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Army Plans Overhaul of Infantry Gear
nxg125 writes "Wired is running an article about a seven-year, $250 million revamping of the US Army's uniforms. One of the major obstacles is going to be how to power all the electronic devices that the soldiers will use. 'They have at least one idea, though. "Avoid the use of Microsoft Windows operating systems," a recent memo on the subject directed. FFW is going open source. Cleaner software needs less energy to run.'"
"We're stripping the soldier down to his skin, and ..." said ... De Gay,
> The US (and most other nations) is a nation that obeys the Geneva Convention
> Part of that is that deliberate attacks on civilian targets aren't allowed.
I understand that you are explaining a specific example of the hows and whys of the Geneva convention. However it should be pointed out that it is false that the US obeys the Geneva Convention.
The US evokes the Geneva Convention to give its populace a sense that it is acting morally when it is waging war. It's not even ostensibly true anymore that the US obeys the Geneva Convention, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo being the most recent examples - in addition to the then-secret bombings of Cambodia and Laos and the attack on Panama being others - never mind war by proxy in greater Israel and Afghanistan, and passivity in the face of other human rights atrocities since the inception of the GC.
Given that the US doesn't even follow these rules, I don't see how it makes any sense to bother having a discussion about why the other guys should not use certain tactics. That being said, I don't see how it makes any sense to talk about rules, fairness, or morals on the battlefield. Once two groups decide to kill each other, all (or nothing) is fair.