Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 April 19

= April 19 =

Who would be considered unlawful combatants according to international laws?
Does a belligerent faction has to wear distinctive uniform or other distinctive signs visible at a distance, carries weapons openly, avoid targeting civilians, and conducts operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war in order to be considered a lawful combatant and thus eligible to be treated as a prisoner of war (POW)? If so, does this mean that almost all, if not all, non-governmental paramilitary organizations frequently labelled "terrorist" that have or had engaged in an armed conflict using guerrilla warfare tactics after the Third Geneva Convention such as Hamas and the Provisional Irish Republican Army could be legally considered unlawful combatants? StellarHalo (talk) 07:29, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The Third Geneva Convention requires that the status of detainees whose combatant status is in doubt be determined by a "competent tribunal", and international human rights law prohibits trying non-military personnel in military tribunals, yet the United States has instituted the Guantanamo military commissions to prosecute all prisoners taken in the War in Afghanistan while denying them any possibility of being considered a prisoner of war, regardless of their conduct. So there is no straightforward answer to the question. Also consider that one party's unlawful combatant is another party's lawful combatant, so the question can only be dealt with in a meaningful way if the party making the determination is identified. --Lambiam 10:00, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The thing about the Geneva conventions is that they don't really handle modern (post-1990s) warfare all that well. It has certain unspoken presumptions about the nature of war which don't really play out in the 21st century.  The wars it was written to regulate are those up to and including the two World Wars, in which recognized states would be sending organized groups of soldiers across each other's borders to kill each other.  The kind of wars that we see today are mostly civil wars (factions internal to a country that are vying for control of part or all of the territory of that country) and/or involved non-state organizations which have their own private fighting forces.  It becomes hard to fit into the definitions of the Geneva conventions which were written for a different time.  Note that this is not passing judgement on the morality or ethics of any specific situation, rather the reality of international law as she is written.  -- Jayron 32 14:14, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It's worth remembering that for organisations like HRW etc, the biggest controversy over the US's treatment of "unlawful combatants" wasn't because they disagree with the manner or the decision of the US to decide they weren't lawful combatants. Rather as our article says the view of these organisations was generally that if the US had decided those people were not lawful combatants, they needed to treat them as civilians. Therefore although they were not entitled to prisoner or war status etc, and the mere fact they were engaged in hostilities could be treated as a crime, they still needed to be treated properly and given a fair and regular trial rather than arbitrarily detained and subject to torture. There's no grey area where people are not lawful combatants but also not civilians so can somehow be treated as non-human . Nil Einne (talk) 12:33, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Can't disagree with a word of that. -- Jayron 32 13:18, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

"Destroy Japan"
I remember reading a few years ago about a Japanese anti-nationalist, perhaps far-left group called "Destroy Japan" or something like that, essentially their goal was to eradicate Japanese culture and national identity entirely, feeling that this was the only way to counterbalance the harms Japan had done in East Asia. Unfortunately I can't seem to find them again and at this point I'm beginning to wonder if I just dreamed the whole thing. It might not have been Japan at all, but I'm fairly sure it was Japan.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about? --Editor510 drop us a line, mate  23:28, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I knew that there were "Anti-Germans" in Germany, so searching for "Anti-Japanese" brought me to Anti-Japaneseism... AnonMoos (talk) 01:50, 20 April 2021 (UTC)