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I'm sorry, in the interest of brevity I may have been unclear. I don't think that I'm "interpreting" the Geneva Conventions. I reported what the convention sa

by Alex63 16y ago

I'm sorry, in the interest of brevity I may have been unclear. I don't think that I'm "interpreting" the Geneva Conventions. I reported what the convention said, and explained that to know whether the US had violated the conventions, we would have to know whether there was "suspicion". It would be up to a court to determine this. While the video is one piece of evidence, we have no way of knowing what other information was available (e.g., did the daily intel briefing warn crews that Taliban forces were using white vans to transport fighters). My point was that the GC does not make all civilian deaths illegal.

mcantelon 16y ago
My guess is a court would find "suspicion" unwarranted without reason for it. As the military hasn't cited any reason for the killing of the civilians in the van (no daily intel briefing warning of white vans was revealed in defense of the military), it would seem that there isn't one. Obviously civilians can be killed if there is a rational reason for it (i.e. aggression), but it's fairly certain that killing civilians without reason is not legal under international law otherwise death squads would be considerably more popular.