The Geneva Conventions and Modern War Essay

“When war is thrust upon the nation, the President had not only the authority but the responsibility to ‘resist force by force.’” –U.S. Supreme Court ruling of the Prize Cases, 1862 (67 U.S. 6335).

Geneva Conventions are rules laid down by various member nations that are applied in times of armed conflict. The Geneva convention seeks to protect people the sick, civilians, the wounded, and prisoners of war. USA is a member nation of the Geneva Conventions, having signed the 1977 protocols. Under the Geneva Conventions, the torture and abuse of prisoners is barred. Waterboarding is a torture technique used on prisoners, hence, it is also

John Dower's War without Mercy describes the ugly racial issues, on both the Western Allies and Japanese sides of the conflict in the Pacific Theater as well as all of Asia before during and after World War II and the consequences of these issues on both military and reconstruction policy in the Pacific. In the United States as well as Great Britain, Dower dose a good job of proving that, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor." (8) On this issue, there was no dispute among contemporary observers including the respected scholars and writers as well as the media. During World War II the Japanese are perceived as a race apart, a species apart referred to as apes, but at

Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War is a novel that is a personal view of the Vietnam War from the perspective of a Vietnamese soldier. Like the American novel “The things they carried”, this novel brings about the effects of war on people, and especially how it defeats the human capacity for things such as love and hope. Bao Ninh offers this realistic picture of the Vietnam War’s impact on the individual Vietnamese soldier through use of a series of reminiscences or flashbacks, jumping backwards and forwards in time between the events most salient in memory, events which take on a different theme each time they are examined. His main protagonist Kien, who is basically Bao himself, looks back not just at his ten years at

In the book, War without Mercy, Race and Power in the Pacific War, by John W. Dower and Published by Pantheon Books in 1986, the author powerfully illustrates the extreme racial tensions of Japan and the United States and how they affected policies in both countries. During World War II, the altercations between Japan and the United States were often overlooked, since Germany was taking all of the attention away from the world. But, as described by Dower, the ugly racial battles between Japan and the United States obviously point out that there was more friction between the two countries than most people believe. Another overlooked aspect of

The book “Unbroken” was a seemingly impossible tale of triumph and survival of an Olympic runner and WWII veteran named Louis Zamperini. He constantly had to overcome adversity in his early years, for he was an immigrant from Italy and a trouble maker before his brother Pete steered him into running track. This immediately turned him around as he did well enough to in running to break all sorts if local records, which were accomplished while his competitors were trying to sabotage his runs. This qualified him for the 1936 Olympic in Berlin, where he met Hitler. He still had running aspirations but felt he had no choice other than fighting in the world due to the fact that the 1940 Olympics were

Red Cross has segmented its operations in five regions. These include American region, African region, Europe and Central Asia region, Middle-East region, and Asia and Pacific region. The principles enunciated in the first Geneva Convention were subsequently revised and amended at conferences held in 1906, 1929, and 1949 (Smith, 2000). Regional segmentation is followed by segmenting the region in country divisions. Five Swiss citizens formed a committee, which later became the ICRC, and issued a call for an international conference, which was held in Geneva in October 1863 and was

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

The establishment of the American Red Cross dates back to 1881, though its roots lie in Europe where due to Swiss entrepreneur Jean Henri Dunant and jurist Gustave Moynier’s trials representatives of 12 states and kingdoms signed the first Geneva Convention on August 22, 1864. The convention became a foundation of the International Red Cross. Nonetheless, there was an American observer at the inaugural Red Cross conference, but the United States did not ratify the Geneva Convention due to the Civil War occurred in the country at that time.

The western way of war consists of five foundations that have shaped a significant amount of military cultures; the foundations are superior technology, discipline, a finance system, innovation, and military tradition. Perhaps people believe that discipline is not one of the most important foundations of the western way of war, since people tend to emphasize technology. However, discipline is the key to maximizing the other four foundations before and during conflict. Historian Geoffrey Parker agrees that technology can give a military advantage, but it is not sufficient without superior discipline. That is because discipline consists of the ability of armies to act within battle plans even when not supervised, obey orders, exercise loyalty, and restrain their fears when faced with danger. Discipline as a western way of war has influenced military cultures from the Roman Empire to today’s militaries. Discipline shaped military cultures by how they prepared for war, effectively giving them the ability to act during combat and expanding commander’s operational reach, thus aiding in conflicts throughout history and increasing the likelihood of defeating the adversary.

John Dower's War Without Mercy talks about the racial conflict in War World II towards the Japanese and how it affected the war and the reconstruction of the Pacific. “The Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor. On this, there was no dispute among contemporary observers. They were perceived as a race apart, even a species apart -- and an overpoweringly monolithic one at that. There was no Japanese counterpart to the 'good German' in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies." (8) Mostly he focused on the American atrocities than the Japanese atrocities during the Pacific war.

Distinction takes on fundamental importance in relation to abuse, as disclosed after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Geneva Conventions are gaining because the nature binding with respect to two events: the war in Afghanistan began in October 2001. And the invasion of Iraq started in March 2003. This situation, the state corresponding to aggression on the part of terrorists should strictly comply with the Geneva conventions, the violation of which would result in the creation of war crimes. It also means, with respect to persons detained in connection with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no automatic and complete exclusion above all common art. 3 of the Geneva Conventions, contrary to the position adopted by the

On September 9, 2001, Osama Bin Laden told his mother that she was going to hear some “big news” and then not hear from him for a while (qtd. in Davis). Two days later, the “big news” arrived; America was forever changed as four hijacked commercial airliners destroyed the World Trade Centers and severely damaged the Pentagon. These terrorist attacks left approximately three thousand Americans dead and an entire country in mourning and in fear. Due to these horrifying attacks, families were torn apart, friends that had gone to work were never seen again, and children would grow up without knowing their parents. American lives were destroyed on September 11, 2001, by radical Islamic extremists from the now well-known group, Al-Qaeda. Presently, this group still seeks to destroy the United States and kill as many Americans as possible. These barbarians killed innocent men, innocent women, and innocent children without a second thought. They are not classified as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention (a set of rules developed to protect the treatment of prisoners-of-war); yet they are treated comparably to criminals that have shoplifted; they live in a pristine jail cell and are fed three meals a day out of the taxpayer’s pocket. The Geneva Convention apply to prisoners-of-war. To understand why terrorists should not be protected by the Geneva

The first world law was the Geneva Protocol.This law “prohibits the use of "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices" and "bacteriological methods of warfare". It was named the “Geneva” Protocol because it was written into place in Geneva, Switzerland on June 17th 1925. But problems arose as it did not ban production and storage of the weapons.

to health and right to peace all go hand in hand. A country at war