Originally posted by BUG_EAF322
As far as i know what i learned long time ago in the army.
That u have to show what u are.
U cannot walk around like a civilian and than suddenly attack.
Or wear a wrong uniform , those germans caught in US uniform in the ardennes where sentenced to death by fire squad.
There is prob a big grey area
Those rules and the resistance fighters are two different things.
It's like a treaty between countries, but what government do the resistance fighters represent?
Besides that, if they would do it by all the regulations, they'd be squashed in no time by the occupation forces, or they would no longer be 'resistance fighters', but an army.
If your country is occupied and you really want to do something to it, you would do exactly the same as they do in Iraq.
Theres no other way to fight the occupiers, than hide in as a civilian.
If you want to assassinate someone important with a hit & run attack, you wouldn't get anywhere close the target in a uniform.
To be effective, it is desirable to be able to fade away after an attack, to be able to attack again.
Dressed in uniform in a heavily occupied territory would just make you hundred times more vulnerable.
At the countryside, or other lightly guarded territory, you could make strikes against targets in a uniform and get away.
For example germans didn't have so strong occupation all over France or lowlands, which is why partisans were also seen in uniform.
After the strike, they did return to their base or whatever and dress as civilian - thats against the convention rules as well.
However the actual army soldiers aren't expected to do that in a war.
Of course they can, but they'd be executed on the spot if caught alive. They wouldn't have any of the rights that POW's do.
This all makes a sort of "funny" controversy.
It was bad when germans executed resistance fighters, but it is good if they're executed in Iraq without rights.
Euro partisans were also seen as the good ones, but in Iraq they're the bad ones.
However they don't differ from each others much, what comes to the strikes against Iraqi officials and the occupiers.
Euros did target the native politicians and others cooperating with the occupiers, though not as radically as they in Iraq.
What is happening in Iraq, really isn't anything new.
Whats new, is the scale they're blowing up alot of their own as "traitors working for the occupiers", even if they're only builders on a site that is being built by foreigners.
Killing native politicians working in the occupiers government is very understandable - if you're such a radical person that you see them as occupiers, then the ones working as politicians for the "enemy" are among top of your enemies - traitors from within.
This isn't any pro-muslim resistance fighter speech.
You just can't dismiss the reasons and create controversies with your own history.
It is nothing new there are people whos pissed off at the occupiers and that they're going to act against much bigger foe like they do.
In the middle east the radicalness isn't anything new either.
Bush really should've studied the cultural and historical things somewhat better before launching his freedom anti-WMD al qaeda campaign in Iraq and planned accordingly.
Theres been no surprises that couldn't been thought of before the war.
