http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/20121014102...
Our ROE says not to shoot unarmed kids. So, the enemy puts suicide vests on kids and sends them at us.
Our ROE says not to shoot people who aren't carrying a weapon. So, they shoot at us, drop their weapon, and walk to the next building to do it again.
Our ROE says not to blow up a house if there are civilians inside. So they take a family hostage and shoot at us from upstairs.
My attitude is that we use these rules as a courtesy. We didn't bomb hospitals in WW2 because those hospitals weren't being used as shelter for soldiers. We didn't bomb orphanages because they didn't have IED factories in their basements. Today's enemy does that, and then people get butthurt when we blow up the orphanage. Well, stop putting bomb factories under there!
Laws of war only apply when both sides agree to abide by them.
2. If the convention is outdated, update it. It's not like the US is pushing the Hague and others to convene treaty proceedings to get this done. Until the US actually takes any steps to try to fix this "problem", i take it as just a BS excuse.
3. You have a very strange view of what happens, one I can only imagine is contributed to mainly by local media. They do in fact, call Canada, Turkey, Sweden, and others. These are rarely, if ever, unilateral actions. Due to some folks i'm friends with, i've actually occasionally traveled with some of these kinds of delegations, and I assure you, none of this is "better call big brother US to beat these guys up".
4. They would never declassify a document that shows them having been wrong until at least 20-25 years after the fact.