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American commanders had little problem dealing with enemy noncombatants on the battlefield. Did you mean combatants? Typically noncombatants would refer to med
by ryanwaggoner 16y ago
American commanders had little problem dealing with enemy noncombatants on the battlefield.
Did you mean combatants? Typically noncombatants would refer to medical personnel, chaplains, etc. It'd be interesting to know if people like this were routinely tried and executed.
- varjag 16y agoPerhaps he meant irregular combatants.
- gaius 16y agoNo, a chaplain in a military uniform is a combatant as far as the Geneva Convention is concerned, and must be treated as a POW. The term more recently used was "unlawful combatant".
- ryanwaggoner 16y agoThough the Geneva Conventions do not state whether chaplains may bear arms, they specify (Protocol I, 8 June 1977, Art 43.2) that chaplains are noncombatants. In recent years both the UK and US have required chaplains, but not medical personnel, to be unarmed. Other nations, notably Norway, Denmark and Sweden, make it an issue of individual conscience. Captured chaplains are not considered Prisoners of War (Third Convention, 12 August 1949, Chapter IV Art 33) and must be returned to their home nation unless retained to minister to prisoners of war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplain#Military http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplain#Military
- gaius 16y agoI stand corrected :-) But the point still stands - a chaplain in uniform on the battlefield wouldn't be tried and executed at a drumhead.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoI suspect he means "spies and saboteurs" (to borrow the language of geneva), i.e. combatants who don't display a distinctive sign recognizable at a distance and openly carry weapons. (The rationale: if one army can't tell the difference between civilians and soldiers, it puts civilians at greater risk. Thus, Geneva creates an incentive for not doing this.)