Iraq has said said that suicide attacks by there soldiers is now “policy”. Is this against any rules of warfare, assuming the bombers are willing volunteers?
If it doesn’t, it should.
Inducing someone to assuredly give up their life when they could engage the enemy with less risk is immoral.
A commander who does so should be tried for all deaths involved on charges of murder…
This is not the forum for opinions.
I don’t know the answer to the question, but one way to get an answer may be to look at the war crimes trials of the Japanese high command after WWII. Was encouraging the kamikaze pilots considered a war crime back then?
I think that it depends. If the suicide bomber 1. feigns surrender, or 2. is dressed in civilian clothes, I would say, yes, that violates the rules of war. (For a cite, find one of the thousands of threads that discuss what the Geneva Conventions have to say about fake surrender tactics and non-uniformed combatants.)
If it’s a bunch of soldiers in a canoe paddling to an aircraft carrier with an oil drum filled with nitro, I think they’re acting (stupidly) within the rules.
There are two pieces to suicide bombing that could qualify as a war crime. One is deceptive surrender; a suicide bomber who pretends to surrender or otherwise invoke ‘not a target’ status would be a war criminal, just like a solider who pretends to surrender in order to ambush his captors. The other is the lack of distinctive insignia or uniform; under the GCs, all soldiers must have a uniform or some kind of insiginia like an armband, particular hat, sash, which clearly distinguishes them from noncombatants. The second one looks like it would be the most probable one for suicide bombers to break; someone who gets in a military truck and drives into the enemy camp would be OK, but someone posing as a cab driver, then blowing up soldiers is either comitting a war crime (if they’re a soldier) or not subject to the protections of the geneva convention.
There’s nothing in the Geneva Conventions that forbids having your own soldiers engage in suicide missions; the Japanese weren’t prosecuted as (or seriously called) war criminals for using Kamakazies. Kamakazies, however, are clearly distinguishable as military aircraft and didn’t pretend to be surrendering during an attack, something which ground suicide bombers may or may not do. If the Japanese were forcing captured allied pilots to fight as Kamakazies that would have been a violation (you can’t press POWs into your army).
And Zenster, you should posts rants in GD, the pit, or IMHO, not GQ. You didn’t provide a factual answer, all you do is tempt other people to engage in debate in GQ instead of offering factual answers.
Believe it or not, Riboflaven (and Boyo Jim), I did attempt to provide more than just an opinion by citing the inefficiency of any commander disposing of troops in such a way that prevents their further service. This is a somewhat factual analysis of why such a policy is inappropriate and not just random moralizing. Had I merely said, “Ew, that’s so horrible!” your protestations would be entirely justified.
In addition, I don’t see what part of my post was a “rant.” It was short and concise with minimal invective.