Marjorie Cohn: Rules of Disengagement

RULES OF DISENGAGEMENT
The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent

Marjorie Cohn
President, National Lawyers Guild

Rules of engagement limit forms of combat, levels of force, and legitimate enemy targets, defining what is legal in warfare and what is not. In the modern world, the rules of engagement are defined by an established body of international law and, for American soldiers, by U.S. law as well.

When the government at the highest levels ignores these rules, when the conduct of a war and the war itself violate the law, as happened in Vietnam and is now happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers are forced into a legal and ethical dilemma. They must decide whether to abide by law and conscience--knowing the government does not--or to follow orders without regard to law.

Rules of Disengagement, a new book from activist attorney Marjorie Cohn, examines the legal and moral questions posed by these wars through the eyes of American soldiers, showing the effects the wars have had on the soldiers’ lives and those of their families.

Marjorie Cohn has been a writer, teacher, and scholar for more than 15 years and a practicing attorney since 1975. She authored Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law (PoliPointPress 2007). Her columns have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, AlterNet, Common Dreams, and The National Law Journal. She is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

Copies of Rules of Disengagement will be available for sale and signing by the author at the end of the program.


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