Tuesday, August 24, 2004
War Crimes Evidence
Fox News just had an item about Najaf, in which they showed a Predator drone photo of the Ali Mosque, including a mortar position inside the mosque compound. The blowup of the mortar position was grainy, but the tube, baseplate and at least one of the bipod legs of the mortar were clearly visible.
The use of a religious and cultural shrine for military purposes is a war crime under the Geneva Convention, but of course Mookie al Sadr is not a subscriberto the Convention. If this were a normal war, the presence of the mortar emplacement would justify an attack on the mosque, although it is my understanding that any such attack would be required under the Convention to be designed to the extent practicable to avoid collateral damage to the shrine.
I understand the political restraints that we are operating under, but I have long held that in a fight between one party who follows the rules and another party who "don't need no stinking rules," the bad guy will have a distinct advantage. (Cf. "Dirty Harry" -- the scene in the stadium where the bad guy demands his rights.) Sigh. In some ways, it's a pity that we have chosen the moral high road -- not that I would advocate commission of war crimes. But to the extent that we could do so within the rules we have chosen to abide by, it would be advantageous to let the al Sadrs of the world know that we can be both brutal and unpredictable. Note the Den Beste quote to the left.
The use of a religious and cultural shrine for military purposes is a war crime under the Geneva Convention, but of course Mookie al Sadr is not a subscriberto the Convention. If this were a normal war, the presence of the mortar emplacement would justify an attack on the mosque, although it is my understanding that any such attack would be required under the Convention to be designed to the extent practicable to avoid collateral damage to the shrine.
I understand the political restraints that we are operating under, but I have long held that in a fight between one party who follows the rules and another party who "don't need no stinking rules," the bad guy will have a distinct advantage. (Cf. "Dirty Harry" -- the scene in the stadium where the bad guy demands his rights.) Sigh. In some ways, it's a pity that we have chosen the moral high road -- not that I would advocate commission of war crimes. But to the extent that we could do so within the rules we have chosen to abide by, it would be advantageous to let the al Sadrs of the world know that we can be both brutal and unpredictable. Note the Den Beste quote to the left.
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