Not a good trend.
Not a good trend. Otoh, I have no real info on how often this happened in past wars. Is it really different, or do we just know about it, now?
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/28/476064028/syria-hospital-bombing-are-the-rules-of-war-blowing-up
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/28/476064028/syria-hospital-bombing-are-the-rules-of-war-blowing-up
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/28/476064028/syria-hospital-bombing-are-the-rules-of-war-blowing-up
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/28/476064028/syria-hospital-bombing-are-the-rules-of-war-blowing-up
Depends. From what I heard when I did my military service, from people who had been involved in the UN efforts in the civil war in Yugoslavia (this was before NATO got involved), the old regular forces were quite good in observing some parts of the laws of war (this was specifically about respect for medical personnel, treatment of wounded, hospitals, and so on). The various newly-formed militias less so. Some of the militias were apparently little more than brigands, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI read an interesting analysis of the Holocaust, and that one of the important factors in large-scale war crimes and ethnic cleansing was the widespread destruction of the civic society. Eg, the chances to get out of the Second World War was worse in the Ukraine or Estonia than they were in Germany, and much worse than in Denmark or Bulgaria (with some caveats). We might be seeing something similar in Syria.
It might be a review or discussion of Black Earth or Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder, but I'm not sure.