The Pentagon has released a book of instructions on the \u201claw of war,\u201d detailing acceptable ways of killing the enemy. The manual also states that journalists can be labeled \u201cunprivileged belligerents,\u201d an obscure term that replaced \u201cenemy combatant.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1,176-page \u201cDepartment of Defense Law of War Manual\u201d explains that shooting, exploding, bombing, stabbing, or cutting the enemy are acceptable ways of getting the job done, but the use of poison or asphyxiating gases is not allowed.<\/p>\n
Surprise attacks and killing retreating troops have also been given the green light.<\/p>\n
But the lengthy manual doesn\u2019t only talk about protocol for those on the frontline. It also has an extensive section on journalists \u2013 including the fact that they can be labeled terrorists.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn general, journalists are civilians. However, journalists may be members of the armed forces, persons authorized to accompany the armed forces, or unprivileged belligerents,\u201d the manual states.<\/p>\n
The term \u201cunprivileged belligerents\u201d replaces the Bush-era term \u201cunlawful enemy combatant.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what this means, professor of Journalism at Georgetown Chris Chambers told RT that he doesn\u2019t know, \u201cbecause the Geneva Convention, other tenets of international law, and even United States law \u2013 federal courts have spoken on this \u2013 doesn\u2019t have this thing on \u2018unprivileged belligerents\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
This means that embedded journalists, who are officially sanctioned by the military and attached to a unit, will be favored by an even greater degree than before. \u201cIt gives them license to attack or even murder journalists that they don\u2019t particularly like but aren\u2019t on the other side,\u201d Chambers said.<\/p>\n
Even the Obama Administration\u2019s definition of \u201cenemy combatant\u201d was vague enough, basically meaning any male of a military age who \u201chappens to be there,\u201d Chambers added.<\/p>\n
The manual also deals with drones, stating that there is \u201cno prohibition in the law of war on the use of remotely piloted aircraft (also called \u201cunmanned aerial vehicles\u201d).” Such weapons may offer certain advantages over the weapons systems. It states that drones can be designated as military aircraft if used by a country’s military.<\/p>\n
The book includes a foreword from the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Stephen Preston, who states that \u201cthe law of war is part of who we are.\u201d He goes on to say that the manual will \u201chelp us remember the hard-learned lessons from the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
The manual is the Pentagon’s first all-in-one legal guide for the four military branches. Previously, each sector was tasked with writing their own guidelines for engagement, which presumably did not list journalists as potential traitors.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon did not specify the exact circumstances under which a journalist might be declared an unprivileged belligerent, but Chambers says he is sure \u201ctheir legal department is going over it, as is the National Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists.\u201d – RT.COM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pentagon has released a book of instructions on the \u201claw of war,\u201d detailing acceptable ways of killing the enemy. The manual also states that journalists can be labeled \u201cunprivileged belligerents,\u201d an obscure term that replaced \u201cenemy combatant.\u201d The 1,176-page \u201cDepartment of Defense Law of War Manual\u201d explains that shooting, exploding, bombing, stabbing, or cutting … Continue reading “Pentagon war manual authorises killing of ‘beliggerent’ journalists too”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":19520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[3076,11994,1646],"class_list":["post-19519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-journalists","tag-law-of-war","tag-pentagon"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/pentagon_rtr_img.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19522,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19519\/revisions\/19522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}