The terrorist rules of engagement

NY Times:

We were in a small house in Zarqa, Jordan, trying to interview two heavily bearded Islamic militants about their distribution of recruitment videos when one of us asked one too many questions.

“He’s American?” one of the militants growled. “Let’s kidnap and kill him.”

The room fell silent. But before anyone could act on this impulse, the rules of jihadi etiquette kicked in. You can’t just slaughter a visitor, militants are taught by sympathetic Islamic scholars. You need permission from whoever arranges the meeting. And in this case, the arranger who helped us to meet this pair declined to sign off.

“He’s my guest,” Marwan Shehadeh, a Jordanian researcher, told the bearded men.

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This jihad etiquette is not written down, and for good reason. It varies as much in interpretation and practice as extremist groups vary in their goals. But the rules have some general themes that underlie actions ranging from the recent rash of suicide bombings in Algeria and Somalia, to the surge in beheadings and bombings by separatist Muslims in Thailand.

Some of these rules have deep roots in the Middle East, where, for example, the Egyptian Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi has argued it is fine to kill Israeli citizens because their compulsory military service means they are not truly civilians.

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Here are six of the more striking jihadi tenets, as militant Islamists describe them:

Rule No. 1: You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt.

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Rule No. 2: You can kill children, too, without needing to feel distress.

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Rule No. 3: Sometimes, you can single out civilians for killing; bankers are an example.

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Rule No. 4: You cannot kill in the country where you reside unless you were born there.

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Rule No. 5: You can lie or hide your religion if you do this for jihad.

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Rule No. 6. You may need to ask your parents for their consent.

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The parental rule is currently waived inside Iraq, where Islamists say it is every Muslim’s duty to fight the Americans, Dr. Massari says. It is optional for residents of nearby countries, like Jordan.

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One of the interesting aspects of the story is that the Geneva Conventions are never mentioned by the authors much less the jihadis. In fact many of the jihadi rules of engagement are in contravention of the Geneva Conventions. But the NY Times rules of engagement apply those conventions only to our side of the war. They justify this in the same kind of rationalization as the jihadis justify their violations. In doing so they overlook basic contract law. The Conventions are only applicable between the "high contracting" parties. The NY Times and liberals stand this principal on its head and look at them as a unilateral contract that is enforcible on the US regardless of the conduct of the enemy. This is done on the invalid premise that if we don't follow the conventions the enemy want either. Never mind, that they want anyway.