Poor, Edmund W stated for the record: The Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Annex to the Convention, Article 27 (signed 1907) provides: "In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religions, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monument, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes. "It is the dury of the besieged to indicate the presence of such buildings or places by distinctive and visible signs, which shall be notified to the enemy beforehand." Similar clauses can be found in numerous later conventions and treaties. Now go thou and Wikipediate. -- Sean Barrett | I got the white stars you wanted, but sean(a)epoptic.com | I couldn't find any red hearts, yellow | moons, or green clovers. --Betsy Ross

Christiaan Briggs stated for the record: In your loathing of all things "Western" you are ignoring nearly a century of international law declaring the exact opposite of what you think. The moment the first set of armed men occupied the mosque, it lost all protection under international law, and the attackers became justified in attacking the mosque. (The question of whether their presence /near/ the mosque was justified is moot.) -- Sean Barrett | I got the white stars you wanted, but sean(a)epoptic.com | I couldn't find any red hearts, yellow | moons, or green clovers. --Betsy Ross

Christiaan Briggs stated for the record: I -- or rather, the signatories of the Hague Convention of 1907 -- have already responded to your argument. To repeat: mosques, like all other religious edifices, are to be spared by any attacker "provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes." The moment the Iraqis -- however noble their cause -- took weapons into their mosque the Americans -- however despicable their cause -- became justified in attacking it. The decision of the Nuremberg Tribunal has no bearing on this principle.

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:27:53 +0100, Christiaan Briggs <christiaan(a)yurkycross.co.uk> wrote: (at the risk of needlessly prolongnig an off topic discussion) It seems to me that, having decided the US is on the morally wrong side in this war, the US should be held to a stricter standard than international law / convention calls for, while their armed opponents should be held to a lesser standard. If a detachment of US troops was occupying a mosque or other structure of religious or cultural significance -- and was still engaging in active conflict from there, rather than seeking sanctuary or attempting surrender or truce -- would their opponents be justified in firing upon them? I'm curious as to where your moral logic goes here. Are you arguing that mosques and other sacred or significant places should not be harmed no matter what? Or are you arguing simply that nothing the US does in Iraq can be right, because they are already in the wrong for being the aggressor? -Morven

On 27 Aug 2004, at 10:58 pm, Christiaan Briggs wrote: ... forgot to add, and occupies that nation on spurious justification. Christiaan