Actually it’s the law AGAINST war — the UN Charter — that needs emphasis. War will always be hell, with wanton killing, rape, torture, imprisonment, etc., so the solution is not to go to an elective war.

Unfortunately the main consideration concerning whether the US should go to war or not these days is whether the US will get away with it, and not it’s illegality (and immorality).

Rules for targets?

Actually yes, a legal combatant must wear a uniform. Otherwise there is no right of surrender, for example. Someone caught carrying a weapon out of uniform in a combat zone can be shot on sight, or even after capture, as a spy.

This is also to enable the other side to distinguish civilians from soldiers.

Regarding uniform wear, of course all bets are off if a foreign army occupies my town. Then the rules change.

Which, actually, is the same way foreigners feel when they are occupied by a foreign army, be they French, Dutch, Filipino, Vietnamese or Afghan. So people are people the world ’round.

Including Americans
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Isn’t it reassuring to note that Israel leads the world on much of the remote controlled killing systems, have the science down pat on siege-craft, and, are even spearheading nanotechnology…! Stuxnet on steriods…? *gah*

Btw…! Did you see this bit of good news…?

US to boost weapons stockpile in Israel: report

…The move, which will see an extra 400-million-dollars worth of smart bombs and other precision weaponry and equipment moved to Israel over the next two years, was approved last week by the US Congress, the Israeli correspondent of Defence News reported.

The upgrade will see the value of US military equipment stockpiled in Israel rise to one billion dollars in 2011, with another 200 million to be added in 2012, the paper said.

Most likely those bunker busters, earlier diverted to Diego Garcia by Obama, are due to arrive at their intended destination…! I guess a Real Man would bomb Tehran, after all…! *gah*

My apologies the last link didn’t work…

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20101112story_12-11-2010_pg4_8

Actually, the rules don’t change. Your behavior might change, but the text of agreements is not altered.

The laws of military occupation are complex, but they include the occupier’s obligation to keeping law and order, and to suppress insurrections.

I suppose the assumption is that if your military has lost the war, the war is over. There is also, though, the importance of a formal surrender.

If there had been flying robots when the Geneva Accords were written, I guaran-damn-tee you that using them would be a war crime.

Spencer, how many countries have a billion bucks worth of military hardware lying about, hmmm…? 8-(

I don’t know about that, Teddy.

There were certainly landmines and sea mines back in the day — weapons that make no distinction between combatants and non-combatants — and they were not outlawed.

More critical to me, and on point with Spencer’s question, is the way in which people are snatched from battlefields and marketplaces alike and “disappeared” into places where habeas corpus does not apparently apply. “We’ll hold you as long as we like, wherever we like, for whatever reason we like, and we’ll give you no forum from which to challenge your detention.”

It is a fact of modern life that people in conflict zones live in the perpetual cross hairs of indefinite and un-challengable detention.

AGAG may be back in Texas, John Yoo may be in Berkeley, but the current AG seems to be sadly untroubled by their work and the heirs of AGAG and Yoo remain hard at work.

FredJ wrote “Someone caught carrying a weapon out of uniform in a combat zone can be shot on sight, or even after capture, as a spy.”

That is not true. Once captured, they are protected and cannot be executed without a trial. This is pretty clear from common article 3.

I think FredJ is confused by what used to be the law, rather than what the law is now. Summary execution of spies has been banned for years. Even the Hague Regulations in 1907 guaranteed them a trial before punishment.