Is War's Detterent Effect Dissapearing?

An interesting post from my favorite AC Friends Message Board. On the topic of Hezbollah/Israel, this post was expressed...

The Geneva convention does not cover the US when fighting against an enemy that doesn't wear uniforms, and that melts into the civilian populace.

The Geneva conventions set 'rules of engagement' to protect civilians from that sort of 'dishonorable' combat.

If one party doesn't honor them, then neither party is bound. Period.

Read them. Really.

The Geneva Conventions are there to protect/spare civilian casualties.

Hamas/Hezbollah are endangering civilians, and should be called out on it.

If the UN stated clearly: That anyone (civilian or otherwise) who allows Hezbollah to operate from their neighborhoods, and hide behind their innocent (non-combative) status - then they too become valid military targets.

...then there would be no more whining about civlians getting killed in the war.

War used to be pretty cut and dry. If you didn't want your civilians killed, you didn't start a war. If you were willing to risk civilian casualties of great proportion to meet your objective, then you started a war.

Can you note the difference? Wars 'deterrant effect' is ebbing with this whole misguided theory of 'sanitized war'.

Interesting - that seems like a strong argument to me. War's deterrant effect HAS been minimized in my opinion through the pussy-footing of international entities and the propoganda/effects of the media.

I feel I want to do more research on this - I'm liking the sound of this theory.