Mike Black

It doesn't mean the war is just or that those who initiated it couldn't/shouldn't be prosecuted for their crimes, it just means if you're personally engaged in the war as long as you comply with LOAC you are (generally speaking) in the clear

LOAC standards in a state of armed conflict are wholly separate from whether that conflict was initiated in compliance with international law

Eg you can conduct military action in compliance with LOAC in a war that violates the UN Charter

I'm a serious person who believes that

"awful but lawful" is a saying among JAGs for a reason

I'm running 30/70 between "wow I didn't know that thanks sincerely" to "FUCK U BABYKILLER," which is winning by internet standards

haha holy shit

talk about "things that are 100% true but also I would have never thought of on my own"

no....submarines have no capacity to rescue shipwrecked crews of ships they targeted and LOAC since Nuremberg has established that you can't issue orders explicitly saying to not rescue anyone, but if military necessity dictates subs avoid rescuing people that's 100% fine

have to remember LOAC was written by military officers first and foremost to enable prosecution of military operations, while avoiding wanton slaughter and unnecessary suffering

intent is basically the whole ballgame with this, especially since (perversely) it involved PGMs...absent intent to deliberately hit noncombatants, as long as you took care in the strike to follow proportionality and distinction in your targeting, if something got fucked up not a LOAC violation

no, because the only people in uniform that I remotely think are even possibly capable of following such an order are in JSOC (and not really even then), who in any case wouldn't have been involved in this

pete can run his mouth about whatever he wants, but people still have to follow the orders

what it twists into in terms of accepted internet wisdom is gonna be insane

it was a ship FULL OF ORPHANS taking FOOD TO STARVING CHILDREN with THE POPE AND DALAI LAMA on board and the united states NUKED it with a PLASMA WARHEAD

well, I've been lining up on the "if it was the US we didn't do it intentionally" side, but that's followed by "and here's what I think happened to cause such a massive fuckup"

also that, yes

ONE WEIRD TRICK TO MAKE SINKING WARSHIPS ILLEGAL, ATHEISTS HATE IT

also that, yes

ONE WEIRD TRICK TO MAKE SINKING WARSHIPS ILLEGAL, ATHEISTS HATE IT

and prior to that wave a white flag/not be sailing towards the zone hostilities are occurring in/otherwise make it as clear as possible you're no longer a warship

I don't think I agree with it mostly (and it's certainly not codified anywhere), but that's the closest you're gonna get to a theater/geographically limited aspect on this

if a state of hostilities exists (which one de facto did as soon as we started shooting a couple days prior to this strike) it's at the most basic level game on wherever

there's an argument to be made that since we've stopped declaring war a new norm has come into existence of exclusion zones

bsky.app/profile/mike...

Conventions I and II are extremely clear: if you are in a uniform and aren't wearing a protected symbol, a chaplain, or otherwise hors de combat, congrats, you are a legal target

for the bajillionth time it is entirely possible to say "yes this was bad and dumb and pointless and effectively killing people for content is evil" and also acknowledge it was not in any way shape or form a LOAC violation

are uniformed band members noncombatants, the dumbest thread in the history of forums

I don't think I agree with the position that there's now a full blown norm to the point of being customary law of establishing exclusionary zones, but how that discussion aligns with a nominally regionalized war in the Western Pacific with the easy possibility to go global is worth thinking about

how this works in the notional big one with China (which almost certainly won't involve a formal declaration of war, definitely not right off the bat) is something that probably deserves more attention

it was definitely a de facto state of hostilities imo, but how that stacks up being conducted against at what's most a regional power is a point I concede isn't settled

yeah, like lvc *can* definitely be value added (I'd argue this one wasn't, partially because bad design, partially because 2002 technology), but even when well designed shit's never going to match up 100%

"....that's the only box I have" is by far the funniest bit

Found the report (the MC2002 wiki article is actually really good, so hats off to whoever did that)

www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/D...

As for Van Riper running his mouth after and lying about all this in the press, well, might have been an indication of how he'd go off the deep end with the chowder II chucklefucks

Not telling an entire MEU of Marines sorry they don't get to do their big live exercise for the year because Paul Van Riper hacked a computer to cheat does actually seem pretty reasonable