US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.
official US Army compendium of the international law of war
Section III. Provisions Common to the Territories of the Parties to the Conflict and to Occupied Territories
272. Individual Responsibility, Collective Penalties, Reprisals, Pillage No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Treatment of Enemy Property:
393. Destruction and Seizure of Property a. Prohibition.
It is especially forbidden to destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war
But more than that, it is stupid and vicious,