B i l l S o r n s o n wrote:
> Todd Kuzma wrote:
>
>>In article <[email protected]>,
>> "B i l l S o r n s o n" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>Todd Kuzma wrote:
>>>
>>But wait, if we have no standards for conduct during war, it would be
>>perfectly OK if US soldiers did that, wouldn't it? Either there are
>>standards or not.
>
> The point, Todd, is that these tactics ARE being used by insurgents and
> rogue mercenaries wearing NO uniform and answering to no command authority.
> US (and allied Iraqi) soldiers are entitiled to protect themselves /given
> the conditions met/ and not some idealized war movie script.
Yes, and the US military has established guidelines for our
troops to follow when fighting in those conditions. If an
individual soldier fails to follow those guidelines, then it
is up to military command to decide how to handle it.
However, it the guidelines themselves violate international
law, that is an important consideration. If we don't stand
for the rule of law, then who will?
>>When the insurgents use tactics like those you describe, we can
>>clearly condemn them for violating international law and the accepted
>>standards of warfare. Unfortunately, like John Kerry, we want to have
>>it both ways. We want others to follow these laws, but we don't want
>>to be burdened with them ourselves.
>
> You couldn't have it more backwards.
How do you mean?
>>We want to condemn Saddam Hussein for invading another country in
>>violation of international law, but then we violate the same law
>>ourselves.
>
> Did Kuwait vilolate 20-some UN Resolutions and threaten its neighbors?
Iraq certainly had grievances with Kuwait, whether justified
or not. The point is that Iraq had a process that they
*should* have gone through to resolve those grievances.
They failed to do so and violated international law in the
process. The US also failed to follow the established
process and violated the law.
It's a bit ironic that you use the violation of law by Iraq
to justify our own violation of that law. Is the law
legitimate or not? If it is legitimate, then shouldn't we
follow it? If it isn't legitimate, then it would be pretty
hard to enforce.
By the way, our friends the Israelis are the pros when it
comes to violating UN resolutions and attacking their
neighbors. Yet, we don't invade them. Instead, we give
them several billion dollars of military aid a year. This
double standard creates a lot of problems for the US in the
Mideast, and it is time that we recognize it.
>>We prosecute Milosevic and others for war crimes in accordance with
>>international law but refuse to allow any American to be similarly
>>prosecuted.
>
> {jaw open but no words come out}
I think that it's frightening that you cannot see the
problem here. What that says is that you believe there
should be two sets of laws, one for Americans, and one for
everyone else. This reeks of Orwell's "All animals are
equal but some are more equal than others." That elitist
arrogance is what breeds anti-American sentiment around the
world. We need to stop the childish belief that the only
possible reason that anyone could not like us is because
they are insane.
If we had a rogue commander in the field openly murdering
civilians or commiting some other atrocity, the position of
the US is that this person should not be prosecuted under
international law. However, the US also believes that any
non-American who commits similar war crimes *should* be
prosecuted under international law.
And we wonder why people in other countries think that we
are arrogant!
Todd Kuzma
