• Rade0nfighter@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    For those also wondering (and I’m quoting a comment on Ars so may stand corrected…):

    Isn’t this a violation of the Geneva Conventions?

    Only if used to deliberately target infantry. The videoed operations so far seem to have been intended to burn away protective cover (trees/brush), which is a permitted use even if there’s a risk of inflicting casualties as a side effect of the application of incendiaries.

    • ilega_dh@feddit.nl
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      3 months ago

      There’s a lot of people who seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to this “that’s a war crime!!1!”, but it really is not. Incendiary weapons (like thermite, white phosphorus and napalm) are not illegal to use against legitimate military targets, including enemy combatants. It’s only a war crime when it’s used indiscriminately against civilians or in civilian areas.

      Lot of misinformation out there on this it seems.

        • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          You can start a forest fire if said forest is used for cover or concealment by enemy military forces. All feasible precautions must be taken to limit the damage to military targets only.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Honestly war crimes just have a lot of misinformation generally. Even in the military. There were people who thought we couldn’t shoot someone with a .50 cal machine gun. While this spawns funny jokes like aiming for their uniform buttons, it just isn’t true.

        • ilega_dh@feddit.nl
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          3 months ago

          Honestly, I think it’s more that people take this info from movies and just run with it than malicious (Russian) misinformation bots (although they don’t mind giving this an extra push I imagine).

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Oh God no. Nobody cares what you do to the Infantry. It’s the civilians. Don’t use this around civilians.

      Sincerely, an old infantryman.