Thomas Sowell: 'Supporting the troops'?: "Assuming that somehow you are certain that an enemy is unarmed, perhaps because you have already searched him or disarmed him, is it ever justified to kill him anyway? That question was answered more than half a century ago, when German troops wearing American uniforms and speaking English infiltrated American lines during the Battle of the Bulge.
Those German troops, when captured, were lined up against a wall and shot dead. And nobody wrung his hands about it.
The rules of war, the Geneva Convention, do not protect soldiers who are not wearing their own country's uniforms. To get the protection of rules, you have to play by the rules.
Terrorists are not enemy soldiers covered by the rules of war. Nor should they be. They observe no rules.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations can all talk about 'the Geneva Convention.' But that agreement on the rules of war has never applied to combatants not wearing the uniform of any country that is a party to the Geneva Convention.
Terrorists wear no uniform and show no mercy, as they have repeatedly demonstrated by beheading innocent civilians, including women. "
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Delaware, 1763: Cherokee Indians are attacked with the use of germ warfare. Smallpox infected blankets, supplied by colonists, kill hundreds.
Boston, 1776: A group of terrorists, going by the name of the “Sons of Liberty,” destroys an expensive source of British export. They were dressed to appear as Mohawk Indians. John Adams stated, “There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots that I greatly admire.”
Near Trenton, New Jersey, 1776: Several radical revolutionaries, dressed in the clothing of farmers and laborers, use guerilla tactics to kill British forces who were obeying the rules of war.
Korea, 1950: U.S. soldiers are ordered to kill civilians as an added defense, as they retreat. Over 300 civilians are killed while cowering under a bridge.
Vietnam, 23 June 1967: The U.S. 25th Infantry Division kills two enemy soldiers in combat, their Staff Sergeant decapitates the bodies with an axe. He serves no prison time.
Vietnam, 12 Aug 12 1967: A U.S. military intelligence interrogator rapes a 13-year-old girl in an interrogation hut on a P.O.W. compound.
Afghanistan, 25 Nov 2001: U.S soldiers fire upon unarmed, imprisoned POWs. The number of casualties is covered up.
If we are going to expect others to follow the rules, we sould probably start doing it ourselves.
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