Perfidy or Ruse

[muninnhuginn]

A legal perspective on the rules of engagement: Joshua Rozenberg in the Torygraph.

The discussion of combatant or non-combatant status has a bearing on the issues of the language used to describe the Iraqi forces (as described by Arundhati Roy yesterday).

Useful set of links on war law from the Rozenberg piece too.

Comments

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Interesting discussion of the fine points of "war law" in the first piece, though I'm not at especially in agreement with his assessment of "allied" compliance to date.

And I enjoyed the Guardian editorial.

[muninnhuginn]

In his defence, I think he phrased it quite carefully and was taking a fairly strict legal line presumably based on reliable evidence. This doesn't allow for much speculation and moral comment on what's actually going on. (But I'm partial: Rozenberg's one of my favourite voices on Radio 4.
Interestingly, it does reveal just how far the "rules" go or don't go, much more clearly than I've seen stated before. But, in so far as the coalition seems to be ignoring any rules that get in its way, even the little protection offered "legitimate" combatants does seem threatened. In the face of a force that arrests young men who look too well-fed (they've not been reading their Willy S recently: isn't it "lean and hungry looks" you're meant to be wary of?), all these rules of war seem quaint and futile.