Ted Lieu Quotes

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

No matter how many people you kill, using a machine gun in battle is not a war crime because it does not cause unnecessary suffering; it simply performs its job horrifyingly well.

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.

In my teens, I joined the Parachute Regiment. I jumped out of lots of airplanes, as much as the Government budget would allow us to. I did two active tours of duty: Northern Ireland, and then the Falklands war.

If the practice is torture for the al Qaeda operative who masterminded the killing of three thousand Americans, why weren't there court-martials in the cases of those thousands of servicemen similarly treated as part of their training?

Al Qaeda doesn't abide by the Geneva Conventions, so in my opinion, they should not be afforded the protections of them.

President Bush and his commanders announced early in the conflict that the Conventions applied.

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.

The main thing I say on war is that we need to obey the law and formally declare war.

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

After I graduated from school, I enrolled in the military college, a cadet school. This is the first stage of military training; it instills discipline and various qualities required for military life.

It is not the business of generals to shoot one another.

A decision that the Geneva conventions do not apply to the conflict in Afghanistan in which our armed forces are engaged deprives our troops there of any claim to the protection of the conventions in the event they are captured

The law is silent during war. Silent leges inter arma.

The laws, rights, and duties of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps fulfilling the following conditions: To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance; To carry arms openly; and To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war

When soldiers break the law in a combat situation the commanding officer can hold them accountable, but he cannot do so if military contractors break the law.

It is useless to try so frequently and unsuccessfully, attempt upon attempt, to instruct the great mass of people in the art of war

Every Souldier shall present such prisoners as are taken, to their Captaine immediately at their returne to the Campe, and none shall either kill them, or license them to depart, without commandement or leave from the Generall, or other head Officer thereunto appointed, upon paine of being disarmed, and banished [from] the Campe

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

A small country like Israel has compulsory military training. But countries like India, that are so much bigger, have no compulsory military training, so people don't understand how the military functions. They have no knowledge of how it works, no respect for it.

Pre-emptive war might fall within the framework of international law.

I don't need a U.N. report to tell me whether my army... operates according to the international law guidelines.

In my view, targeted lethal force is at its least controversial when it is on its strongest, most traditional legal foundation. The essential mission of the U.S. military is to capture or kill an enemy. Armies have been doing this for thousands of years. As part of a congressionally authorized armed conflict, the foundation is even stronger.

I have traveled to GTMO and have seen the honorable and professional behavior of the American men and women in uniform who serve at the detention facility.

The American system of civilian control of the military recognizes that soldiers' attention must be fixed on winning battles and staying alive, and that the fog of war can sometimes obscure the rule of law.