NO QUARTER!
...give no quarter was a figurative way of saying “take no prisoners”
These guys are known for feigning injury and then killing the Liberators.
Thanks for the link. In my understanding of the phrase, certainly from a layman's point of view, the term seemed to follow this logic.
Quarters being a person's living space, the lending of quarters would be providing some form of hospitality to the enemy. Perhaps favor or 'consideration' would be more prefered words than hospitality. It was my understanding that lending quarters to the enemy could be described as extending humane treatment, or reasoned treatment to the enemy after capture, or when the enemy was caught disarmed, vulernable without means of opposition.
I have no problem with this when war has been declared, leaders have been identified and non-combatants are treated with some modicum of respect, the rules that govern battlefield relations adhered to in at least a rudimentary way. Where I differ with extending quarter to the enemy, is when the enemy extends no quarter to anyone else.
The terrorists in Iraq respect no one. They kill Americans, Iraqis, any other national they can capture. They kill innocents as easily as they kill any 'reasoned' enemy. If Iraqis truly hated us and want to destroy us and push us out of their nation, that might be deemed a flawed but rational position, but that position would preclude killing innocents and clearly irrational targets.
Legitimate causes don't warrant the destruction of neutral players. Innocent Iraqis do not warrant inhialation. Food relief workers don't warrant inhialation. Infrastructure rebuilding workers and civil supply workers don't warrant inhialation.
In the strictest terms, what Iraqis might see as an illigitimate government and illigitimate foreign military forces might be bonified targets. While I would disagree with that, it could at least be argued that those were fair legitimate targets.
The tactics the terrorists in Iraq have employed, have left them vulnerable to a complete dismissal of Geneva Convention norms. Any member of the press that tries to apply Geneva Convention terms to this conflict hasn't got the amperage of a gnat, when it comes to brain function.