| The qualifier "wanton" links it into one thought: something is "wanton" only when it is not "justified". Going back, "murder" is not equivalent to "killing", but always implies deliberation and lack of justification, otherwise "collateral damage" would be counted as murder, and shooting rioting prisoners of war would be considered murder, which it is not necessarily. Also, interestingly,"Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory". Of course, it also says that it is not limited to these situations, but it is interesting that they qualify these acts as taking place during an occupation, not as part of an invasion, which suggests that they have in mind the ordinary definition of murder, and intend "wanton destruction of cities" to be in a wholly different category, associated, as I said, with the notion of military justification......... |
