Three Kings or Three Dogs

Three Kings or Three Dogs

This was definitely NOT an Oscar contender. The movie and the filming were to say the least, crummy. However, in all that I was able to find at least nine instances of war crimes violations, or what I perceive as being violations. Now the key is to take three and codify them into violations of an established law or treaty.

The first and most obvious violation occurred in the first five minutes of the film. This was the scene where Mark Walberg’s character says that he sees a man with a weapon on top of a structure and shots him dead. Walberg didn’t take notice to the white flag the man was beginning to waive. This is a violation of the essential rules that were drawn up by the ICRC to explain humanitarian laws, “It is forbidden to kill or wound an adversary who surrenders or who can no longer take part in the fighting.” It may not have been very obvious but if the character had taken a moment to observe the totality of the entire scene he would have been able to come to the same conclusion. The Iraqi was in the process of surrendering.

The second violation that I observed was in the beginning of the movie when the three characters arrive at the hiding location of the gold. The one character, played by George Clooney, wonders why there are soldiers guarding a well. The movie shows the soldiers, dressed with civilian clothes over their military uniforms showing their camouflage pants and boots under the long black robes they were wearing. This is a violation of the essential rules that were drawn up by the ICRC to explain humanitarian laws, “The parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare the civilian population and civilian property. Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked.”

Another violation that I observed was at the end of the movie when the civilians were being taken to Iran. When they arrived at the border the Iraqi soldiers herded them into a fenced area. One Iraqi soldier was observed hitting one civilian in the face, through the fence. This is a violation of the essential rules that were drawn up by the ICRC to explain humanitarian laws says, “Captured combatants and civilians who find themselves under the authority of the adverse party are entitled to respect for their lives, their dignity, their personal rights and their political, religious and other convictions. They must be protected against all acts of violence or reprisal. They are entitled to exchange news with their families and receive aid. They must enjoy basic judicial guarantees.”

There were more violations being portrayed in the movie. The torturing of prisoners, military and civilian, citizens being executed, preventing civilians from fleeing the combat zone and the oil fields that were set on fire in Kuwait by the Iraqi Army. The movie was one long violation of war crimes.

The question was also raised to try and find instances where rules were being followed that do not come from treaty laws. I would imagine that the underlying premise of the movie was the safe movement of the civilians from the war zone to Iran. This was an instance where the military personnel looked beyond their greed and did something that was right. Another instance of rules being followed was where the American soldiers were being told to not engage the Iraqis because there was a surrender and treaty in place. Until captured and when in the open the Iraqis appeared to be following the same treaty. The movie then portrayed them as violators when they invoked torturous acts against civilians and the American military.
I wonder if there are any movies that accurately portray the rules of war being followed?