What Exactly are War Crimes?

  A war crime is any act of war which violates the laws or customs of war. You can break it down further as an action which is not justified by military or civilian necessity.

This description covers a wide range of possible situations and to be honest each incident must be evaluated according to it's own merits. Sometimes actions which can be called a war crime in one situation may not warrant that label in another.

War crimes can fall under a lot of very broad categories but some types of war crimes would be executing prisoners or wounded combatants, abuse or torture etc. My definition of a war crime is something that you do that just downright mean, nasty, and uncalled for.

Now if you are in imminent danger in a situation the action that you have to take to defend yourself might be a war crime under other circumstances. A good example of this is that out troops in Afghanistan who were manning guard posts were authorized to shoot into vehicles that refused to stop. This might be considered a crime if it was not for the threat of car bombers.

War crimes have always existed and always will. The Hague and Geneva conventions try to outline rules of warfare but the problem is that most people don't think that they can win by following the rules. War is such a nasty business that its easy to get things twisted. Its hard to win by playing fair because the other guy is going to be pulling aces out of his sleeves, socks, and underwear.

Every country which has ever fought a war has had some of its units to commit atrocities. The thing that helps to keep the US Armed Services in check are the dire consequences that our servicemen and women will face if they commit a war crime. Think back on the incidents at Abu Graib prison in Iraq. Very few other countries would have gone through the effort that we did to police their armies.  Military Ring Express