GWOT VI - IHL
Mar. 19th, 2022 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT VI - IHL
Most people who aren't in the military have no idea that there's a difference between military regulations and military law.
Military regulations cover things like how you wear your uniform, how equipment is parked, etc. Important.
Military law is trivia like you can't just go around murdering civilians.
The problem, here in Iowa, has rapidly resolved itself in my mind to the problem that most of the combatants have no idea what military law is.
They wear a uniform, kind of - but don't have an issue with taking it off so they don't get shot at. They carry rifles and shoot at their enemies. All of them. "There is no such thing as civilian - only enemy with gun and enemy without gun." "Nits make lice." "The only good G is a dead G."
So what I initially thought was a military operation, an effort to separate refugees from those who would murder them, is changing to a live fire training exercise.
I am going to teach every single person in Iowa the laws of war. My carrot is safety. My stick is precision fires. Because the laws of war apply to me and my forces as well.
I've made an unusual request, back home to California. This is turning into a psyop war, a propaganda war, and I have brought soldiers not bloggers and vloggers. So I need California's help. We shoot the video, or the enemy. The imagery is uploaded home. Manipulated. Then posted to YouTube and fed to a greedy world media, short stroking it over the thought of American suffering. Also good for California.
I got a reply. That one precious, precious word.
"APPROVED."
I get a call from the California Military Provost's office. The assigned case worker has an issue. My mortar attacks on the towns. I called them terror strikes, and they were, even though they were directed against lawful military targets of advantage.
The problem is that some pantiwaist in Geneva thirty years ago decided that inflicting fear on civilian populations was itself a war crime. The Additional Protocols.
After some discussion, I agree that I won't be using that tactic again. Certainly I won't be calling it such in our own internal orders.
Enemy morale is my meat. I can't selectively murder civilians. But making them afraid is kind of the purpose of war, and starting in the 1970s, much limp wristed effort went into making the laws of war cover all sorts of things they were never intended to. The concept is 'lawfare' and the Russians in particular are good at it.
Russian troops, on the other hand, have never known what the law of war was in order to try to obey it. Never been taught. Famous case of a Russian defector shown a NATO exercise. He begged them to start camoflauging their field hospitals. He was told that he was ignorant of the laws of war.
"Yes, yes I am. I was a Russian military officer! You might as well put red crosses on your blouses to protect you from the wolves! The wolf has no idea that the red cross represents a rule ... AND NEITHER DOES THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER."
So we are literally running a propaganda campaign, to educate enemy personnel on the basics. The A is for AK-47, B is for Body Bag and C is for Cremains version.
We are also teaching the Gs, the fighting force we are standing up from among the refugees, to obey the laws of war. Since I can't use the Reverend as an olive branch again - although his stunning success at Army of God has saved thousands of lives - I am having him run that.
"They shot us down like dogs. Why shouldn't we shoot their women and children the way they shot ours?"
Because we're better than that. Because we're the good guys. Because it doesn't work. Because it makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult. Because might does not make right. Most importantly, because your new California friends will shoot you in the back, or the face, or whatever is most convenient. Pick an answer, any will do.
My own California troops know. Laws of war training is integrated throughout our programs. Many of my troops are scout-soldiers, who get even more extensive training on laws of war.
There is one notable exception. Bear Force. They are not under my operational command. Their perspective on the laws of war is rather savage.
Four of them stopped at a gas station. One was rammed by a car and casevaced with a broken pelvis to Camp Snoopy. The other three shot everyone present.
Technically ... and I must emphasize the technicality here ... they are just within the laws of war. Civilians are only protected so long as they do not engage in hostilities, and it was a civilian who use their truck as a weapon.
The problem is not that they shot half of them. The problem is that they shot all of them. Even the ones trying to run away.
Running away is a combatant act. WHEN DONE BY COMBATANTS. It's kind of hard to argue that civilians are a threat to your mission when they are running empty handed (and also unsuccessfully) for their lives.
I know their mission. They're not going to survive it anyway. But meanwhile they've given me a problem of appearances. One of them picked up a phone and claimed credit for the event.
No point trying to get them to turn themselves in. They're on a mission, and won't turn away from it any more than I would. They won't survive the mission, which is convenient because if they did, they would have to be tried as potential war criminals. And I wouldn't want to be their defense counsel.
