How do you persuade a soldier not to kill civilians?

from AlertNet

From Genghis Khan on horseback to Winston Churchill in his underground Cabinet War Rooms, from Osama Bin Laden in a mountain cave to the dreadlocked militiamen of northern Uganda, wartime leaders have unleashed horror on civilians.

The limits that might seem reasonable in peacetime can be a lot less clear cut in the heat of conflict, a humanitarian expert argues in a new book.

Killing civilians isn't anything new, but if we understand how people justify the act, maybe we can make it less acceptable, argues author Hugo Slim, who's seen plenty of wars and their aftermath as an aid worker in Africa and the Middle East.

"Dragging a stick around a huddle of people to mark them as sacred is exaggerated because civilian identity is ambiguous," Slim writes in his book, "Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War". "But it's necessary because without it everyone would be fair game, and then mass killing and suffering become the norm."

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