I imagine you're asking about 'war crimes' because you've heard that term mentioned lately in news about the conflicts underway in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. The idea may sound confusing, because war always includes killings and destruction. But special rules restrict how wars can be fought. Historically, war had few limits. Individual societies occasionally attempted to control how wars were fought. But for much of human history, when nations attacked each other, it wasn't just soldiers who died. Many civilians ' ordinary people who weren't fighting in the war ' died, and whole cities were destroyed. There were no 'laws of war' that restricted conquests by the Egyptians and Romans in ancient times between 600 and 30 B.C. No laws limited the Mongol invasions of Europe in the 13th century or the European colonial invasions of Latin American, African and Asian societies in the 18th through 20th centuries. Even as recently as the 1940s, during World War II, U.S. and U.K. forces killed...
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