U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?

[Dave Howe]

Jim Dixon wrote:
> The Geneva conventions require, among other things, that soldiers wear
> uniforms.
  No, they don't.

  Fox news repeats this enough that more than half of america believes it,
but then, more than half of america believes Iraq was somehow involved in
the Trade Center attacks too....

  The rules are considerably more lax for the defenders than the
attackers - if you are entering another country, then you must either be
part of a uniformed, standing army or be part of a militia (with a rigid
authority structure, open carrage of arms and an identifying badge or
emblem). You must also respect the rules of war - so at least in theory,
even a uniformed "official" combatant is not entitled to the protections
of the Geneva conventions if he himself breaks those conventions (by e.g.
shooting noncombatants)

  If you are defending though, you are entitled to the protection of the
geneva convention (and lawful combatant status) simply by being an "open"
hostile (carrying your weaponry openly and obeying all the usual
provisions of the geneva convention, which obviously doesn't allow hiding
in a crowd of civilians). This is the "take up arms" provision so beloved
of the american people - that in the face of invasion, the ordinary
citizen would "take up arms" to defend his home and neighbours.

  There is considerable doubt as to exactly how this applies to sniping -
certainly, uniformed combatants are little less likely to decide to dive
into cover and "take out" their opponents with aimed fire than random
undertrained militia are, and it would be insane for a lone "take up arms"
defender to stand out in the open to "duke it out"; the problem is a
random sniper is difficult to locate *after* an attack if he is not
otherwise identifiable; ok, he isn't permitted to drop his weapon and
retain his lawful combatant status, but nor could a uniformed individual
(one of several) be expected to volunteer that he was the one who just
killed four of the team now pointing weapons at him..... (the "take up
arms" provision seems to assume the defender picks up a gun and continues
firing until he is killed, captured, or he wins :)

"name rank and number" is for the movies.