In message , BUFDRVR
writes
George Z. Bush wrote:
The
fact that they may have violated the terms of the Convention, or even that
people fighting independently on their territory may have violated those
terms
does NOT give us the right to ignore or otherwise violate them.

If they violate article X, (not Roman numeral 10, but X as in any article), we
are *permitted* by the convention to violate that same article as frequently as
it was violated by them. Its called the "Law of Reciprocity" and its pounded in
the head of aircrew to make the point that if you don't want your old high
school bombed, don't drop one on theirs.

Reprisals are prohibited unless *explicitly* authorised. That's often a
deterrent: not many folk like signing their name to what may later be
called deliberate breaches of "international law". (Sad fact of life -
the first breach was by "unauthorised renegades who would have been
court-martialled if they hadn't conveniently died", the reprisal was "a
calculated deliberate war crime ordered by and with the full assent of
the chain of command")

Look at how history views Lidice or Oradour-sur-Glane for how well
"reprisals" work. For that matter, what happens if Mr Berg's murderers
formally claim their act was a "reprisal" for US breaches of the GCs? I
don't consider his murder lawful in any circumstances.

It's a damn sight easier to hold the high moral ground, than it is to
fight in the foggy valleys. It's much easier and more convincing to
simply say "we do not torture detainees" than to argue "shoving Cyalumes
up a prisoner's arse isn't *technically* torture so we're just
interrogating with extreme prejudice, what are you complaining about?".

(And it plays really badly when folk say "hey, this is routine back in
the US, we do this to each other all the time..." I tell you, I am
*never* turning my back on a US policeman or serviceman with a
lightstick again )


Meanwhile, *unauthorised* reprisals are war crimes pure and simple.

Yes, this sucks for signatory nations when fighting a foe who explicitly
rejects "the rules" and yet has a sizeable civilian population to hide
behind and have take casualties for retaliatory action (indeed, the Bad
Guys _hope_ for indiscriminate reprisals).

No, I don't have any easy answers beyond "don't wrestle with that tar
baby" which is now badly OBE.

Once we sign, we're permanently bound and if we ignore those terms for
whatever
reason, we tell the world that our word is no longer our bond and that they
no
longer need to believe that we mean whatever we say.

You need to read a little more about these articles George.

Under what circumstance can an individual soldier / sailor / airman
decide that the GCs are no longer relevant?

If "any servicebeing" can't make that call, what's the minimum rank for
the decision to be made?

Does there need to be any audit trail or is anybody caught raping some
good-looking local or decapitating a kidnapped civilian entitled to
claim it as a 'lawful reprisal' for the enemy's violations of the GCs?



There are many bad and misguided reasons to be brutal in pursuing the
current scandal up the ranks as possible. There are, though, also two
*good* reasons.

One, for outside consumption as well as the home audience: make it clear
that this was not ordered policy but a mistake. I do not believe that
the President or his SecDef woke up one morning and decided "Gee,
wouldn't it be neat to make detainees in Iraq pretend to have gay sex
with each other?" Their error was a major fault of oversight and
omission, but the point at which laissez-faire turned into malice needs
to be found and fixed to deter recurrence. Below that point you have
intent, above it you have negligence. Both need fixing, but there *is* a
large difference.


Two, for internal use: "Understand your Orders". If you run a detention
centre, then guards arranging prisoners in naked pyramids or adorning
them with electrical wiring and ladies' underwear is either approved
policy to be proud of and with signed orders for it... or a major
disciplinary offence to be dealt with promptly.

While I don't accept "only obeying orders!" as a defence, I'm willing to
consider it as mitigation if the orders *appeared* credible and lawful
(back to the 'legal reprisal' part): especially if, as has been
advanced, this sort of treatment is routine in the US (prisons, military
recruit training and college fraternities are the examples cited so far
where this would apparently be routine and unexceptional behaviour -
makes me glad I'm law-abiding, past easy drafting age and beyond campus
study).


To quote a Michael Crichton translation of a Japanese saying - "Fix the
problem, not the blame".

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk