Rule of Law in Iraq & Afghanistan

[jmm99]

or should I plan on sitting back and waiting for a while ?

We all know this (html & pdf):

Modern crisis responses are exceedingly complex endeavors. In Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia the unique challenges of military operations other-than-war (MOOTW) were combined with the disparate challenges of mid-intensity conflict. The Corps has described such amorphous conflicts as -- the three block war -- contingencies in which Marines may be confronted by the entire spectrum of tactical challenges in the span of a few hours and within the space of three contiguous city blocks.

So, following this construct and positing a separate mission in each block, we could have mission 1 governed by RoL, mission 2 governed by LoW; but can we have mission 3 governed by both RoL and LoW at the same time ?

Obviously, if we look at mission 1 and mission 2 as a whole, RoL and LoW are governing at the same time, but as to separate missions.

I can't think of an example where mission 3 (let's posit it has a single legal issue) could be governed by both RoL and LoW at the same time, unless RoL and LoW are exactly the same. In that limiting case, one has a distinction without a difference.

If RoL and LoW are different and conflicting, mission 3 would become a contradiction in terms.

Yeh, you can have a country with RoL in parts and LoW in other parts (USA during the Civil War as an example); but, both cannot contradict on the same issue.

Regards

Mike

PS: Not really -

Inter arma silent leges: in time of war the law is silent.

In time of war, the law allows military discretion - e.g., can a surrender be accepted reasonably and safely in the combatant's judgment. The law (at least to the US Naval Services) (is) (was) quite explicit on that one. There is a lot of difference between being silent and cutting a lot of slack.