Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes
Laws are inoperative in war
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Cicero: Pro Milone, In Pisonem, Pro Scauro, Pro Fonteio, Pro Rabirio Postumo, Pro Marcello, Pro Ligario, Pro Rege Deiotaro. Translated by N. H. Watts, Harvard University Press, 1931, p. 17.
In the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars the U. S. government was much criticized for not treating captured Taliban and others as prisoners war. This Article is their main justification. The Taliban and Al Quida did not meet most of the criteria and therefore the convention did not apply to them.
See Prince Otto von Bismarck-Schoenhausen {632620} for a similar focus on "iron and blood". This is no coincidence as Lindemann had been the Captain of the Battleship Bismarck.
In the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, private contractors wlere hired to provide many services in the war zone including intelligence, security and guard service. In carrying out their responsibilities, some private contractor employees killed and/or tortured suspects or innocent bystandarders against the laws of the United States. If American soldiers had committed these crimes, they would be court marshalled. However, the Code of Military Regulations and other laws applied only to armed forces personnel.
In every major war in the United States there have been government activities contrary to law, most of which were embarrassments when discovered years later and in retrospect most of which did not help the war effort in any way but undermined the sense of law and order either by not enforcing certain laws (profiteering in WWI or violence against war protesters in the Vietnam War), passing new laws that in retrospect were unjust or unconstitutional (incarceration of Japanese Americans in WWII) or by engaging in illegal activities (illegal spying and detention in the Iraq War.)
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, orator, lawyer and philosopher, who served as consul in the year 63 BC. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
