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> "a second time to kill the people that have come to the aid of those injured" This is a fairly old tactic. For example, the Columbine school shooting (15 ye

> "a second time to kill the people that have come to the aid of those injured" This is a fairly old tactic. For example, the Columbine school shooting (15 years ago) involved several (badly wired) bombs that were intended to go off in crowds of survivors and rescue workers. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2004/04/the_depressive_and_the_psychopath.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2...

lucb1e 12y ago
Yeah well commenting this I realized that it sounded too simple to be new, but it really did remind me of the book where it (spoiler for the hunger games now) did disgust me for killing one of the main characters who was utterly and completely innocent (and working as a doctor).
crpatino 12y ago
Columbine shooting was an act of criminals, so you can expect anything is fair game. I wonder what the Geneva Convention has to say about Nation States relying on the same shady tactics.
- mpyne 12y ago
  > I wonder what the Geneva Convention has to say about Nation States relying on the same shady tactics. The Geneva Conventions specifically require belligerents to ensure that their combatants are distinctively uniformed, carry weapons openly, not to use civilians as human shields, not to engage in perfidy, and to be under the command of a responsible officer. The Taliban only generally fall under one of those (command and control). But even assuming you extend Geneva Convention rights unilaterally since we are "better than them", as long as the attack (first or second) is directed against a military target (i.e. actual Taliban troops coming into to retrieve the bodies of their fallen and wounded), has military value, and does not cause harm to civilians out of proportion to the military value to be gained, then it would be just fine under not only Geneva, but the international law of war (customary and otherwise). I mean, you're referring to the same Geneva Conventions that governed U.S. conduct in Vietnam for crying out loud, Conventions explicitly tailored to the idea of people killing people, so how sunny and cheery did you think the Geneva Conventions are?
  - crpatino 12y ago
    I am aware that warfare implies deadly violence by definition. But civilized warfare should bound and focus that violence towards the accomplishment of rational objectives while preserving a minimum of human rights. I was under the impression that, under Geneva Conventions, non-combatant, medical units should not be the subject of disproportionate enemy "attention", in spite of the obvious greater military value of nullifying a multiplication factor for the enemy (each doctor can treat and potentially send back to the front a great number of combatant units that would otherwise result in casualties). I am not talking about an operation assuming any risks in order to spare enemy doctors, but if the whole point of the operation is to take down the doctors in the first place, I'd call that shady. It is equivalent to gunning down unarmed civilian peasants in order to deny food to the enemy's forces. I do not think that was allowed in Geneva Conventions either, though I am well aware that US people has an incredible and almost infinite capacity to look the other side when their forces engage in that kind of issues.
    - mpyne 12y ago
      > I am not talking about an operation assuming any risks in order to spare enemy doctors, but if the whole point of the operation is to take down the doctors in the first place, I'd call that shady. Targeting doctors would be flat out illegal, if marked as doctors. But recovering wounded (which is what's being described here) is not a job performed by doctors or medics in these specific cases. Even for U.S. forces, the initial extraction of wounded soldiers is almost always performed by other soldiers on the battlefield so that the the medic (normally only one) can work in a somewhat safer spot while they stabilize the casualty for MEDEVAC. If there are cases where a second shot is launched without militarily actionable intelligence that reasonably indicates the follow-up shot is also against military targets (i.e. not doctors, chaplains, civilians, etc.) then that would be a crime too. I'm not trying to say second shots are always permissible just because there have been times when Taliban have committed perfidy, you'd still need good intel each and every single time that tactic is used for it to be legal. But what I am saying is that often the story you read about actions in war are completely one-sided to make you believe that people are really going around doing things "equivalent to gunning down unarmed civilian peasants in order to deny food".
mpyne 12y ago
And the tactic in this case is in response to what coalition troops learned on the battlefields of Afghanistan, namely that the Taliban recover their own dead and wounded after drone attacks, they don't let ANP, ANA, or locals interfere and possibly capture their wounded leaders alive. Whoever is firing the second shot would still need intelligence that the rescue party is a valid military target though. Unfortunately Gen. Sherman's quote about war is just as applicable in 2014 as it was after the American Civil War.
- _broody 12y ago
  Forget about the rescue party, there isn't even ever bulletproof intelligence to justify the first drone strike, due to the way targets are acquired. This is well documented, and a serious source of controversy. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-ns... Doubling down on the carnage by killing medics/family/bystanders who hurry to the rescue of the victims whenever the CIA makes a mistake is just sick, sick, sick.

