Many terrible things happen in war. Over time, nations have agreed on rules that limit the actions of their military forces. World War 2 saw death on a horrific scale, including the attempted systematic extermination of an entire people group. There were tribunals. People were brought to court to account for their crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Principles were born to define international war crimes. You can find the complete list of them online in various places, but I will put one here for our consideration.
Principle VI
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purposeof civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connexion with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Why Does This Matter?
Some parts of our military and intelligence community have been ordered to do things that are illegal according to international law. If we screw others one way, we can expect the same treatment in the future without the ability to call foul. This is called losing moral authority, which is important for the morale of our troops and for international approval.
Indirectly, we authorize military action when we do not let our elected officials know our displeasure at their decisions concerning war. The military takes orders from Congress (elected group of civilians) and its Commander-in-Chief is a civilian, the President. It is set up this way so that the non-militarized population of the United States acts as the guiding conscious of our military. When civilians refuse to play their role, we get very messy conflicts. Troops agonize over citizen approval, which reduces their ability to perform. If we want them home, we should let congress know with our collective voices. Your voice matters.
What is the War on Terror?
After the United States declared a "War on Terror", we sanctioned all of our military and intelligence operations as legal. The difficulty with allowing broadly defined "wars" is that there are no real borders and no real goal. The "War on Terror" is as about as helpful as the "War on Drugs". How can one rid the world of terror? Typically, the style of these wars is to attack symptoms. Rooting out the cause makes more sense, but proves impossible due to the human condition. People will do what they want to do.
I am not saying these things are good or that we should not do what we can as a society to discourage them. Terrorism is terrible, as is drug abuse and addiction. What I am questioning are all the acts performed under the umbrella of such "wars". Invading Iraq, bombing of civilians, Guantanamo, torture, extraordinary extradition, contracting 3rd parties to carry out torture on our behalf, violation of Constitutional rights of American civilians, etc.... We can dismiss such things as collateral damage or necessary evils, but people who have suffered under such things call them war crimes.
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