What the Laws of War Allow

by Chase Madar, Tomgram (excerpt)

Here is where the WikiLeaks disclosures were so revealing.  They remind us, once again, that the humanitarian dream of “clean warfare” -- military violence that is smoothly regulated by laws that spare civilians -- is usually a sick joke.  We need to wean ourselves from the false comfort that the law is always on the side of civilians.  We need to scrap our tendency to assume that international law is inherently virtuous, and that anything that shocks our conscience -- that helicopter video or widespread torture in Iraq under the noses of U.S. soldiers -- must be a violation of this system, rather than its logical and predictable consequence.
Let’s be clear: what killed the civilians walking the streets of Baghdad that day in 2007 was not “war crimes,” but war.  And that holds for so many thousands of other Afghan and Iraqi civilians killed by drone strikes, air strikes, night raids, convoys, and nervous checkpoint guards as well.

Sri Lanka: General Admits War Crimes; US May Hold Crucial Supporting Evidence

Emanuel Stoakes, Truthout: "The extrajudicial killing of civilians, surrendering soldiers and dissident journalists under the direction of the Sri Lankan government has been alleged by a former general in the Army who was extremely well-placed to comment on military activity during the island nation's bloody civil war.... It is believed that representatives of the United States State Department have spoken to the source and hold a rich collection of testimonies and other evidence regarding alleged crimes committed during the civil war."
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