Why America gets blamed...
One of the questions I had before is why do a lot of Americans continue to hate and blame America? I think it comes from the post-modern disillusionment this country has been living in since World War II. In art history I noticed, the focus of a lot of modern art became the theme of "death, decay, darkness etc," whereas Western art from the Renesannce focused on the eternal, the spiritual the beautiful. This preoccupation with death and decay is largely a modern phoenomena it seems from my study of art history. Then what really cemented the post-modern disillusionment was the Vietnam War, possibly. You got the liberal realists who were pessesmists, many of whom became liberal professors hiding out in academia. From the liberal realists, people then get further divided into identity politics, seeing themselves as separate minority groups who blame society completely for their problems. Seeing the criminal as a victim of society, rather than the criminal's bad behavior that got him/her in trouble is another symptom of post-modern thinking.
I know I've thrown out theory, but this is my way of trying to understand why the times we live in don't make sense and people continue to blame America. Life isn't perfect, it never will be, but what makes this country great, is that we believe there a better future is possible.
Blackjack, you raise two good points for discussion....
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It may not be comfortable, or populer, but given the ambiguous nature of what is and is not a combatant that the entire Warizistan district could reasonably be considered a belligerent party engaged in war against the United States, and it's interests in the Af/Pak area of operations.
Leaving aside any issues of Paki sovereignty over that part of FATA, there is no doubt that AQ-Taliban and associated groups (following the construct of the 2001 AUMF) constitute a "Power" to the armed conflict in the Wari agencies. Where those designated "hostile forces" have control of territory and populace, that territory and populace are belligerent to us - just as Germany and Japan were belligerent nations in WWII. However, as you also point out, they (the general populace) may be more an occupied population than active supporters of the hostile forces (so, are they Germany Proper, Occupied France or something in between ?).
No matter which scenario is fact, the Laws of War still require distinction between combatants and civilians (much more difficult where the combatants melt into the civilians); and consideration of proportionality in targeting (e.g., to eradicate a given group of combatants, how many civilians will be killed ?). Thus, the Wari agencies cannot be a free fire zone.
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Through experience and observation I have come to the conclusion that relatives and neighbors of the various terrorist entities as their version Combat Support and Service and Support elements of the vast majority Mujahideen groups. This would make them legitimate military targets would it not?
I'd say that infrastructure - the informal "Combat Support and Service and Support elements" - should be considered combatants; but then I agreed with that aspect of the Phoenix program. To be candid, I think that is a minority position - at least legally.
I am curious about what the folks here think of that - not so much as a legal point (although it can be argued that way); but as a metter of military ethics and military practicality. How do you distinguish these infrastructure folks from the rest of the population - assuming that you can legally target them ? I suppose intelligence, intelligence & intelligence.
The various Gitmo and Bagram detainee cases could impact all of this. These cases are not that important in and of themselves. But, their rules as to the status of "captures" should be the same as for status allowing or not allowing "kills". So far, there seems a tendency to distinguish between armed combatants and unarmed supporters - and to consider the latter as being civilians (not subject to "kill rules"; and subject to detention only if guilty of a crime).
Agreed - tough questions ...
but they really go to the core of whatever approach is taken to these violent non-state actors (irregular fighters and their supporters), whether that approach be solely kinetic (direct actions), or totally populace-centric (isolating the bad guys from the population via non-violent means), or a combination of both.
This discussion has been going on in the military law world since the JAG School published its treatise on irregular combatants in the 1959 JAG Treatise, A TREATISE ON THE JURIDICAL BASIS OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN LAWFUL COMBATANT AND UNPRIVILEGED BELLIGERENT (JAG School 1959).
Questions of law and ethics came to the fore in the GVN Pacification Program (1967-1972), which included CORDS and Phoenix. Brigadier General Tran Dinh Tho, author of "The Cambodian Incursion", Washington DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979, earlier (1977) wrote "Pacification", which can be downloaded in its entirety here. Chapter 4 (4 RVN-US Cooperation and Coordination in Pacification (441 KB pdf) deals with Phoenix and related programs.
Contrary to popular belief, the Phoenix term "neutralize" (used of VC infrastructure) did not exclusively mean "kill". The program was a "kill, capture or convert" program, which during 1967-1972 had very close to a 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3 "kill, capture or convert" ratio.
The greatest problem with Phoenix was positive and reliable identification of who the VC infrastructure were. False IDs in a COIN situation are obviously counter-productive. The negative results in the program were used, of course, to discredit it and the entire CORDS effort.
You might consider reading these old resources, which dealt with very similar questions to those that we see now in Astan.
The present agreements ...
the GCs, as accepted by the US, if applied according to the nature of the armed conflicts and the hostile forces involved in those armed conflicts, are not a huge problem.
What has been a problem is adaptation to the situations in which we have been involved. Since 9/11, the US (both Bush II and Obama administrations) has sought to develop a coherent set of rules to deal with the irregular combatants we face. Like any learning process (e.g., consider the development of national policies in the Cold War, from Truman through Reagan), it has had its ups and downs.
We are still very much in the early "lessons learned" stage in development of the Law of War (LOAC) applicable to violent non-state actors and their supporters.
I can't imagine negotiating a common set of "emergency agreements" with the members of the various coalitions since 9/11 - much less with the other High Contracting Parties to the GCs and the various NGOs that would stick in their two cents worth.