This past Monday was the first time I had ever seen the movie "3 Kings" and I have to admit that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Whether or not it is an accurate depiction of the situation in the Middle East during the 1st Gulf War is another issue. Leaving that aside, I noticed some glaring violations of IHL.
- The first of these violations was the treatment of POWs. Mark Walhberg (a.k.a. Marky Mark of the infamous funky bunch) was captured by the Iraqis in the film, after which he was attached to electrodes and forced to drink oil. These acts can only be characterized as acts of torture. (Perhaps there are those that would classify them as "aggressive interrogation tactics"...) This is a blatant violation of Article 3 of the Third Geneva Convention's requirements for the treatment of prisoners of war.
- A second violation of IHL was the requirement that all combatants be clearly marked or wear a distinctive symbol. Also codified in the Third Geneva Convention, this provision was violated by many of the Iraqi troops in the film.
- Thirdly, chemical and biological weapons were used in the film. This is arguably in violation of Protocol III of the CCW's prohibition against the use of excessive or indiscriminate weapons.
1 comment:
It is interesting that nearly all of us pointed out the need for combatants to comply with the uniform requirement of the Geneva Conventions. It reveals how important we feel it is for us to reinforce the need to distinguish between civilians such as ourselves and military combatants. In a sense, it represents the silent disavowal of the famous Clausewitz notion that “war is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means.”. That is to say, if we are to believe that the everyday civilian activities endemic to a nation’s economic, social, and political conditions are not acts of war, then the military acts (that may or may not directly stem from civilian actions/lifestyle etc…) must be perceived as decidedly atypical. In other words, I would argue that perhaps there is too great a disconnect between the actions of civilians and the conditions that give rise to war. In a sense, this uniform requirement reifies the notion that we (civilians) are unequivocally distinguishable from them (military personnel/combatants etc…)
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