War Crimes:

WWII: "Starting in April 1945, the United States Army and the French Army casually annihilated one million [German] men, most of them in American camps . . . Eisenhower's hatred, passed through the lens of a compliant military bureaucracy, produced the horror of death camps unequalled by anything in American history . . . an enormous war crime."
-- Col. Ernest F. Fisher, PhD Lt.
101 st Airborne Division, Senior Historian, United States Army.

The Geneva Convention:

The Geneva Convention of 1949 was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II in an effort to place some restrictions on the murderous proclivities of the great powers.

Article 3 of the Convention states that “members of the armed forces who have laid down their arms ... shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith ... or any other similar criteria.”

The Convention specifically prohibits “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture” and the “passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”

The torture of POWs is specifically prohibited in Article 17, which states: “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”

The Geneva Convention states in Article 23 that no prisoner of war may “be sent to, or detained in areas where he may be exposed to fire or the combat zone” and that prisoners of war must be afforded protection against “air bombardment and other hazards of war.”

War crimes in Iraq:

The recent war in Iraq witnessed serious war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by the US led coalition forces.

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits "all measures … of terrorism" against civilians (G4, art. 33). Protocol I prohibits "acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population" (art. 51). According to the ICRC Commentary, while acts of violence related to war almost always cause some degree of terror against the civilian population and sometimes the armed forces, this provision is instead intended to prohibit acts of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population. Threats of terror are also prohibited. Any attack aimed at civilians is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

An occupying power has a duty to restore and ensure public order and safety in the territory under its authority. Under customary international law, this duty begins once a stable regime of occupation has been established, but under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the duty attaches as soon as the occupying force is in contact with the civilians of that territory, that is, at the soonest possible moment (this principle is reflected in U.S. military regulations)

Military commanders on the spot must prevent and where necessary suppress serious violations involving the local population under their control or subject to their authority. Ensuring local security includes protecting people from reprisals and revenge attacks, such as against minority groups or local officials. Commanders are responsible for restoring and ensuring public order and safety as far as possible, and shall take all appropriate measures within their power to do so.

Parties to an armed conflict are responsible for the well-being and health of the population under their control, and to facilitate assistance by neutral relief agencies.

A force occupying territory has a duty to supply the population with food and medicine "to the fullest extent of the means available to it". If any part of the population of an occupied territory is inadequately supplied, the occupying power shall facilitate relief by humanitarian agencies. However, the provision of assistance by humanitarian agencies does not relieve the occupying force of its responsibilities to meet the needs of the population. All sides must facilitate rapid and unimpeded assistance to civilians by impartial humanitarian agencies. A party must allow the "free passage" of food, medicine, and other essential supplies to civilians under control of adversary forces.

It is a violation of International Humanitarian Law for an armed force to directly target civilians or carry out attacks that do not discriminate between civilians and soldiers, or which cause civilian casualties disproportionate to the military advantage gained.

Military attacks on civilian TV or radio stations are prohibited if they are designed primarily to undermine civilian morale or to psychologically harass the civilian population. Although stopping enemy propaganda may serve to demoralize the Iraqi population and to undermine the government's political support, neither purpose offers the "concrete and direct" military advantage necessary under international law to make civilian broadcast facilities a legitimate military target.

War crimes in Afghanistan:

On December 1st the last of some 80 survivors of the US-British-Northern Alliance assault on the Qala-i-Janghi prison fortress outside Mazar-i-Sharif emerged from their underground hideouts and surrendered to their assailants. For six days, American and British special forces joined with troops loyal to Northern Alliance General Rashid Dostum in a massive and one-sided attack on 400 to 800 non-Afghan Taliban who had surrendered the previous day in Kunduz. The US, Britain and Northern Alliance justified their slaughter of the prisoners, most of whom were killed in two days of American air strikes, on the grounds that the Taliban captives had staged an uprising.

In the absence of any significant international outcry against the massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif, the  act of mass murder was carried out by US warplanes and helicopter gunships, directed by US Special Forces and CIA personnel, and backed by several thousand soldiers of the Northern Alliance. As many as 800 prisoners were killed at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress. The foreign-born Taliban, however, were either killed singly, in acts of individual murder, or rounded up in large groups and trucked away for subsequent interrogation, torture and execution. During the week-long siege of Kunduz, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made repeated statements calling for the killing or imprisonment of all captured foreign Taliban—in other words, he demanded the systematic violation of the Geneva Convention. A columnist in the Pakistani newspaper The Nation declared that the killings at Mazar-i-Sharif “can only be quantified as a conspiracy and premeditated genocide.” No matter how US officials try to gloss over what happened, there could be no justification, even from a military standpoint, for the wanton slaughter of hundreds of captured soldiers. Almost as sickening as the massacre itself is the universal silence on the part of the American media, including the so-called liberal press, about the cold-blooded murder of Taliban prisoners. Not a single US newspaper or media outlet—many of which had reporters on the scene who know exactly what happened—has raised any serious questions about the action.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called for an inquiry into the events at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress, and were joined by Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The United States and Britain rejected all such appeals.