While it does not in any way excuse illegal hostile actions against non-combatants, it does illustrate that one of the purposes of having rules for war is, precisely, to avoid some of the consequences that are readily foreseeable when either side violates them.
In many cases, North Vietnamese civilians were directly involved in supporting the war effort. Frequently, combatants disguised themselves by day as civilians and then attacked U.S. forces at night. In other cases, civilians helped lure U.S. soldiers into ambushes and booby traps. While even that does not excuse retaliating against (other) civilians or attacking the entire village in retaliation, it does illustrate that violating the rules of war by one side is likely to provoke hostile responses in kind. That is simply human nature and it is one of the many reasons that both sides in any conflict should always respect the rules of warfare.
Historical Examples of Violations of the Rules of War in Larger Perspective
World War two also featured numerous examples of fundamental violations of the most basic rules of warfare. The Nazis, in particular, had absolutely no respect for civilian populations and frequently murdered entire villages, such as in retaliation for partisan attacks against their forces. Of course, their systematic murder of millions of civilians in occupied territories were the most horrific and extensive crimes against humanity ever committed in human warfare. The Nazis also sometimes executed captured prisoners and also donned captured uniforms to infiltrate Allied front lines. The Japanese...
Rules of Engagement for War In summary, there are a number of highly eminent reasons why ROE is creating an adverse effect on American military personnel -- particularly in overseas missions in Afghanistan. They are presenting a fundamental conflict of interest -- soldiers have to consider both their mission objectives as well as the legal ramifications of not adhering to ROE, which creates situations of hesitancy, delay, and American casualties as
According to National Public Radio, after U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March of 2003 Blackwater received another contract, to provide security, as mentioned in the introduction. A terrible incident happened in 2004 in the city of Fallujah, Iraq. Four Blackwater contractors were killed, dragged through the streets on fire, and hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates River (Flintoff, 2007). Some weeks later the U.S. military attempted to capture
Rules of Engagement Importance of Rule of Engagement Rules of Engagement can be described as key elements that regulates the use of force, incorporating them a cornerstone of the Operational Law discipline. Some of the legal factors forming the ROE'S foundation are customary and conventional law principles based on the right of self-defense as well as the laws of war. Nevertheless, generally they do not stand alone; they also depend on non-legal
Others say Omar "was chosen by God," Rashid writes. When interviewed by a journalist from Pakistan (Rahimullah Yousufzai) after taking control of Kabul, according to Rashid's book, Omar stated, "We had complete faith in God Almighty. We never forgot that. He can bless us with victory or plunge us into defeat." Omar was born around 1959 (albeit much of his life is carefully guarded in secrecy), he has only one eye,
Munich - the place where racial laws and measures against the Jews in Germany were established. Each of these announced the type of extremist, xenophobic policies that the Japanese and the Germans would be using against their enemies in WWII. 11. Total war was a new type of warfare that was introduced in WWII and that relied on the idea that there could be no limits to the way war was carried
To be sure, one of the most significant effecters of the cultural experience in Iraq has been the stimulation of more widespread, proliferated and severe violence. This has instigated a widespread change in the experience of Iraqis, who have been subjected to one of the most dangerous periods in the nation's history. Accordingly, a study by Roberts et al. (2004) used cluster household sampling in Iraq to measure the
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