by Jim Rose in International law, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Leftover Left, prisoners of war, renegade Left, Renegade liberals, war criminals, war on terror

The renegade Left is highly selective in its recall of international humanitarian law. On torture, perfect recall, strict construction and may the heavens fall. William Levi in the Yale Law Journal in 2009 argued that

except for water-boarding, every interrogation technique authorized by the Bush Administration had been authorized before 9/11 and considered to fall within the legal constraints of the Geneva Conventions.

Techniques such as sleep deprivation, and standing as a stress position that were understood at times before 9/11 to be lawful for use on prisoners of war.

When it comes to the reason for being for international humanitarian law, a stout ignorance infects the renegade Left and may innocent civilians be massacred.

The purpose of international humanitarian law is to ensure strict differentiation between civilians and combatants and to provide for the detention and treatment of those captured.

Humane detention to the end of the armed conflict increases both the incentive to give quarter and to surrender when the position is hopeless.

The requirement to carry weapons openly, dress in some sort of uniform etc. is to ensure that the enemy is easy to distinguish from afar so that troops do not get trigger happy around civilians and refugees. This is the fundamental purpose of international humanitarian law: trying to save civilians from the fighting.

The most severe punishments was allowed for spies, saboteurs, infiltrators, francs-tireurs and guerrillas so that not carrying their weapons openly and not dressing in some sort of recognisable uniform etc., was a self-inflected death sentence upon capture. Combatants who do not wear a uniform that is clearly distinguishable at the distance and do not carry their weapons openly are war criminals.

In the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazi infiltrators in American uniforms lost all interest in their missions once the first few who were captured were court-martialled and shot within 24 hours.

The Hostages Trial at Nuremburg dismissed some murder charges against some German commanders because partisan fighters in Southwest Europe could not be considered lawful belligerents under Article 1 of the 1907 Hague convention. The Tribunal stated:

We are obliged to hold that such guerrillas were francs tireurs who, upon capture, could be subjected to the death penalty. Consequently, no criminal responsibility attaches to the defendant List because of the execution of captured partisans…