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[James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org>]

On Monday, Dec 8, 2003, at 10:53 US/Eastern, James Manning wrote:

> > Why the hell are we using jets to kill individual people?
>
> This isn't really the point of the thread, but FWIW there's a lot of
> "overkill" scenarios that happen because of the current "rules" (IIRC,
> Geneva convention, but it may be something else, like the presidential
> order that Bush may have rescinded, I forget) that disallow
> assassinations.  The way to get around this is to not send in the one
> sniper (with a 50 cal bullet to make it extra fun) but to consider
> "it" to be a military target and attack it as such.  If the individual
> target happens to die, the mission was a success.

FWIW, there are actually four Geneva Conventions.  The official site is 
obnoxious to navigate, but the SPJ runs a reference guide at 
<http://www.genevaconventions.org>.  The first two deal with treatment 
of wounded enemy soldiers and sailors.  The third deals with treatment 
of POWs.  The fourth covers the treatment of civilians.  Taken 
together, they are popularly referred to as "The Geneva Convention" - 
mostly because the treaties were all submitted to negotiating 
governments around the same time after WWII.

The assassination rule is a US prohibition against assassinating 
political leaders for strategic reasons - people like Castro, for 
example.  It's what you might call a "unilateral" law, since we wrote 
it, passed it into law, and enforce it on ourselves.

Incidentally, the largest collection of experts on the Geneva 
Conventions is housed at the Pentagon.  One of the Protocols attached 
to the Conventions requires signatory countries to disseminate 
knowledge of the Conventions as widely as possible, within certain 
limitations.  The US military is the world's leading instructor in 
humane warfare.

(Also incidentally, much of the development in US military technology 
is catalyzed by our desire to comply with the Conventions.  Smart 
weapons, battlefield communications technology, laser-guided bombs, and 
so forth, all minimize civilian casualties.  So do Predator drones, 
Global Hawks dropping Hellfire missiles on Yemeni terrorists, and so 
on.  Imagine how much more collateral damage, including civilian 
casualties, we might witness were we to send a tank division through 
every village housing al Qaeda terrorists.)

> I dunno, I guess I should google around, maybe the anti-assassination
> thing was only a historical presidential thing no longer in effect and
> the A-10 overkill attacks were just military choices and snipers were
> an option as well.  Maybe the overkill just chalked up as success +
> additional psychological damage on survivors.  After all, in war your
> best result isn't to kill an enemy, but to critically wound them.

In war, your best result is to accomplish your objective.  If your 
objective is gathering intelligence, then your objective fails if, for 
example, your U2 spy plane crashes over the Soviet Union and your pilot 
is captured.  If your objective is to reduce or eliminate an enemy's 
ability to harm you, then your objective fails if you don't kill him.

Leaving enemy soldiers critically wounded still gives the enemy 
latitude to make some last effort that could harm you or your soldiers 
- pulling a trigger, throwing a grenade, activating a bomb, or even 
speed-dialing on the cell phone to warn others.  When that happens, 
your soldiers die.  The best way to avert such a catastrophe is to 
kill, not wound, an enemy.

Well, enough with the military theory and history!

Cheers -