The premier Pakistani newspaper Dawn reports today of two separate drone attacks by U.S. forces against targets in Pakistan:
In the attack in South Waziristan, an unmanned drone fired two missiles at a vehicle killing six people in the Sar Kanda area of Birmil in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal district of South Waziristan.
While talking to Dawn.com, local Taliban and intelligence sources confirmed the killing of pro-government and anti-US Taliban commander Mullah Nazir along with five of his companions near Wana.
One might concede that such a drone strike could be legal because the Pakistani government seems to condone these and has done nothing to prevent them. But there was another drone strike today and that one was, independent of the Pakistani government's stand, blandly illegal and constitutes a war crime:
Separately, four people were killed and several others injured in a drone attack in the Mubarak Shahi village in North Waziristan tribal region’s Mir Ali Tehsil.
The US drone targeted a vehicle with two missiles, and then fired another two missiles when rescuers gathered at the site to carry the bodies and the injured.
Such an attack on first responders have happened before and are, even by U.S. military standards, explicitly designated as being against the law of war.
Consider this from the MARINE
CORPS COMMON SKILLS HANDBOOK (pdf, pg 21)
The nine principles of the law of war are
· Fight only enemy combatants.
· Do not harm enemies who surrender: disarm them and turn them over to your superior.
· Do not kill or torture prisoners.
· Collect and care for the wounded, whether friend or foe.
· Do not attack medical personnel, facilities, or equipment.
· Do not destroy more than the mission requires.
· Do not steal; respect private property and possessions.
· Do your best to prevent violations of the law of war; report all violations to your superiors, a military lawyer, a chaplain, or
provost marshal.
An attack on first responders is clearly a violation of the three highlighted points.
"Who cares," one might think. With U.S. justice keeping even the legal rational for assassinating U.S. citizens secret, there is no chance that those who committed this war crime by ordering and/or executing the killing of first responders will ever be found guilty in front of a court.
But even then, the Marines' manual argues, the consequences of such war crimes can be dire:
Violations of the law of war have an adverse impact on public opinion, both nationally and internationally. Instead of weakening the enemy's will to fight, such violations actually strengthen it. In fact, they have, on occasion, served to prolong a conflict by inciting an opponent to continue resistance. Violations of these principles prejudice the good order and discipline essential to success in combat.
The U.S. military knows that such attacks on first responders strengthen the enemy and prolong the conflict. Knowing that are we to conclude that this was the purpose of this attack?