Post #63593 by wzambon on the US Policy board

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With the boat double tap and Hegseth’s “Kill them all”, we’re not even talking about violating Rules of Engagement, but rather the more fundamental “laws of war”.

David French explains:

In their military campaign in South America, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth aren’t just defying the Constitution and breaking the law. They are attacking the very character and identity of the American military.
To make this case, I have to begin in the most boring way possible — by quoting a legal manual. Bear with me.
Specifically, it’s the most recent edition of the Department of Defense Law of War Manual. Tucked away on page 1,088 are two sentences that illustrate the gravity of the crisis in the Pentagon: “The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal. For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”
Here’s another key line: “It is forbidden to declare that no quarter will be given.” A no quarter order is an order directing soldiers to kill every combatant, including prisoners, the sick and the wounded. The manual continues, “Moreover, it is also prohibited to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors, or to threaten the adversary with the denial of quarter.”
Before we go any further, it’s important to define our terms. This newsletter is going to focus on the laws of war, not a related concept called rules of engagement. The laws of war reflect the mandatory, minimum level of lawful conduct, and all soldiers are legally obligated to obey them at all times and in all conflicts.
Rules of engagement are rules devised by commanders that are often more restrictive than the laws of war. For example, when I was in Iraq our rules of engagement sometimes kept us from attacking lawful targets in part because we wanted to be particularly careful not to inflict civilian casualties.
In my own service, we were often frustrated by the rules of engagement. We did not, however, question the laws of war.
There are now good reasons to believe that the United States military, under the command of President Trump and Hegseth, his secretary of defense, has blatantly violated the laws of war

More at link:

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/d...

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