I get that, but my question is about terrorists, out of uniform, killing/spying, are these people protected by the GC. Maybe I should have worded more clearly...
” killing/spying”
They are not protected by the Geneva Convention. Article 5 of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV provides: “Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy … such … [person] shall nevertheless be treated with humanity, and in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention.”
Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibits at any time and in any place whatsoever “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds” and “the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples” with respect to “persons taking no active part in hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause.”
So the killing I think you mean for spies is illegal and is punishable by civil law if they are not military. If military, court-martial.
And to take it a little further,if a person in combat with a soldier lays down arms, he has to be treated honorably until after trial at which time he may be imprisoned, released, or executed.
But this is a gray area you are in. We are not at war with anyone at the present time. This is an action with the joining and discretion of the US, all our allies, the UN, and every governing unit in the world. What keeps us here is our ability to return fire as retaliation. And the people we are shooting at have no common uniforms, no based country, and no common theology. They are the Elks club on steroids. And they can turn into civilian appearance, which they really are, at the turn of a corner. They are not soldiers, they are a sect of people.
This is why we entered Iraq in joint resolution with other countries and the blessing of the UN. We went into Iraq to stop him from supporting terrorists and to stop him from attacking his neighbors along with the threat to Israel. He did attack Israel during the conflict, btw. So our war was with Iraq, not terrorists/spies.
rwood