Dear Barry: I think that "laws of war" are such an oximorom......humans are the only one in the whole nature who make laws to regulate what should not exist.....is like saying "kill....but be polite". Is it possible to act in a lawful way in an unlawful situation? Is it possible to be ethical in an unethical context? I certainly doubt it.

Cheers. Susie.

The answer to both your questions is unabashedly "yes."  The rules of war do indeed help to perpetuate combat because they give a morally and politically acceptable space in which to inflict misery upon one's enemies, yet war also requires definition of some level of moral abomination to prevent the slaughter of innocents from becoming widely acceptable or event the primary mode of executing war upon one's enemies. The ideas of righteousness of going to war and behavior in war originates (in the Western mind) with the ideas of "just war" and ""justice in war" (Latin jus ad bellum and jus in bello).  Since the Western modes of thinking more or less dominate political and inter-state morality debate globally, many of the non-Western warring states have somewhat come to share those sentiments, at least in discourse with us or when they know we are listening.  That is within the Westphalian state system.  With non-state actors, or "unrestricted warfare" situations, some level of those principles still apply, but from within the perpetrators' cultural context. 

It is why Americans are outraged when non-combtant prisoners get beheaded by Muslim jihadis on camera; it is a violation of the sense of jus in bello.  And it would perfectly morally acceptable to most people to prosecute a more conventional war (soldiers, tanks, planes, artillery, etc.) upon those same jihadis (or any jihadis) in order to exact a morally or politically satisfying measure of justice or vengance.

The Wilsonian idealism that created the League of Nations and led to the creation of the UN and the Geneva Conventions wanted to directly address the perceptions of overly-destructive force that exceeded perceptions of required force.  The ideas of justifiable acts in war were confirmed in the Nuremburg Trials, however the concepts behind "just war" are constantly in motion, because each conflict is nuanced very differently at the ground level. Yet these ideas are often presented as twin ideas or two sides of the same coin. In the West, and predominantly around the globe, these rules (the "Law of Land Warfare") are mandatory conditions for participation in coalition warfare.  Given the money, foreign military arms sales, and diplomatic prestige of participating in military coalitions, many countries agree to these terms. The US military spends a good deal of time educating soldiers and officers into these precepts, as they are the basis of the morally just applicaiton of the military form of national power.  The US then, in turn, demands this same level of training of allies and partner forces before participating in combined training exercise.

The Laws of Land Warfare are anything but oxymoronic. They are an idealist outcome of the better angels of man's nature attempting to contain a totally inhumane activity such that it does not spill over into peaceful society or destroy the collective psyche of mankind. A naive attempt to merely portray all warfare as "unlawful" or imply any attempt at politeness is to ignore the obvious state of man, and his collective conscience that does indeed abhor war but still sees necessity of mass violence under certain circumstances. Those who thrive in war without reflection are otherwise known as sociopaths, and the laws of war are attempts to contain them -- and those who would mimic or even learn their behaviors -- in an otherwise unconstrained environment.  As an active observer and former very willing participant in numerous conflict zones, I can personally vouch for the very positive long-term effects of adherence to and enforcement of the laws of warfare on the home societies (where participants came from and returned) and target societies (where the war actually took place). To be sure, the first-order effects are all detrimental, but the long-term outcomes at the individual, group and societal levels are much more positive than if there were no constraints on a man's actions in war.  It is the very cognition that only humans have to be able to organize mass violence and then be able to demobilize and disarm (literally and figuatively) when war is done. And, yes, it is very possible to be ethical in an inherently gruesome context.  It is how combatants live with ourselves after we come home.

Dear Matt: I certainly respect your point of view and understand it. But I insist that war and violence, generally speaking, are wrong. Violence shouldn't be seen us something good in  human nature, specially nowadays when techonology helps to deshumanized the faces of the men and women envolved in a conflict (no matter on what side they are). I don't agree with the concept of enemy: we are all human beings. I recognized I have a kantian education and I just cannot reconciled myself to back violent behaviour, no matter where it comes from. And, in my opinon, is the imperfection on human nature (greed, violence, fundamentalims, etc.) what  guarantees war and making laws to regulate war is its outmost example. When law regulates a behaviour it just gives a social recognition to that conduct, because law has the power to aprehend social values and make them legal. When law regulates war, it just gives a social and legal status to war, making it valuable. Susie.

Thank you for your perspective.  I appreciate that I have just one perspective of my own, based on my unique experiences and socialization, and I value the opportunity to hear others who do not share it.  I am convinced that war can be wrong and right because it is and always has been and always will be a part of humanity, and because it is so perspective-based and contextual.  We can say that lying or theft is always wrong, but the sticky part is that when it is done for humanly "good" reasons, is it still worthy of condemnation?  Would you steal food for your babies if left to no other recourse but to sit and watch them starve?  Would you lie to protect your children from the fact that you stole that food you gave them and allowed them to grow up?  A humane (non-psychotic) mother or father would indeed do those things, though they are despicable under most circumstances.  And a judge would not condemn a mother to prison for feeding her babies, and we do not condemn our soldiers who fight on our behalf because they fulfilled a social contract with society to protect us and our interests from those who would destroy us.  And they did so in a manner that protected our perceptions of self-worth.  When they fail to conform we punish soldiers, even if they did thingds for what they thought were the right reasons.  How many violent revolutions has Argentina had against tyranny of its own people?  Were those who actively resisted wrong to do what they did when political discourse was ineffective or disallowed? Moral men choose to do bad things because they are forced to do so to protect that which they value. Every peaceful movement has had its violent fringe that forced a strastegic choice of pathways to success.  Our decisions to go to war must include that sort of calculus, and as long as there is more than one idea of how the world should be, there will be war.