Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
with this:
Lots of folks run around armed in many areas of the world; e.g., Pashtunistan, Dayuhan's Mountain Province and even Michigan. So, some indicia of hostility must be present.

Now, if where you are people are not armed (unless they are good guys or bad guys), being armed is itself an indicia of hostility. Also, if the person is PID'd as a member of a designated hostile force, whether he is armed or unarmed, hostile or not hostile himself, are not material to the shoot.

As to dealing with war criminals in the field, I'd much prefer on-site military tribunals over not taking prisoners. Once upon a time (through WWI per our Articles), the field commander could convene a board (usually 3 or 5 members) and try war criminals on the spot.

Regards

Mike
Yes Mike, there are always exceptions.

I would suggest under circumstances where the situation requiring humanitarian intervention bring troops from many countries all across the world the word needs to be spread to any Crockett, Bowie. Boone or Carson types running around in the woods armed that the carrying of weapons for the duration will be problematic as the soldiers will not wait to be shot at but rather enforce the peace and reduce the number of weapons carried by the citizenry which could potentially confuse matters.

What I'm saying is that one needs to hit the ground running and deal with the reason for the humanitarian intervention in the first place. No time to pussy foot around. Clearly the troops need a good briefing on the situation on the ground prior to deployment. This will be problematic as the State department is just about as inept as the Brit's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Once again it will be the poor 18/9 year old grunt who will have to make life and death judgement calls with little support from the top then get the carpet yanked from under their feet like in the First Battle of Fallujah - April 2004. These politicians and civilian bureaucrats just can't help themselves (neither increasingly and sadly can general officers commanding).

As to prisoners and tribunals. This is a difficult subject to discuss in the public domain. I would say however that the tribunals where they result in the death penalty would never be accepted by the western world (Europe) under any circumstances and with difficulty in the US (my guess) as the army of military lawyers (let alone the civilian types) would have a field day.

I tend to go with and thorough prep-fire of the objective followed up with prodigious levels of prophylactic fire while sweeping through and clearing the objective. Not likely to find a living thing there when you arrive.