “self defense”. If an enemy unit is closing on a hospital, the medical personnel cannot claim self-defense and start shooting simply because they are about to be overran by the enemy. Only if the enemy actually tries to kill them, can they use their weapons.
Correct, but they are still important to understand.
That is too simplified to be accurate. And besides the United States has passed its own laws restricting or forbidding the use of certain weapons–poison gas and chemical weapons for instance. The use of those weapons would not be legal for the US to use, regardless of the enemy. Even if an enemy is not a signatory of the convention, the law of land warfare applies to anyone who is. If the enemy never signed the conventions, but actually conducts itself in accordance with the established protocols, they will have the same protections as if they were party to the convention. Only on an individual basis are the protections lost. Imagine if we decided to target and bomb a Taliban or Al-Qaeda hospital hospital, for instance. Do you think that would be legal? Do you think that would be acceptable in the international community? Of course not. It doesn’t matter that they do not follow the rules, or that they are not signers to the convention. Unless the enemy starts using the hospital as a bomb making factory, we are not going to target it. And even if it were, we would still avoid targeting it simply because of the repercussions.
And for idealistic reasons as well. Avoiding the indiscriminate targeting of medical facilities and ambulances is the right thing to do. Plus, following the rules helps protect our own protected personnel in future operations. If we stopped following the rules now, we would lose the trust of nations we may have to fight in the future. It would undermine the entire system and put aid workers, protected persons and facilities and wounded personnel at greater risk around the world and in future conflicts.
No, that is not the reason at all. It doesn’t matter who we decide to fight in the future. We are not wearing the arm bands because we want our medics to be able to engage in hostile acts against the enemy. Having that extra rifle available is to our advantage. Because we have decided to allow our medics to engage the enemy, we waive the protections provided by the convention up until the point where the medical personnel actually start treating casualties. This is like the truck in your example. It can leave as a combat truck, and then become an ambulance. But it cannot leave as an ambulance and then act as a combat truck whenever it decides to. If we allowed our medics to walk around enjoying the protections of the Convention only to decide on a whim to start shooting at the enemy, we would be committing a gross deception and violation of the intent (if not the letter) of international law. That is why our medics do not wear armbands. It is because we want them to shoot back, not because our enemy would ignore it. I mean, they probably would ignore it, but that’s not our reason for choosing to send them into combat without armbands.
Is there any evidence whatsoever that the insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan have *ever * respected any of the Laws of Land warfare or any conventions at all?
I know of none.
Since the insurgents are not obeying these laws on a massive scale, the United States can ignore them wholesale and legally do anything they want.
Question for servicepeople: irrespective of whether the white armband provides protection from being shot at by the enemy, I would think it would be useful for soldiers to be able to quickly identify the medics on their own side. Is that sensible? Or does it not make much difference either way, in the heat of battle.
[QUOTE=Habeed]
Since the insurgents are not obeying these laws on a massive scale, the United States can ignore them wholesale and legally do anything they want.
[/QUOTE]
You actually believe this, despite the overwhelming evidence against it? If this were actually true, please explain the fact that American soldiers have been tried and convicted for war crimes in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Why does the United States have established Rules of Engagement for their military personnel if everyone is allowed to “legally do anything they want”?
Why would incidents like the July 2007 helicopter airstrike in Baghdad come under so much scrutiny if the US were allowed to “legally do anything they want?” Why did experts on international law, like Mark Taylor from the Fafo Institute for International Studies in Norway, state that “a war crime may have been committed” in that incident (Fordham, 2010)? Experts believe we are still bound by the conventions of international law. The United States military believes it must abide by international laws of war. Yet, you believe that we don’t?
Like I said, if in a particular situation, the enemy is doing something like using an ambulance as a fighting platform, the on scene commander can order the engagement of the vehicle. However, only the President of the United States can order a reprisal on the level of “okay, they are not following the rules, so we are not going to follow the rules either”. And even then he is limited in what reprisals he can order. He specifically cannot order the attacking of hospitals or medical personnel. So regardless, there will be no instance when the US military can just decide to forget about rules governing the treatment of wounded, hospitals, and medical personnel.
Cite:
Fordham, A. (2010, April 8). Baghdad families to sue US Army over deaths in 2007 airstrike ‘mistake’. The Times. Retrieved from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
Here you go, Habeed. I was going to start a Great Debate until I finally found the article I was looking for. Article 2 of the 1949 Convention states:
"Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations."
Every country who agreed to abide by the convention, agreed to abide by the all of the rules and “undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances” (Art 1).
If your interpretation were correct, and we did not have to follow international law in situations where our enemy chose not to, then there would not have been so much debate about the status of captured personnel. The United States, recognizing the fact that it was legally obligated to treat POWs a certain way, was careful to explain that captured people in the recent conflicts were not, in fact, POWs. If your assertions were correct, the United States could have just said, “Yes, they are POWs, but since they are not going to follow the rules, we aren’t either!” /end hijack. I think my point is made.
The Syrian Arab Army commonly has Medics with Hello-Kitty backpacks. It looks incongruous but probably beats white as a recognition colour in terms of visibility.
As Bear_Nenno said, everyone knows who and (roughly) where s/he is. In a pinch, the technique for summoning a medic is, as you’ve seen in movies, to yell out “Medic!” or “Doc!” Furthermore, at least in an ideal world, a medic will also have a general idea of where his/her casualties are.
We’ve stopped putting big red targets on our medics, but the big aid bag is an unavoidable marker, unfortunately.
