Obama Administration plans large-scale War Crime

[Scout]

(and note, one of the provisions is that a signatory to the conventions does not have to abide by the strictures when in conflict with someone who themselves does not abide by the strictures).

Hold on a second, does this say that one who abides by the Geneva Convention does not have to if the enemy doesn't?

 

[dclaarjr]

Hold on a second, does this say that one who abides by the Geneva Convention does not have to if the enemy doesn't?

That is exactly what it means.

 

[dburkhead]

Hold on a second, does this say that one who abides by the Geneva Convention does not have to if the enemy doesn't?

Yes, that's what it means. And as they say on the game shows, "but wait, there's more."

Even when the Geneva Conventions are in force (both sides are signatories and mostly following them), there is a doctrine of "reprisals" which allows things that ordinarily be war crimes as retribution for war crimes by the other party. This doctrine is limited. If person/group A violates the "laws of war" you cannot perform a reprisal against person/group B on the same side. The reprisal has to be direct and it has to be approximately comparable to the original war crime.

Example: An army division, in taking a hill, discovers that prisoners had been tortured and executed by the folk holding the hill. The could, legally, declare "no quarter" and refuse to accept surrenders from the folk on that hill and exterminate them to the last man. They could not do that to the next hill over since they couldn't be reasonably assumed to be involved in the original war crime (the torture and execution of prisoners).

The reasoning for that is pretty straightforward. The International Criminal Court is a long way away and there's simply nothing they can do to offenders that's worse than people do to each other in war on a daily basis. The threat of "the war crimes court will get you" is a hollow one. By making the punishment for war crimes direct and immediate, it encourages people to abide by the conventions. The Geneva Conventions and other "laws of war" are an effort to ameliorate the horror of war, not a suicide pact to leave participants hogtied while the barbarians run free.

Despite what the media and folk opposed to US presence in various places might tell you, this stuff is legal. Even so, the US doesn't do it often (or at all, that I can think of recently). We like to think we are better than that. And maybe that's the right way to go about it. Or maybe we're just prolonging things and adding, in the long run, to the bloodshed by "playing nice." I don't know.

I'm just glad it's not my call to make.