Sebastian Junger Quotes

This war no longer has anything to do with knightly conduct or with the agreements of the Geneva Convention.

What is and isn't justified by military necessity is, naturally, open to interpretation. One of the key concepts, though, is the law of proportionality. A military attack that results in civilian casualties - 'collateral damage' - is acceptable as long as the military benefits outweigh the price that is paid by humanity.

They target and try to kill as many of our civilians as they can. We do not target civilians..

The troops are therefore empowered and are in duty bound in this war to use without mitigation even against women and children any means that will lead to success.

There is such a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may fairly be done, and things which may not be done.

Indiscriminate attacks on civilians ought, under all circumstances, to be illegal in war as in peacetime.

It is a rule of international law that weapons and methods of warfare which do not discriminate between combatants and civilians should never be used.

While Taliban fighters had an initial claim to protection under the conventions, they lost POW status by failing to obey the standards of conduct for legal combatants: wearing uniforms, a responsible command structure, and obeying the laws of war.

1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal; 2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;, 3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence

Perhaps the most basic rule of the law of armed conflict is that civilians and civilian objects must not be made the object of direct attack, although incidental injuries caused to such persons or objects in the course of a legitimate attack must be proportionate to the purpose of the attack.

According to the laws of war, a warring party can just walk away from civilian harm that they have caused.

One of the fundamental pillars of international humanitarian law is that proper distinction should be made between military targets and civilians. That is why indiscriminate bombing, let alone the deliberate targeting of residential areas or agricultural infrastructure, is considered a war crime.

An aggressive war is the great crime against everything good in the world. A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.

The last thing we want to do is to go into an area and inflict unnecessary civilian casualties. One is too many.

Human-rights advocates, for example, claim that the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is of a piece with President Bush's 2002 decision to deny al Qaeda and Taliban fighters the legal status of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.

No, the United States does not target civilians.

I cannot grasp the difference between killing people with drones or rifles and knives. The objective in war is to kill the enemy before he kills you. I can't fathom the almost religious zeal with which the use of drones is being opposed.

The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.

I knew that the Hague Convention prohibited the use of poison in war. I didn't know the details of the terms of the Convention, but I did know of that prohibition.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

In light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, critics are arguing that abuses of Iraqi prisoners are being produced by a climate of disregard for the laws of war.

If you shell a military base and happen to kill civilians, you have not committed a war crime; if you deliberately target cities and towns, you have.

Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

It's never acceptable to target civilians. It violates the Geneva Accords, it violates the international law of war and it violates all principles of morality.