Good one there, jimmyT... :-)

I think it's the moral behaviour of one's own troops that one is required to regulate...since it is one's own troops that one is enabled to command and control. That is quite regardless of what the other guys are doing...specially when the other guys are guerilla fighters under little or no centralized command. How can one expect to control that? One can't.

As for "only respecting overwhelming force"...that describes EVERY participant in a war situation. No side gives in until it is overwhelmed by force. That's the definition of a fight or a war.

Still, one is well-advised to have some kind of moral code of conduct to aim for in how one carries out said warfare. Any game is played within a certain rulebook. For example, the Arab-Israeli conflict could be quickly ended by the USA simply nuking Israel and its neighbours and just killing them all, couldn't it? We don't contemplate doing that, partly because it would be insane, and partly because we would all consider it morally without justification to do so.

You have to draw the line somewhere. The US personnel crossed that line in their treatment of Iraqi prisoners. So did the fighters who beheaded Americans. The thing is, those fighters are not under our jurisdiction, but our own soldiers are. You discipline those who are under your own jurisdiction. That's just normal in running a military system or any other system.