Several points of distinction (and law) that the US bashing crowd doesn’t (want to) understand:
No picture of any Iraqi prisoners was broadcast or sanctioned by any US government owned or controlled media source. The Iraqi pictures of American POW’s was done on a Iraqi government owned and control TV station.
The US media (not US controlled) only showed pictures of Iraqi EPW’s as they were surrendering and being searched. No humilation, torture, no interrogations or anything else (maybe embarrassing to Saddam though).
The “detainees” in Cuba are considered in the same category as spies, and under international law could be executed immediately without trial or imprisionment. Yet we treat them better than our POW’s are being treated by Iraq.
The two “detainees” who died in Afghanistan were both autopsied by the US government, and the information released by the US government. It is currently being investigated for possible criminal charges. Any other country do this kind of thing? Do you think the French would have published these kind of findings? Or is this the “higher standard” crap again?
And the fact is, none of you have a clue to what happened to these guys. How do you know they weren’t injured prior to interrogation? How do you know anything about them? (ohh, ,that’s right, the US government told you, remember? Doesn’t the US government always lie? So … there must be a hidden, evil agenda here somewhere … it must not be true that two detainees died … maybe it’s the evil US government’s poor attempt at psychological stress on other prisoners …). The fact is, no matter what our government does … to you it is wrong.
No picture of any Iraqi prisoners was broadcast or sanctioned by any US government owned or controlled media source. [/qyuote]Irrelevant. The directive of the GC is to “protect” POWs from “public curiosity.” In the footage described above by myself and others, the government–ascting through its military–was actively assisting in exposing the prisoners to public curiosity.
Have you read the fucking thread? That’s completely false. In fact, POWs have been shown handcuffed while kneeling under armed guard, being poked and prodded by journalists while huddled under blankets in the middle of the night, and any number of other post-surrender circumstances.
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3. The “detainees” in Cuba are considered in the same category as spies, and under international law could be executed immediately without trial or imprisionment.
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Nice assertion, but it’s entirely without legal merit. Back it up with actual law or retract it, 'cause it’s horsecrap.
Nonsense. The Geneva Convention defines a handful of very specific categories of persons who are to have the status of prisoners of war. None of the categories (reprinted in the GQ thread I linked earlier) even come close to what you describe here.
There is another way of describing them, you know: Prisoners taken in an armed conflict but who are not Prisoners of War as defined by the Geneva Convention. Such prisoners are still subject to any number of basic human rights protections under international treaties to which the U.S. is a party, but the either/or dichotomy you’re setting up here just doesn’t have any basis in international law.
Irrelevant indeed, As well as Mintys note that the military (both sides) was complicit in allowing those folk to be filmed, the ‘subjected to public curiosity’ can only have been meant to apply in the same way as ‘subjected to radiation’, ‘subjected to medical examination’.
Something that happens to the person, that they are aware of, that affects them.
Neither did the tape discussed here show humilation, torture, or interrogations.
Heck, it was hardly even an interview.
Oh, and the media being requested by the state department to withhold the story is not being ‘controlled’? Don’t challenge the difference between requested & required if you think what would happen to the embedded reporters of a station that refused.
This is quite true, and of course neither do you.
They had just been captured in combat, and were superficially injured. What happened afterwards is pure speculation - I sure wouldn’t want to be there - but to assume they are already in the plastic shredder is unfounded prejudice.
You may have your points, but you’re not making them well, As Minty says, read the thread.
—But I think you would be on much more solid ground if you could provide facts that would put al Qaeda within the terms of the Geneva Convention, rather than just wailing and bemoaning the lack of an appellate procedure, when none is required by the Convention.—
Really? What’s article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention all about then?
Amnesty International seems to disagree with you. The International Red Cross seems to disagree with you. The High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the U.N. seem to disagree. I don’t claim the issue is certain, but the issue is not simply imaginary, and these are not crazy extremist groups: the latter few are pretty heavily involved in making the Geneva Conventions what they are in the world today.
—Yes. Such is life.—
If “such were life” then the Convention would be utterly meaningless in practice: if there are no verification proceedures, then there are no functional requirements.
Is shaving of their religious beards ok, under international law?
minty, the Taliban and even AQ appear to me to fall squarely under paragraph 2 of the GC (voluntary militia under command of a Party to the conflict), their only omission being 2b, “an insignia or emblem identifiable from distance”.
They must have had some way of distinguishing the enemy (the Northern Alliance et al. seemed identically dressed to me - were they outside the GC too?). Under this interpretation, is it also true that US/UK/AUS Special Forces should expect Camp X-Ray status if captured?
Again, it seems that “unlawful combatant” is something any state can shout in order to avoid messy extradition proceedings.
The key words were **Same category ** as spies. The distinction is that Al Queda members come from many different countries, and are not fighting on behalf of those countries. This is the problem with Geneva laws, the laws apply to war between nations. Al Queda is not a nation. They have waged war against America through terrorism, which until recently was considered somewhat of a civil crime punishable by death in most states, or life in prison in others. However the US now considers terrorism as a national matter, and is stuck in their position of how to punish them. Until we figure out what to do, they will be detained by the military.
They are prisoners, but applying the term POW would imply that they belonged to and was fighting in the name of a nation. That would imply that America is at war with Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, etc. etc.
If a CIA agent was caught and killed the CIA would disavow knowledge of said agent, and the federal government and military would not be involved from a legal standpoint. Same thing with KGB etc. The agents know this well before hand, and that is the risk they take. That is also why their is a difference in Geneva convention laws to take into account the difference from spies and soldiers.