d. What Buildings Are Protected? The answer is hospitals, museums, and
others dedicated to religion, art, science, and educational or charitable purposes. Why
don't we target these? Asking, that is, looking at things upside down. The real question
is: why would you want to target such things? Are you going to end the war by blowing
up a museum, which enrages the enemy and perhaps causes it to target our museum
or hospital, and soon we've blown up all of each other's museums and schools. Do you
think this will end the conflict? Why waste our scarce and very valuable resources flying
over a church so we can blow it up? What if the enemy shoots down our multi-million
dollar aircraft and we lose both it and our trained/experienced crew-- why did we waste
all of that? Was it so we could blow up a church or a museum? What would be the
point? Again, violating the law of war doesn't make sense; it's stupid. We target military
objectives, not churches and schools and hospitals. Instead of going after museums,
go after communications and logistics facilities; that's what will win the war. If the
enemy uses an otherwise protected structure for a military purpose, then the protection
is forfeited and it may be targeted. Prior to targeting it, we are required to first warn the
enemy to cease and desist (if the tactical situation allows for such). Another protected
place is what is called an "undefended place," which is an inhabited location near or in a
zone where opposing forces are in contact and which is open for occupation by an
adverse party without resistance. Such an area mustn't contain lawful military targets or
be used for military purposes. This reflects the fact that we cannot simply wage war
upon the civilian populace.
e. Prohibited Tactics. Certain tactics are also prohibited, such as declaring
that no quarter will be given. This is common sense, as why would you want to
encourage the enemy to keep on fighting? If you knew the enemy soldiers would kill
you if you surrendered, what would you do? Would you surrender? Not hardly, it is
also forbidden to use a flag of truce to feign surrender in order to surprise an enemy.
We want the enemy to respect the white flag of surrender. If we want the enemy to do
something, then we can't hurt him because he did it. If we trick him, then what happens
next time? Again, the result will bring about the needless deaths of our own soldiers.
Similarly, we cannot use a red cross to move weapons in a vehicle we are disguising as
an ambulance. If we do this, then the enemy will have reason not to respect the red
cross and we will have given him a reason to attack our ambulances.
f. Avoiding Unnecessary Suffering. This is the" A." Weaponry must be
reviewed for its legality under the law of war (AR 27-53). The prohibition states that we
may not use weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering; that is, the suffering
may not be needless, superfluous, or grossly disproportionate to the advantage to be
gain by their use. Examples of prohibited weapons are hollow point ammunition;
dumdum (soft- nosed) bullets, irregular shaped bullets, substances/projectiles that
would tend to inflame a wound, and poisoned weapons. Weapons/ammunition issued
to US soldiers are legal, provided soldiers do not alter them
(1) The US has renounced the first use of chemical weapon by treaty. By
Executive Order, however, we have gone a step further and renounced use of this sort
of weapon altogether. We have renounced the use of biological weapons altogether.
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