I know a little something about the rules of war as defined in the Geneva Conventions. I serve our nations' sailors and marines as a Reserve Chaplain in the U.S. Navy. As such I have received quite a bit of training and have beccome quite familiar with the rules of war known as the Geneva Conventions. These Conventions serve a noble purpose. The first Geneva Convention was signed in 1864 to protect the sick and wounded in war time. Since then there have been many treaties agreed to by a variety of parties and three additional Geneva Conventions to try to regulate the behavior of nations at war. The Society of Professional Journalists provide a great online_reference_guide to the conventions that is really easy to navigate. You might want to check it out if you have more interest.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Geneva Conventions is that they clearly define who is covered and who is not covered. According to the SPJ Reference Guide,
"The Geneva Conventions and supplementary protocols make a distinction between combatants and civilians. The two groups must be treated differently by the warring sides and, therefore, combatants must be clearly distinguishable from civilians. Combatants must wear uniforms and carry their weapons openly during military operations and during preparation for them. Combatants who deliberately violate the rules about maintaining a clear separation between combatant and noncombatant groups — and thus endanger the civilian population — are no longer protected by the Geneva Convention.
And so, terrorists who engage in combat but do not wear their nations uniform, are clearly not afforded protections according to the Geneva Conventions. And yet the Supreme Court has now given them that protection in spite of the exclusion that the Geneva Convention so emphatically declares.
More tomorrow . . .
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