Comment by esseph

1 month ago

Why would an insurgent force against an occupier ever wear uniforms? Ever? Is there any case of this happening in history?

Pretty much all of them.

National Guard and HomeGuard in every allied country has a uniform.

The ones that don't are using what would be considered unlawful tactics these days.

You're an 'unlawful combatant' if you don't wear one: the Geneva Convention still technically applies to you, just not in any way you'd find comforting.

  • > The ones that don't are using what would be considered unlawful tactics these days.

    The British Army was very upset that ragtag riflemen in the American colonies kept running into the woods and shooting from behind cover instead of standing in a Proper Formation and exchanging volleys of fire. No true gentlemen does that!

    > the British military and government frequently accused American colonial soldiers of violating the established "rules of war" (or the "laws of nations") during the Revolutionary War, largely because they viewed the conflict not as a war between sovereign nations, but as a rebellion. The British often regarded the Americans as unlawful combatants, or rebels, who used irregular tactics that disregarded traditional 18th-century European military etiquette.

    • > The British Army was very upset that ragtag riflemen in the American colonies kept running into the woods and shooting from behind cover instead of standing in a Proper Formation

      didn't skirmishers always do that though?

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  • Why should they play by some foreign made up book just because it would suit the oppressor who massively overpowers you in every aspect? Come on, lets get real, if you defend your homeland from invader any tactic is good tactic. Thats not some higher moral ground just basic logic.

    Geneva convention is just a piece of paper, sometimes adhered to by some parties, and thats about it. And thats something coming from a person living and working in Geneva lol. russians keep breaking those rules every day for years on ukraine and not much is happening, is it.

    • The Geneva Convention wasn't written by oppressors to protect oppressors; it was written largely because of what happens to civilians and prisoners when there are no rules. The protections run both ways: your wounded, your captured fighters, your civilian population all benefit from it. Tear it up and you're not sticking it to the powerful, you're just guaranteeing that nobody on either side has any protection at all.

      And yes, Russia breaks the rules constantly in Ukraine. The response to that is not 'therefore rules are worthless,' it's 'therefore we need better enforcement.' A legal system with imperfect enforcement is not the same thing as no legal system; by that logic you'd abolish murder laws because people still get murdered.

      'Any tactic is a good tactic' is also, incidentally, exactly what the oppressor says.

    • > Why should they play by some foreign made up book just because it would suit the oppressor who massively overpowers you in every aspect?

      If they refuse to abide by the "foreign book" that dictate the rules of conflict, then I'm not sure how they could legitimately use the foreign book's classification of genocide. Those rules are what dictate how to classify a genocide.

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