Private Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison

[Kamakazie Sith]

Just watch any documentary. Everybody there is armed, even among civilians trying to rescue bomb victims. Everyone carries automatic weapons, with soviet-style MPs the lightest weapons there. If the US was serious about enforcing such bans, I very much doubt that every civilian on TV got one.

So yeah, please provide evidence that the US enforced the law.

Which documentary should I watch?

I did find this though; http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/world ... ifles.html

So, they were allowed to keep rifles in their homes and businesses to protect themselves. RPGs though are still illegal. The rifles would require a permit so firing on people with just rifles would not be justified.

I think a more important question is whether or not these laws were adequately told to the Iraqi people. Especially, if violating them can result in the use of deadly force without warning.

[Straha]

And how is that incompatible with not giving a damn about Iraqis, or Kurds, or whoever the targets were in any particular conflict? Clearly the US powers didn't give a fuck that the Kurds were living human beings, that's why they were willing to assist Saddam against them.

Because you are phrasing it like the U.S. did not care about the Kurds or Iranians who were being gassed. This is bluntly not the case. The U.S. gave Saddam the go-ahead, told him where to point the chemical weapons, and protected him from condemnation in the U.N. through the use of its veto power and foreign aid. It was not that the U.S. did not give a damn about the victims of Iraq's chemical gas strikes. It's that the U.S. was actively complicit in their murder and the breach of international law.

It's a difference of "Himmler didn't care about the Jews" and "Himmler murdered the Jews". The first may be technically accurate in the loosest sense of the phrase but it covers up what is really at stake, don't you think?
(Also important is that intervention was never considered as a possibility not because "no one wanted to risk their own troops", as you put it, but because the U.S. made it clear that any intervention, or sanctions, were a complete and utter non-starter.)

[Thanas]

Which documentary should I watch?

BBC's The Iraq war would be one. But really, are you telling me you never saw the images of Iraqi people in the street carrying weapons? I find that hard to believe.

I think a more important question is whether or not these laws were adequately told to the Iraqi people. Especially, if violating them can result in the use of deadly force without warning.

That is another thing.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Which documentary should I watch?

BBC's The Iraq war would be one. But really, are you telling me you never saw the images of Iraqi people in the street carrying weapons? I find that hard to believe.

Of course not. What I'm concerned about is the context of the ones I've seen since it's been a while since I've seen one I don't remember the context. When, who, what, where, why. You know? Not that it really matters because the last link I posted clearly states they can carry the AK-47 with a permit. However, there are no such exceptions for RPGs.

[Thanas]

And again, I would very much like to know whether this law was ever consistently enforced. I mean, passing one law is one thing, but the country is flooded with weapons. I think it is completely unrealistic to just pass a law when everyone is going to violate it. Kinda reminds me of laws passed by other occupying powers which were widely ignored and were people were later actually found guilty for killing people for violating those laws.

[eyl]

My apologies for the wait. Work intervened

Likewise

Before I start going through your reply, I'll note that you seem to assume a situation as we have now, with a powerful country occupying a weaker state. I'm more interested in the eneral principles, which would also apply to wars between peers.

That assumes you have a surplus of combat resources available, enough that you can dedicate a helicopter or drone to loiter around them (and you'll note that in my example, the infantry can't reach them).

Then how the fuck did they get there? Did they teleport?

Not sure I get your meaning here. I was thinking about a situation where the enemy's fire position is seperated from your forces by some terrain feature the latter can't cross quickly. Granted that setting a base in such a position is usually frowned upon, but there could be terrain or nonmilitary considerations (I'd imagine the latter would be likelier in the case of an occupation) forcing the location of the base.

If you dont have sufficient combat resources, you should not have invaded a god damn country in the first instance, because that necessarily entails taking prisoners. Unless you invaded intent on completely annihilating the population.

That you have sufficient resources throughout your entire occupation does not mean you have them available locally at the point of contact (often don't, in fact).

I was referring to a more general case.

Urban warfare IS the general case now.

You're saying no warfare occurs outside of urban combat these days?

Modern militaries have not found themselves in conditions of starvation for 40-50 years. Developed world militaries might, but those are not known for even pretending the follow the geneva conventions.

The Conventions where not intended to be the sole province of 1st world powers, and frankly saying that situations which developing countries may end up in can be left unadressed will hardly induce those countries to follow them.

Then your position was untenable and you should not have attempted to hold it in the first place. In point of fact, like a LOT of current settlements, that particular bloc of land was allocated to the Arab State by the original partition, and constituted an illegal occupation anyway.

I don't want to drag this thread into an IvP violation, so I'll be brief, feel free to PM me if you want me to be more detailed:

1) I think you're misstating the legal situation of those settlements
2) If I were to accept your conclusions, what does that make Arab villages in territory assigned to the Jewish state?

Known Facts
1) You have a forward base well behind enemy lines that is under siege
2) any supplies you might send covertly are A) by nature of covertness of insufficient volume to lift a siege and B) are sent at high risk because you have to send them overland through your enemy's native territory. Not land you or they OCCUPY, but land that has a large number of civilians.
3) you CAN reinforce the base later with a number of troops sufficient to hold it in perpetuity.

You have two viable options.

You can surrender the base and retake it as well as the territory between you and it, at a later date thus ensuring a stable supply line. If you had evacuated the territory in the first instance, perhaps after arranging a regional cease fire to permit the evacuation, you save yourself a number of headaches.

Again, this depends on various factors. As I recall, part of the reason for holding on to the Gush wasn't just for itself, but as a strongpoint to try and prevent the siege of Jerusalem. I should point out that retaking a lost position can often be considerably more difficult and costlier than relieving a besieged position. And as far as your asumption 2 goes, even if the supplies are insufficient to lift the siege, they may make the difference between falling and holding out until relief can arrive.

And surrendering the position isn't always a viable option anyway - the Gush did surrender in the end, it didn't work out very well for the defenders.

Further indication that your command structure has a screw loose. You are trying to bring in supplies sufficient to relieve a besieged force, without being noticed, days into enemy territory overland. That is stupid. The only way you are keeping that a secret is if you slaughter several villages worth of arabs. By the way, the Waffen-SS just called. They want their invasion and occupation tactics back.

Doesn't have to be a supply mission, it applies to any important mission where you need to place a force behind enemy lines.

[Thanas]

Urban warfare IS the general case now.

You're saying no warfare occurs outside of urban combat these days?

A good strawman is a thing of beauty to behold.

[eyl]

Urban warfare IS the general case now.

You're saying no warfare occurs outside of urban combat these days?

A good strawman is a thing of beauty to behold.

And it's a strawman, how? Or else how am I to take "Urban warfare is the general case" when I was specifically discussing a broader context?

[Thanas]

Because "General case" does not mean "only form of warfare". It is like "the general outcome in lung cancer is death" and "You're saying there is no hope at all?"