The North Vietnamese would often transport military supplies on livestock, by bicycle, and in unmarked vehicles. In any case, it doesn't excuse their repeated torture and murder of PoWs.
There can be no conversation about the US war in Vietnam without recognizing the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by American forces.
The Vietnam War was a war, and wars cause civilian casualties. North Vietnam ran a very effective, organized campaign of terror against South Vietnam and its supporters. The South Vietnamese and American forces were each responsible for many deaths of innocents, through negligence and more isolated malevolence.
"A war is a war" is a particularly terrible argument given the war in discussion was the Vietnam War
That’s not whataboutism, that’s setting context for why were we’re bombing North Vietnam in the first place.
These things don’t happen in a vacuum.
You would do well to remember that poor treatment of the opposing force went both ways in Vietnam. And that the US were the invading force.
https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massa...
No, the North Vietnamese were the invading force. They invaded South Vietnam, and after the Paris Peace Accords they invaded it again and conquered it.
Don't be a fool for the PR, they didn't purposely not wear uniforms, in the same way that the Taliban dont wear a uniform. In general these are not armed forces but irregulars, locals protecting their homeland. If the US was invaded do you think every gun owner is going to sign up and dress in military fatigues? Or are they going to fight back regardless of what they happen to be wearing?
If, on the other hand, one side systematically avoids identification of combatants and related personnel, that side is responsible for any civilian deaths (as well as not being entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions).
True.
> If, on the other hand, one side systematically avoids identification of combatants and related personnel, that side is responsible for any civilian deaths (as well as not being entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions).
Both claims are false. With regard to the second, such combatants are not entitled to protection as POWs under Geneva (III), but, as a consequence, they are protected as civilians under Geneva (IV). A key difference is the latter may be criminally charged for engaging in combat while the former may not, but there are still procedural and substantive protections.
My second claim was overbroad; I meant it in the common sense of talking about the third Geneva Convention relating to PoWs, but I concede that I didn't specify that, though I could argue that North Vietnam was effectively not bound by the Convention (thus excluding their nationals from protection).
You said the side not using insignia (which neither implies nor is implied by using human shields) becomes responsible for all civilian casualties in the conflict.
Certainly, a side violating the laws of war in any way bears full responsibility for the civilian casualties (and any other harms) actually resulting from that wrongful act and no other wrongful act by another party. But they don't become responsible for the impacts of acts due to other unrelated violations of the laws of war by another party, and to the extent that they are responsible impacts of related violations of the laws of war by another party, that responsibility is shared with the other party. Nor does the violation make them morally responsible for civilian casualties in the conflict that don't result from the violation, in the first place.