The official decision is to do nothing for now. Maybe it will go away on its own. Few Iowans know that Homeland murdered hundreds of thousands of Californians. Now, of course, they would think that Homeland stopped way too soon.
So. The education.
Xtian combatants who are acting like bandits and don't wear uniforms, get priority of fires. We don't ever take them into custody. We just shoot them, regardless of whether they just washed for supper or not.
Xtian combatants who kind of wear uniforms but are murdering refugees, also get priority of fires. When we catch them, and we do, we shoot officers and a selection of enlisted (drivers, machine gunners) and send the rest home without boots or dignity. To explain to the others why their husbands and brothers are not coming home.
Xtian combatants who wear uniforms and fight according to laws of war, are a low priority for us - unless they get in our way somehow, which because they are competent at the law of land warfare, is happening more or more. We punish them just enough to achieve our goal. If we capture them, which we usually don't because we would rather let them break contact, we take their faces and names and tell them to go home on parole. But we warn them that this extended lifetime warranty is a one time deal, and if we see them again, in this war, it will suddenly expire along with them.
Kind of a shock when we're doing that face and name taking, find a prior loser, and there is a sudden BLAM! as we just matter of factly execute them. Also proves our point.
But when we catch people committing atrocities, in the act, in medias rea, that's when we get out the rope and we hang the motherfuckers until they are dead, protruding tongues and horrid expressions showing how they died. Leave them dangling like the strange fruit they are. A word or two spray painted to explain. "MURDERER." "RAPIST." "BABY KILLER."
Who hauls on the rope?
Sometimes we tie off to a bumper. Sometimes there are surviving victims who don't mind hauling.
But mostly, they themselves do. Ten enemy captured while killing refugees. One on the noose, nine on the rope. Then re-rig. One on the noose, eight on the rope.
Anyone who doesn't want to pull on the rope just volunteered to get the noose _first_.
It's amazing what people will do for another twenty minutes of life.
And, suitably edited, we put it all up on YouTube as well as other sites with fewer restrictions.
This is what happens to cowards who break the laws of war. Avoid their company or haul on their rope before they haul on yours.
Most people who aren't in the military have no idea that there's a difference between military regulations and military law.
Military regulations cover things like how you wear your uniform, how equipment is parked, etc. Important.
Military law is trivia like you can't just go around murdering civilians.
The problem, here in Iowa, has rapidly resolved itself in my mind to the problem that most of the combatants have no idea what military law is.
They wear a uniform, kind of - but don't have an issue with taking it off so they don't get shot at. They carry rifles and shoot at their enemies. All of them. "There is no such thing as civilian - only enemy with gun and enemy without gun." "Nits make lice." "The only good G is a dead G."
So what I initially thought was a military operation, an effort to separate refugees from those who would murder them, is changing to a live fire training exercise.
I am going to teach every single person in Iowa the laws of war. My carrot is safety. My stick is precision fires. Because the laws of war apply to me and my forces as well.
I've made an unusual request, back home to California. This is turning into a psyop war, a propaganda war, and I have brought soldiers not bloggers and vloggers. So I need California's help. We shoot the video, or the enemy. The imagery is uploaded home. Manipulated. Then posted to YouTube and fed to a greedy world media, short stroking it over the thought of American suffering. Also good for California.
I got a reply. That one precious, precious word.
"APPROVED."
I get a call from the California Military Provost's office. The assigned case worker has an issue. My mortar attacks on the towns. I called them terror strikes, and they were, even though they were directed against lawful military targets of advantage.
The problem is that some pantiwaist in Geneva thirty years ago decided that inflicting fear on civilian populations was itself a war crime. The Additional Protocols.
After some discussion, I agree that I won't be using that tactic again. Certainly I won't be calling it such in our own internal orders.
Enemy morale is my meat. I can't selectively murder civilians. But making them afraid is kind of the purpose of war, and starting in the 1970s, much limp wristed effort went into making the laws of war cover all sorts of things they were never intended to. The concept is 'lawfare' and the Russians in particular are good at it.
Russian troops, on the other hand, have never known what the law of war was in order to try to obey it. Never been taught. Famous case of a Russian defector shown a NATO exercise. He begged them to start camoflauging their field hospitals. He was told that he was ignorant of the laws of war.