When the enemy uses the red cross on a white background on an armband, helmet, or vehicle as an aiming point the Hague Convention becomes wistful thinking.
Keep reading. It explicitly states that if the other party in the conflict, signatory or not, is disregarding the convention, then the other party does not have to follow it either. The U.S. can choose to prosecute it’s own people for violation of it’s own rules - but under international law, it does not have to do so at all.
Paragraph 3, article 2 : Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the
present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain
bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.
Page 30 and 31 of thisbook answer your questions explicitly.
It’s not my interpretation, it’s experts in military law. If the belligerent party does not “accept and apply” the conventions, they do not get the benefit of the conventions. The U.S. could legally have started the conflict adhering to the Geneva conventions. The enemy leaders - Taliban commanders, insurgent clerics, Al Qaeda leaders - needed to apply the Geneva conventions generally in their tactical and strategic decisions. They also needed to broadcast a message to the U.S. leaders indicating that, despite not being signatories to the convention, they were willing to accept them.
As far as I know, none of this has happened, and we know that clearly and blatantly the insurgents have used tactics such as use of bombs against pure civilian targets, execution and mistreatment of prisoners, not wearing uniforms, and in general they have flagrantly and consistently shown no willingness to respect them.
Upon demonstrating this behavior - probably after doing this consistently for a few days or weeks - the U.S. could have declared that since the other party is not applying the conventions, the U.S. is not going to, either. The U.S. could have, perfectly legally, chosen to torture and execute all detainees, used nerve gas and nuclear weapons against them, declined to accept their surrenders, and so on. That’s what the actual international laws allow.
The last time someone tried to claim it was acceptable under international law to execute prisoners because the other side wasn’t a signatory to conventions was Adolf Hitler’s Commissar Order, which he himself knew full well was an illegal order. If he had actually considered the order a legal one under international law, why then did he feel the need to pardon in advance any war crimes committed by German soldiers in carrying out said order?
You didn’t keep reading. It does in fact state what I said. Read all of page 30 and 31. Hitler was attacking noncombatants, which is a totally different thing than executing/torturing/gassing combatants.
I did read the rest of it before posting, but after re-reading about a half dozen more times, I will concede that this part does suggest that the Powers are only bound by the convention if the other nonparty state agrees to be bound as well.
However, the Laws of War include more than just the conventions and treaties. They also include Customary International Law. And I am certain, that even if not codified somewhere, the International Court of Justice would agree that targeting medical personnel and the wounded is a violation of the Laws of War. I am not sure where that is written, or even if it is. But there must be case law on it somewhere. For instance, you said yourself that you believe targeting civilians is illegal, right?
You are stating that it is a violation of international law to target noncombatants. Where, besides one of the many protocols of the Geneva convention or international humanitarian law, is this law codified? If the international law against targeting civilians comes from the same place as the ones against targeting hospitals, then why can one be ignored and the other be “a totally different thing”? If the nation is not a signer of the convention, then what law says another state is not allowed to target those civilians? How can they be totally different things as you say? Whatever is driving the one, must be driving the other. Please explain this discrepancy. Why can a nation ignore one law, but the other other must be followed?
I did keep reading. I even quoted what your cite actually says. What you wrote is your interpretation, what the experts in military law actually wrote is, again, bolding mine
In other words, in your example until the Taliban, insurgent clerics, Al Qaeda leaders, whomever the adverse party is has stated contrary intentions to abiding by said conventions, the Contracting Parties must apply them to the non-contracting parties.
Again, horseshit. Speaking of not reading, you clearly did not read the Commissar Order I linked for you or Hitler’s spurious reasoning on why he claimed the protections of the Hague Conventions on the Laws and Customs of War on Land did not apply to the Soviet Union so executing prisoners wasn’t illegal - again a position clearly he didn’t even believe as he found it necessary to give a blanket pardon to any war crimes committed by German soldiers in carrying out the order. The order had nothing to do with non-combatants, it was a specific order to execute captured Soviet combatants. Here are the relevant parts from the cite already provided:
Finally, I cannot help but notice your complete failure to address the complete illegality under international law of using chemical weapons on non-contracting parties or non-state parties or that “executing/torturing/gassing combatants” are all especially prohibited conduct under Article 23 of the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague 1899) along with your notion that declining to accept surrenders would be allowed. You might want to look up the meaning of “no quarter” and reread the sentence that among especially prohibited conduct is “To declare that no quarter will be given”. Your idea of what actual international law allows is grossly misinformed.
Nope, doesn’t apply. Even if some of these international laws theoretically apply, the U.S. did not ratify the Rome Statute, and so no U.S. citizen can actually be prosecuted for violations of international law. Since the U.S. has nuclear weapons, there’s absolutely no chance at all that anyone could seize the country by force and then hold trials similar to the Nuremberg trials - half the planet would be a smoking crater first.
Wow. That this constitutes your understanding of international law really speaks for itself. Here’s a hint: international law long, long predates the ICC. That the Hague Conventions are known as the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 should be a bit of a giveaway on that. If you had bothered to look at the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating Gas, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare you’d note the 8 February 1928 after the title. International law is nothing like national laws and never has been. International law does not lay out a list of criminal behavior, legal punishments for such behavior and has no agency for the enforcement of such behavior. International law as it pertains to war are agreements voluntarily entered into by signatory nations on what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable actions in civilized warfare, as oxymoronic as that phrase may be. Every single thing that you have claimed would be perfectly legal and what actual international law allows (torture, murder of prisoners, declarations of no quarter, use of poison weapons, etc) is patently untrue and would be completely illegal and in no way allowed under international law.
