Its not that they are wearing civilian uniforms as much as that they are using civilians as shields (and killing those that flee, or in some cases the families of those who won't fight). Moreover, 200 years ago there was no GENEVA CONVENTION! In WWI chemical weapons were accepted, as were many other gruesome things, but no lnger. Also, while your description of human nature during desperate times is understandable, I hope that you would not be so complicit in human rights violations and political crimes that you would feel the need to fight and slaughter innocents the way Sadaam's thug group (mujaheedan-sp?) must.
The method of securing our independence was par for the course of that day and age, and very tame compared to what we see today. A lot of what we learned we learned about war we learned from the Native Americans and from the French and patriots who served in their French and Indian wars. The principles of our constitution are mostly unchanged, apart from the current amendments to it. We have a process whereby it can be amended. Our constitution serves us very well. And, yes, I am stating that our battle methods used 225 years ago are irrelevant to what is taking place today by the suicide bombers and other terrorist tactics employed today. We have evolved as a society, the Arabs apparently have not. Show me the system of justice, the degree of civilization in Iraq in the past 200 years, their evolutionary process towards greater concepts of humanity, and I might have a different perspective.
And no doubt they are full of convicted rationalizers as well, and of course you dodge the issue of right and wrong, and civilized notions of what is right and wrong compared to the barbarism being practiced by Saddam, his regime, and Arab terrorists. Not surprised at your response, as you really have no defense.
epistemology is the study of what we can know and how e can know it. But in order to live as part of a society, we must operate under the assumption that our logical system is sound, for it (centered on math) is the best and most objective truth we can know. Starting with this, we can definitely make some defensible statements about what is fair. There is a difference between defensible and being able to eliminate all other values, for value statements are inherently relative. However, there are also values that are commonly recognized across societies and that many suggest are at least somewhat innate (at least in most people, barring being brainwashed). These values, coupled with logical arguments for their implementation through tangible rules, provide a basis for making many moral judgements (although clearly there will always be, even in war times, many other, perhaps many more, disputable grey areas).
I'm not French, but I was tempted to vote for Iraq, as Iraq is likely to be the greatest beneficiary of a coalition military victory.
And one of the wisest, if not the wisest, thing the framers did was to make the Constitution one that is flexible, that is, one that can be changed and adapted. These bright people realized that times and circumstances change!!
Basic concept of right and wrong, since you have no understanding. That which we like to have done to us is good. That which we don't like to have done to us is bad. Murderers don't like being murdered. Cheaters don't like being cheated. Thieves don't like being robbed. Adulter's don't like to have their spouse commit adultery behind their back. Do you get the drift? Can I make that any more simple for you?