"Yes, yes I am. I was a Russian military officer! You might as well put red crosses on your blouses to protect you from the wolves! The wolf has no idea that the red cross represents a rule ... AND NEITHER DOES THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER."
So we are literally running a propaganda campaign, to educate enemy personnel on the basics. The A is for AK-47, B is for Body Bag and C is for Cremains version.
We are also teaching the Gs, the fighting force we are standing up from among the refugees, to obey the laws of war. Since I can't use the Reverend as an olive branch again - although his stunning success at Army of God has saved thousands of lives - I am having him run that.
"They shot us down like dogs. Why shouldn't we shoot their women and children the way they shot ours?"
Because we're better than that. Because we're the good guys. Because it doesn't work. Because it makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult. Because might does not make right. Most importantly, because your new California friends will shoot you in the back, or the face, or whatever is most convenient. Pick an answer, any will do.
My own California troops know. Laws of war training is integrated throughout our programs. Many of my troops are scout-soldiers, who get even more extensive training on laws of war.
There is one notable exception. Bear Force. They are not under my operational command. Their perspective on the laws of war is rather savage.
Four of them stopped at a gas station. One was rammed by a car and casevaced with a broken pelvis to Camp Snoopy. The other three shot everyone present.
Technically ... and I must emphasize the technicality here ... they are just within the laws of war. Civilians are only protected so long as they do not engage in hostilities, and it was a civilian who use their truck as a weapon.
The problem is not that they shot half of them. The problem is that they shot all of them. Even the ones trying to run away.
Running away is a combatant act. WHEN DONE BY COMBATANTS. It's kind of hard to argue that civilians are a threat to your mission when they are running empty handed (and also unsuccessfully) for their lives.
I know their mission. They're not going to survive it anyway. But meanwhile they've given me a problem of appearances. One of them picked up a phone and claimed credit for the event.
No point trying to get them to turn themselves in. They're on a mission, and won't turn away from it any more than I would. They won't survive the mission, which is convenient because if they did, they would have to be tried as potential war criminals. And I wouldn't want to be their defense counsel.
The official decision is to do nothing for now. Maybe it will go away on its own. Few Iowans know that Homeland murdered hundreds of thousands of Californians. Now, of course, they would think that Homeland stopped way too soon.
So. The education.
Xtian combatants who are acting like bandits and don't wear uniforms, get priority of fires. We don't ever take them into custody. We just shoot them, regardless of whether they just washed for supper or not.
Xtian combatants who kind of wear uniforms but are murdering refugees, also get priority of fires. When we catch them, and we do, we shoot officers and a selection of enlisted (drivers, machine gunners) and send the rest home without boots or dignity. To explain to the others why their husbands and brothers are not coming home.
Xtian combatants who wear uniforms and fight according to laws of war, are a low priority for us - unless they get in our way somehow, which because they are competent at the law of land warfare, is happening more or more. We punish them just enough to achieve our goal. If we capture them, which we usually don't because we would rather let them break contact, we take their faces and names and tell them to go home on parole. But we warn them that this extended lifetime warranty is a one time deal, and if we see them again, in this war, it will suddenly expire along with them.
Kind of a shock when we're doing that face and name taking, find a prior loser, and there is a sudden BLAM! as we just matter of factly execute them. Also proves our point.
But when we catch people committing atrocities, in the act, in medias rea, that's when we get out the rope and we hang the motherfuckers until they are dead, protruding tongues and horrid expressions showing how they died. Leave them dangling like the strange fruit they are. A word or two spray painted to explain. "MURDERER." "RAPIST." "BABY KILLER."
Who hauls on the rope?
Sometimes we tie off to a bumper. Sometimes there are surviving victims who don't mind hauling.
But mostly, they themselves do. Ten enemy captured while killing refugees. One on the noose, nine on the rope. Then re-rig. One on the noose, eight on the rope.
Anyone who doesn't want to pull on the rope just volunteered to get the noose _first_.
It's amazing what people will do for another twenty minutes of life.
And, suitably edited, we put it all up on YouTube as well as other sites with fewer restrictions.
This is what happens to cowards who break the laws of war. Avoid their company or haul on their rope before they haul on yours.
