Rules of war enable terror

THE GENEVA Conventions are so outdated and are written so broadly that they have become a sword used by terrorists to kill civilians, rather than a shield to protect civilians from terrorists. These international laws have become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

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The war by terrorists against democracies has changed all this. Terrorists who do not care about the laws of warfare target innocent noncombatants. Indeed, their goal is to maximize the number of deaths and injuries among the most vulnerable civilians, such as children, women and the elderly. They employ suicide bombers who cannot be deterred by the threat of death or imprisonment because they are brainwashed to believe that their reward awaits them in another world. They have no "return address."

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By employing these tactics, terrorists put the democracies to difficult choices: Either allow those who plan and coordinate terrorist attacks to escape justice and continue their victimization of civilians, or attack them in their enclaves, thereby risking death or injury to the civilians they are using as human shields.

Whenever a civilian is accidentally killed or an ambulance is held up at a checkpoint, the terrorist leaders, and those who support them, have exploited the post-World War II laws of warfare to condemn the democracies for violating the letter of the law. Some human rights groups, international organizations and churches have joined this chorus of condemnation, equating the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians by terrorists with the unintended consequences of trying to combat terrorism - unintended by the democracies, but quite specifically intended, indeed provoked by, the terrorists. This only encourages more terrorism, since the terrorists receive a double benefit from their actions. First they benefit from killing "enemy" civilians. Second, they benefit from the condemnation heaped on their enemies. Human rights are thus being used to promote human wrongs.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.geneva28may28,0,3485167.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
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interesting article....

It is a two way street. IF we recognized degrees of civilianess then why throw a fit when the terrorist target settlers? Settlers in many cases openly support the policy of occupation and settlements on the west bank. It will not be good for Israelis to do away with the Geneva conventions. I don't see the value of recognizing degrees of torture. Torture is wrong, and it doesn't work very well.

and you wonder why <censored> is incriminating when <censored> or squeal loudly when <censored> is revealed. Gotta love that memory hole that all of you <censored> love so much.

legitimate points.

The Geneva Convention was based on a different kind of war
and I fully support it but times and war change over time.

Provocative article.

:eyes:
Cut the crap. This so-called "war on terror" is a Likud/bushista
invention to serve their own agendas. :mad:

it emphasizes not killing civilians. This article is not so much provocative as much as it presents a deliberate misunderstanding of the Geneva Conventions. Degrees of Civilianess are not good for Israel because many of their civlians are settlers and support occupation. The Geneva conventions should apply to both Governments and Insurgent movements. If they were there would be less terrorism on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. IN the end he is arguing that insurgent movements should be treated differently than established governments. Since our own founders were insurgents, the British would have had a right to torcher them. This article is bunk. I suspect Dershowitz knows it too.

First, democracies must be legally empowered to attack terrorists who hide among civilians, so long as proportional force is employed. Civilians who are killed while being used as human shields by terrorists must be deemed the victims of the terrorists who have chosen to hide among them, rather than those of the democracies who may have fired the fatal shot.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

If the US suspects that Osama Bin Laden might possibly be hiding in an Afghan village, then proceeds to blow up the entire village, the US killed the hundreds of innocents slaughtered, not Bin Laden.

This is simply an attempt to avoid responsibility for one's actions.

Second, a new category of prisoner should be recognized for captured terrorists and those who support them. They are not "prisoners of war," neither are they "ordinary criminals." They are suspected terrorists who operate outside the laws of war, and a new status should be designated for them - a status that affords them certain humanitarian rights, but does not treat them as traditional combatants.

What particular rules for prisoners of war would be innappropriate for terrorists? All this is trying to do is justify violations of both the laws dealing with "ordinary criminals" AND with "prisoners of war" so that the governments of the "democracies" can basically do what they want to them.

Third, the law must come to realize that the traditional sharp line between combatants and civilians has been replaced by a continuum of civilian-ness. At the innocent end are those who do not support terrorism in any way. In the middle are those who applaud the terrorism, encourage it, but do not actively facilitate it. At the guilty end are those who help finance it, who make martyrs of the suicide bombers, who help the terrorists hide among them, and who fail to report imminent attacks of which they are aware. The law should recognize this continuum in dealing with those who are complicit, to some degree, in terrorism.

Thought should NEVER be a crime. EVER. This "continuum" is trash.

Fourth, the treaties against all forms of torture must begin to recognize differences in degree among varying forms of rough interrogation, ranging from trickery and humiliation, on the one hand, to lethal torture on the other. They must also recognize that any country faced with a ticking-time-bomb terrorist would resort to some forms of interrogation that are today prohibited by the treaty.

Torture is immoral and ineffective. The tactic is disgusting, whatever "ticking bomb" situation is suspected. The Geneva Conventions have the right idea.

Why am I not surprised when I read the name of the author?

The rules of war already allow the use of proportionate force against combatants hiding among non-combatants, and deem the taking up of combat positions among non-combatants a crime. They allow the determination a prisoner is an illegal combatant after an evidentiary hearing.

I wasnt aware there are rules of war allowing the use of proportionate force against combatants hiding among non-combatants.

Is that IN the Geneva Convention??

and find out.

Is whether the direct military benefit outweighs the harm to non-combatants, and whether a reasonable attempt was made to avoid harm to the non-combatants. As you will see, these are elsatic and subjective standards, about which people may disagree, and it is worth noting that war crime trials since the Geneva Accords came into force have not really ruled on such matters, but have concentrated on clear-cut matters of murdered prisoners and such. It would be fair, though impish, to say that no one really knows what the law is in such cases, because there have been no trials in such matters. My own expectation is that courts would grant combatants a pretty wide latitude, since taking up combat positions among non-combatants is itself a criminal behavior under the laws of war. If a policeman shoots at a man committing a violent felony in a congested area, and strikes instead a bystander who dies, the man committing the felony the policeman sought to prevent is, in most jurisdictions, liable to indictment for murder, as the death occured as a consequence of the violent felony he was committing.

My only thought....

MY own expectation is that courts would grant combatants a pretty wide latitude, since taking up combat positions among non-combatants is itself a criminal behavior under the laws of war...IF
IT WAS ANYONE BUT ISRAEL. The UN and ICJ seem to have tunnel
vision on that matter...but thats my opinion.

The notion that we should give up the rules of civilized
conduct because the barbarians won't follow them is,
well, barbaric.