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Jack comments on Morality and International Humanitarian Law - Less Wrong
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Yes, well then it hardly seems right to kill the farmers and other civilians who don't protest for fear of their lives and the lives of their family.
The soldiers are often fighting on pain of death too. Pretty much the only people who it is 'just' to kill are the leaders who are throwing men at each other for their own personal gain. Assassination should be considered the most honourable form of combat in war.
Agreed. Though with soldiers it is a collective action problem. If enough of them were willing to disobey orders they would have little to fear. This makes the soldiers somewhat more culpable than, say, children. The point about assassination is a good one.
Agreed. Especially since they have a gun and could at least KO their CO and leg it.
There are problems with a norm that says killing foreign leaders is OK, but wedrifid's point also has merit.
For a start, paranoid leaders kill more of their own civilians than secure ones.
On the other hand, many conflicts have a self-perpetuating nature independent of the specific leaders involved. Assassinating Alexander the Great may very well have saved Persia from conquest, but assassinating FDR or Stalin would have been of little benefit to the Axis powers. Assassinating Hitler may or may not have helped the Allied powers, and I have no idea what effect assassinating Napoleon would have had. If an assassinated leader's successor simply continues their policies, then assassination does little good.
Also, an assassination was the trigger for World War I. :(
Agreed.