Three Kings

Here is a list of my observations regarding the movie Three Kings.

For starters, the whole movie is predicated on a violation of IHL, which is the no pillaging rule. First, the Iraqis pillaged from Kuwait, and then the Americans pillaged from the Iraqis, though I'm not sure to what extent they were pillaging given that the goods were stolen in the first place. Anyway, I find this rule to be rather dull, because then piracy is illegal, which would invalidate all those fun pirate jokes, and then what would be the point of LIVING?

Anyway. The first scene in the entire movie actually prompted an argument between my boyfriend and me over what exactly happened and whether it constituted a violation of IHL or not. We actually watched the scene at least three times, and I'm still ambivalent. The scene I'm referring to is the one in which Mark Wahlberg shoots an Iraqi who appears to be waving something, but at the same time rotates in position and also appears to be turning his gun to face the Americans. When the Americans see the dead man up close, it becomes apparent that he was waving a white flag. However, he pretty clearly was turning, with his gun pointed at Mark Wahlberg. In other words, I have no idea what happened. Was he actually surrendering, or using the white flag as a trick to kill the Americans? I suspect that, either way, Mark Wahlberg's character would not have been prosecuted, as the situation was rather ambiguous, and he certainly was acting in self-defense. IHL requires that soldiers who are captured are not harmed in any way. In that vein, there were several instances of mistreatment of captured soldiers. There was, of course, torture. Obviously, torture is not allowed. Ever. Civilian or otherwise. Torture brings me to my second ambiguity regarding this movie. My boyfriend asked if the Americans were allowed to force the Iraqis to strip naked when they surrendered, and I said I was pretty sure they were allowed to do it, as long as it wasn't in a degrading manner. If it can be done in a non-degrading manner. It seems that the Americans had a right to be sure that none of the surrendering soldiers had, for example, secret maps stashed in their colons. Or bombs strapped under their uniforms. I'm not sure, however, whether it was technically legal because prisoners of war are guaranteed their dignity.

A very clear violation of IHL (and therefore a blessed respite from all this grey area) was the use of landmines, because they cannot distinguish between civilian and soldier, and therefore violate the principle of discrimination.

My final observation, and yet ANOTHER ambiguous moment for me, is in regards to the Iraqi army's suppression of the uprising. Certainly a sovereign state has the right to suppress an armed uprising by its citizens (though I would posit that if said state were appropriately democratic, the likelihood of their being an uprising worth speaking of would substantially decrease). However, as in Vietnam, and again in the Second Iraq War, how can one tell who the rebels are when they don't wear uniforms? I rather suspect this distinction would not have been made anyway in the case of the Republican Guard, but the question is still there. It is within the law for a state's military to fight rebels with military force. When the rebels come from a local population, however, and do not distinguish themselves from that population, how can the state's army avoid committing war crimes?

A specific instance of the soldiers obeying a norm that is not codified in international law was protecting civilian IDPs to get them to the Iranian border. IHL is ambigious when it comes to IDPs, and so there was no legal obligation for the Americans to protect them. This is especially significant in regards to the fact that in escorting the IDPs to the border, the Americans were directly violating international law by violating a treaty signed between the United States and Iraq.