i’m sure many of you know about the various rules of engagement named in the geneva convention, rules that saddam has been breaking. but a friend of mine who inspired this thread said “killing is killing. there’s no rules of engagement”. so, do you all think the “dirty” tactics saddam’s regime are doing in this war (fake surrenders, car bombings, executing POWs), or do you think it’s just a war tactic that appears to be working for him?
I think you need to clean up your sentence structure a bit so we can answer you properly.
I wasn’t aware that they executed any POWs. They filmed some dead soldiers, but weren’t they killed in combat?
By the way, when did both your <shift> keys break?
There has been no proof for the execution of POWs, in fact the British government has retracted its claim that such has happened, after the sister of an allegedly executed POW went to the press stating ‘That’s not what the army told me’. And as long as the US is happily breaking most of the rules they accuse Saddam of breaking, and come up with plenty of original violations of their own, I consider it disingenous to talk about the ‘rules that saddam has been breaking’. Either talk about violations of the Geneva conventions or don’t talk about them. The conventions are either valid for both parties or none.
Cite?
I said this in another thread, but I’ll say it again here. The Geneva conventions are not to protect armed combatants, they are to try and protect civilians & surrendering military.
If your military is attacking the enemy in civilian clothes, your own * true * civilians could come under attack.
Faking surrenders makes it less likely that genuine surrenders will be accepted in the future. By the Geneva conventions, you are required to accept surrender, but now you can say “we didn’t think it was genuine”
Placing military hardware in civilian areas makes civilian casualities more likely. IIRC, the Geneva convention states that if military hardware ** is ** in a civilian area, you are still allowed to attact it. You are supposed to try and limit civilian casualities.
You didn’t see the Iraqi POWs on TV? You didn’t see them being asked questions not allowed in the Geneva Convention? You didn’t see US Special Forces operating in Afghanistan in the garb of locals? Do you suggest the forces now operating in Baghdad are wearing obvious uniform?
And cluster bombing villages is of course limiting civilian casualties, huh? Depriving whole cities of drinking water is limiting civilian casualties?
How precisely do you suggest cities are to be defended against air campaigns? By moving the AAA into the mountains a hundred miles away?
I’ve seen POW’s being taken into custody on TV. That was filmed by civilian news, not the government. I haven’t seen any POW’s inverviewed, of course I can’t watch news 24/7.
As to Special Forces, it would be kind of stupid to try being covert in uniform. According to the Geneva convention
I’m not exactly sure what “military operations & during preparation for them” means. Does this mean actual combat or does it include trying to find targets for others, but not engaging in combat yourself? I don’t know.
Cluster bomb villages? Your say so does not a cite make. I did a search on CNN’s page, got lots of hits but none for the current conflict.
Cutting off water to cities? Do you not see on the news where we are busting our asses trying to get humanitarian supplies into the cities?
The point is that the POWs shouldn’t be exposed to the media to begin with. Especially not in humiliating conditions, such as with bags over their head, let alone being forced to strip naked in the dirt, both of which could be seen. It’s not relevant whether the filming is being done by the government itself or the media, what’s relevant is that they are being exposed to the public in their humiliation. And you’re hardly in a position to complain about Iraqis showing coalition POWs on TV when Iraqi POWs are on TV almost every single day.
I provided cites in another thread here. Examples are http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030402-084841-7116r
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED04Ak07.html
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6225297%5E25778,00.html
Busting your assess in the most dilletantic way possible, to the point where humanitarian organisations are tearing their hair out, clamoring to just get the heck out of the way and let people who know how to do it handle it, and to hell with the danger for them. People are simply plundering the trucks, with the young and strong getting everything and the elderly and infirm, who’d especially be needing help getting nothing.
Yes. Cutting water supply to cities. The water supply for Baghdad is dependent on electricity. As is the water supply in many other cities.
Take a look for example at http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/5556680.htm
I read your cites. I didn’t see anywhere, where anyone said that we intentionally carpet bombed villages with cluster munitions. According to your cite, some munitions hit one village. If our weapons were perfect, this war would be over because the Iraqi military would all be dead.
Sorry, but that isn’t enough. The Convention expects people to go out of their way to protect civilians. ‘Oops we didn’t mean to nuke them’ doesn’t cut it.
Sorry, but you don’t get to decide. From my earlier cite
I don’t see anything that says “go out of your way to protect civilians”
Are you trying to claim we are conducting “indiscriminate attacks” against civilians or civilian areas?
That’s not what the article says. It states ‘indiscriminate attacks against areas in which civilians are present.’ It specifically does NOT speak of civilian areas. The only relevant issue is whether civilians are present, and whether the attack is specific, i.e. only against the military targets present, or indiscriminate, i.e. with means that don’t discriminate between civilian and military targets. Cluster bombs ARE indiscriminate, and they quite obviously WERE used against areas in which civilians were present.
How do you know? They could have been intended for another area and went off target. I still say there is no where in your cites that say the U.S. targeted an area with civilians present deliberately. If you don’t think the coalition forces are doing their best to avoid civilian casualities, then we will just have to disagree.
a)Even the British troops feel the US forces are not doing their best to avoid civilian casualties.
b)It doesn’t matter if they went off target. They were used in such a fashion that their hitting a civilian area was possible. The civilian area was obviously within their area of effect. Weapons with higher precision were NOT used. If you park in San Francisco without being in the approriate gear, turning the wheels against the curb and putting the parking brake on/the vehicle into park, it doesn’t matter that you didn’t deliberately roll the car down the hill. You might not have intended the damage, but you’re still responsible for it.
Cluster munitions are useful against large amounts of massed troops. They’re also useful for pinning down said troops to keep them from moving around until the submunitions are disposed of. 2000 lb laser guided bombs are not so good for this task. In order to take out a large mass of troops with 2000lb bombs, you’d probably have to use a lot of them.
The fault lies with Iraq for having their military too close to a civilian area. We attacked them while trying not to kill civilians, but as far as I know, we are still allowed to attack their military.
The fault lies not with the Iraqis. You defend cities by having troops close to them.
You’re allowed to attack the military. But the passage of the Geneva Convention cited by yourself prohibits their attack with indescriminate weapons in such a fashion that civilian lives are endangered. The choice of weapons was up to US forces.
So all we have to do to prevent all war is to place our militaries in cities. Why didn’t anyone think of this before. Also from my cite
this reads to me like placing your military close to civilians is against the Geneva Convention.
Also, do you have a cite for your claim that “Even the British troops feel the US forces are not doing their best to avoid civilian casualties.”
**
Except that it is founded in nothing I stated.
No, it means that deliberately mingling your military with civilians in order to avoid them being attacked is against the Geneva Convention, and justifies attack on the military equipment. That doesn’t mean that such an attack with indiscriminate weapons would not constitute a violation as well, and it supposes a specific intent.
Example:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23555-2003Apr3.html
I’m sorry, but it says ** clear separation ** from civilians. Mingling is wrong, as you stated, but right next to is also wrong.
And your cite says nothing about “British troops feel the US forces are not doing their best to avoid civilian casualties.” It talks about mingling with the civilians, putting them at ease.
from the article
How does this equate to “not doing their best to avoid civilian casualities”