lucb1e 12y ago

Yeah well commenting this I realized that it sounded too simple to be new, but it really did remind me of the book where it (spoiler for the hunger games now) did disgust me for killing one of the main characters who was utterly and completely innocent (and working as a doctor).

crpatino 12y ago

Columbine shooting was an act of criminals, so you can expect anything is fair game. I wonder what the Geneva Convention has to say about Nation States relying on the same shady tactics.

mpyne 12y ago
> I wonder what the Geneva Convention has to say about Nation States relying on the same shady tactics. The Geneva Conventions specifically require belligerents to ensure that their combatants are distinctively uniformed, carry weapons openly, not to use civilians as human shields, not to engage in perfidy, and to be under the command of a responsible officer. The Taliban only generally fall under one of those (command and control). But even assuming you extend Geneva Convention rights unilaterally since we are "better than them", as long as the attack (first or second) is directed against a military target (i.e. actual Taliban troops coming into to retrieve the bodies of their fallen and wounded), has military value, and does not cause harm to civilians out of proportion to the military value to be gained, then it would be just fine under not only Geneva, but the international law of war (customary and otherwise). I mean, you're referring to the same Geneva Conventions that governed U.S. conduct in Vietnam for crying out loud, Conventions explicitly tailored to the idea of people killing people, so how sunny and cheery did you think the Geneva Conventions are?
- crpatino 12y ago
  I am aware that warfare implies deadly violence by definition. But civilized warfare should bound and focus that violence towards the accomplishment of rational objectives while preserving a minimum of human rights. I was under the impression that, under Geneva Conventions, non-combatant, medical units should not be the subject of disproportionate enemy "attention", in spite of the obvious greater military value of nullifying a multiplication factor for the enemy (each doctor can treat and potentially send back to the front a great number of combatant units that would otherwise result in casualties). I am not talking about an operation assuming any risks in order to spare enemy doctors, but if the whole point of the operation is to take down the doctors in the first place, I'd call that shady. It is equivalent to gunning down unarmed civilian peasants in order to deny food to the enemy's forces. I do not think that was allowed in Geneva Conventions either, though I am well aware that US people has an incredible and almost infinite capacity to look the other side when their forces engage in that kind of issues.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    > I am not talking about an operation assuming any risks in order to spare enemy doctors, but if the whole point of the operation is to take down the doctors in the first place, I'd call that shady. Targeting doctors would be flat out illegal, if marked as doctors. But recovering wounded (which is what's being described here) is not a job performed by doctors or medics in these specific cases. Even for U.S. forces, the initial extraction of wounded soldiers is almost always performed by other soldiers on the battlefield so that the the medic (normally only one) can work in a somewhat safer spot while they stabilize the casualty for MEDEVAC. If there are cases where a second shot is launched without militarily actionable intelligence that reasonably indicates the follow-up shot is also against military targets (i.e. not doctors, chaplains, civilians, etc.) then that would be a crime too. I'm not trying to say second shots are always permissible just because there have been times when Taliban have committed perfidy, you'd still need good intel each and every single time that tactic is used for it to be legal. But what I am saying is that often the story you read about actions in war are completely one-sided to make you believe that people are really going around doing things "equivalent to gunning down unarmed civilian peasants in order to deny food".

mpyne 12y ago

And the tactic in this case is in response to what coalition troops learned on the battlefields of Afghanistan, namely that the Taliban recover their own dead and wounded after drone attacks, they don't let ANP, ANA, or locals interfere and possibly capture their wounded leaders alive. Whoever is firing the second shot would still need intelligence that the rescue party is a valid military target though. Unfortunately Gen. Sherman's quote about war is just as applicable in 2014 as it was after the American Civil War.

_broody 12y ago
Forget about the rescue party, there isn't even ever bulletproof intelligence to justify the first drone strike, due to the way targets are acquired. This is well documented, and a serious source of controversy. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-ns... Doubling down on the carnage by killing medics/family/bystanders who hurry to the rescue of the victims whenever the CIA makes a mistake is just sick, sick, sick.