There are no “rules of war”. It’s a common mis-perception.
The closest thing is the Geneva Conventions. Once there was a thing called the Hague Conventions.

http://www.answers.com/topic/hague-conferences

{snipped}
Series of international agreements signed at The Hague (1899, 1907). The first conference was requested by Russia to discuss rules to limit warfare and attempt arms limitations. Twenty-six countries attended and approved several proposed conventions, including prohibition of the use of asphyxiating gases (not renewed in 1907) and creation of a Permanent Court of Arbitration. The 1907 meeting, called by Theodore Roosevelt, was attended by 44 countries and also had arms limitation as a goal, which again went unmet. ”

Most of the governments that were there no longer exist. Which is an interesting fact of international peace treaties.

GENEVA CONVENTIONS;

http://www.answers.com/topic/geneva-conventions

{snipped}
“One of a series of agreements first formulated at an international convention held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1864, establishing rules for the treatment of prisoners of war, the sick, and the wounded.”

The GC ( Geneva Conventions) covers various aspects of war. To call them the rules of war is misleading at best, duplicity at worst.
The real problem is there are so many of the GC’s. A “war crime” depends on which version you are talking about. In the latest version (1977 IIRC) anything human or reasonably close is considered a “protected person”. In the 1948 version, which is the one Israel and the USA ratified, guerrillas, insurgents, “freedom fighters”, etc. are NOT covered by the GC, as they were not covered by ANY ‘laws of warfare’ until the GC V (1977). That is why the USA, Isreal and several other nations wouldn’t get onboard with it. Before GC V, you could do anything you wanted with captured terrorists. Hang ‘em, shoot ‘em, broil ‘em, stir fry ‘em, what ever. SOP for guerrillas was either hanging or shooting depending on the available bullet to rope ratio.
What Goldthing was trying to do is charge Israel under laws that didn’t apply to Israel. So if Israel had participated, it would have indirectly acknowledged it was bound by a treaty it didn’t sign. Ancient legal principal. If you agree to a trial, you agree to the law. It was a legal trap, one that failed.
Remember, under a modern legal system involving a jury, the law is on trial in EVER case. Laws can be and are struck down. International Law doesn’t use juries which makes the whole concept of international law suspect.
The difference between law and thugs with guns is a jury.

In the new world order, the only acceptable way to remember 9/11 is:
http://awolcivilization.com/?p=1001

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

I just want to point out what a clever stroke it was for the anti-Israel crew to have Goldstone appointed to investigate Israel for war crimes. For them his appointment was a win-win appointment, and that’s because he’s Jewish (or at leas his mother was). The anti-Israel crew’s calculus would be this way: If he exonerates Israel for war crimes, we can say: What do you expect, he’s Jewish; then we can demand that someone who is neutral do a real investigation — and that would keep the story alive yet longer. On the other hand, if he indicts Israel for war crimes, we can say: You see how heinous Israel is, even a Jew finds her guilty of war crimes.

Goldstone, being the useful idiot he was, played out their second scenario.

I posted a link to the UN Charter and snipped the relevant section and pasted it. Now I have brought that to you attention. I cannot force you to read it and wouldn’t if I could. I have never found profit in educating fools.

I love guys like you. You make all my arguments for me, though you do not realize it at all.

Looking at all this through MY lens, you Americans, and your idiots in Washington – be they Democratic or Republican, “liberal” or “conservative” – are the LIABILITY. It is WE who need to ditch YOU. Let’s start with the small stuff.

Our native made rifles are better than the M16′s your Defense Department would “sell” us. They don’t jam, they use the same ammo, and they are smaller and more compact, making them easier to carry – even in mud.

Our soldiers come from a society where things are usually lacking. This means they have to be creative and have to act on the spot. They need to improvise merely to survive. That means they perform better in the field.

Say what you will about the Turks. They are folks who committed genocide, and are unwilling to own up to that fact. Even the lousy Germans and Austrians will own to the fact that they committed genocide (however resentfully). These are not the kind of folks I would want to watch my back, and frankly you Americans are welcome to them. When they decide you are liabilities, they’ll stab you in the back – just like you Americans have back-stabbed countless trusting “allies” (ask the Gruzini, the Georgians).

YOU are in hock to the Chicoms, the Russians, the Arabs and other lovelies. THEY are your masters, unless you are willing to nuke them. They call the tune and you play. Obama is just the second of many presidents who will lead you down the humiliating path to irrelevance in the world economy.

Let’s amplify that point just a bit. At this point, you have what is called a “consumer” economy. This means that folks all over the world work for slave wages and you Americans consume what they produce – overspending like drunk pigs in a bar. At some point the leaders of the countries whose people work for slave wages will decide that they don’t need the “consumer” anymore – particularly when your money starts losing its value. That’s when you Americans go under the bus, and learn to consume a whole lot less – because nobody will sell to a bankrupt with bad money.

Now, Fnord, you still with me here? In the end, the only “assets” you have are your nukes. With those nukes, you can try to intimidate anybody – until they think it all through. The killer radiation the use of those nukes creates eventually gets back to Hawaii, San Francisco, LA, Seattle; if there is enough of it, it gets to Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Philly, Boston…. Are you getting the picture? You use your nukes to get rid of your creditors – but you die of radiation poisoning as a result. You are debt-free – and dead.

So much for the value of your nukes.

Do you now see why you Americans are a liability? Do you see why we need to eventually ditch you? The Turks probably already have figured this out. So have the Russians, the Chinese, the Persians, even the Arabs. Do youseriously think such pathetic BS like “fellow western democracies” will keep Israeli leaders from reaching the inevitable conclusions?

So, in not too long a time, you guys, who produce only movies these days, go under the bus.

It’s a damned shame. When I was a kid, America was the richest, and greatest nation on the planet. I was proud to live in America. Now pfffftt…. At least I don’t live there anymore.

Go ahead, buddy up to the Halvásh (Turks), Fnord. It is you who will be eating Halvá (a Turkish food served to mourners) in the end.

Oh, and I don’t recognize any dictatorship, any government without free elections as a valid government.

No comment needed.