DubyaFollow

A lot of people like to make statements about the Geneva Convention but how many have actually read it? Or are those that do just parroting either what someone else told them or what they have read in the newpapers.

What was done over there by those soldiers does not make a US policy. But please read Article 4 and you decide if the "inurgents" are even covered by it.

Article 4

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:

1. Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.

2. The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.

C. This Article shall in no way affect the status of medical personnel and chaplains as provided for in Article 33 of the present Convention.

Exactly what tortures are you referring to?

And as to the 4 criteria for militia:

1) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; If you do not have a named commander you are only a mob. I have seen no one say that they are in command and responsible for the insurgents.

(2) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; Distinctive means to be able to recognize them as a member of the protected group. If they do not want to take advantage of the protection then I suppose they don't need to wear any.

(3) That of carrying arms openly; For the most part I think this is the only one of the four they come close to meeting.

(4) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. You think what happened to Berg was conducted in accordance with the laws and customs of war? I don't.

Nice misquote of article 5 though. Here is what it actually says:

Art. 5. For the protected persons who have fallen into the hands of the enemy, the present Convention shall apply until their final repatriation.

And since according to article 4 they are not protected then article 5 does not apply to them.

I am in no way condoning what was done to the prisoners. What those few service members did gives a black eye to all those that are currently and those that previously served. They and the officers (commisioned and noncommisioned) that were over them and had knowledge to this abuse should be punished to the fullest extent allowed.

Thier definition should not matter at all really. Our (the USA) forces should treat all captured combatants as POWs (people actively shooting or carrying out operations against us get what they deserve). Its the only *moral* and *ethical* position to take, and having those is something we historically have been very concerned about (and failed at numerous times, but I digress). With the prison debachal, we've lost most of the moral imperative, and all of the ethical.

Should we be giving these prisoners a hug? No, most of them are cold blooded killers. But we *have* to repect our moral and ethical imperatives, or the whole damn war is for nothing.

Even the best war does dark things to people. That doesn't excuse them.

Is that why close to a thousand of them were released and not charged with any crime whatsoever?

In response to all this i would just like to say:

9/11...9/11...9/11...9/11

Dirges. The point I (and others) am trying to make is that you have absolutely no idea what catagory the soldiers in the pictures we've seen fall under.

Just because there are POWs in that prison does not mean that everyone in there falls under art4/5 protection. Just because thousands of people have been questioned and released does not mean that everyone in the prison is innocent of any crime.

That's been my whole point here. We can't make any assumptions about facts that we don't know. We don't know the status of the people in the photos. We don't know the facts of what exactly the purpose of the photos were. We don't know if they were taken by some soldiers on their own just "playing around", or were taken as part of a psy-op (which is completely legitimate depending on who is in the pictures and how they were taken).


We also cannot jump to conclusions that because we've seen some pictures that are disturbing that every rummor we've heard about the prison is also true. I believe it was the Boston Herald (I'm not 100% sure of the paper), who printed a 4 page ad alledging to have "new and shocking photos" from the prison. It turned out that they'd been handed some pictures from a German **** site that specialized in "uniform fetish", which had been presented to the paper as though they were photos of female Iraqi prisoners being raped.

There's a lot of rampant rummor mongering going on around this issue. All you or I can possibly know for absolute certain, is that there are pictures depicting Iraqi prisoners in embarassing positions. Until we have absolute reliable evidence that there was more then that going on, we have to take all other accusations with a grain of salt.

I forgot to take the condom off my face...

Edited, Wed Jun 2 17:41:06 2004 by Darkflame

Wow a pyramid scheme can you highlight the good points for me like in one or two paragraphs. I have a short attention span.

Lol Ragnarson i was being sarcastic! just pointing out the fact that the government has exploited 9/11 to push its misguided War on Terrorism!

By the way we have a war on terror and a war on drugs, but why is there no war on POVERTY!

And for all you up tight conservatives out there just remember:

There is no flag large enough to cover the deaths of innocent people!

And

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a Scoundral"
- Samuel Johnson

Edited, Wed Jun 2 15:10:20 2004 by QuivalenSoth

Hmmm...

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040512-112835-7381r.htm



Odd that you just quoted Lindsey Graham, who's the most outspoken about how "horrible" the photos are.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-05-09-abuse-photos_x.htm

Hey! Look at that! He was outspoken about this *before* he even saw the pictures. I'm not saying that they aren't shocking, but perhaps he personally has a bit of agenda and/or personal bias going on here?


Again. Let's wait and see what happens instead of leaping to a conclusion when we know less then half the facts...

Joph. I'm not trying to excuse the acts. I'm just saying that we are hearing a lot of different statements about them. Some may have been "legal" psy-ops. Some may have been individual soldiers acting on their own. What I'm talking about is that they are all being lumped together as though there was some grand conspiracy involved.

Were all of the photos examined from the same source? Were the same people involved in all cases? If I have 1000 pictures, and 990 are from legal psy-ops involving humilitation, but no actual sodomy, rape, or physical abuse, and 10 of them are from a couple sickos who got their rocks off abusing prisoners, you and I would have no way of knowing the difference based on the information we've heard so far. In fact, the Congressmen who've commented on those photos wouldn't know that yet either.

That's what I'm talking about. Let's let the legal system deal with this. What I'm seeing going on right now is the verbal equivalent of a lynch mob. That's at least as unamerican as the worst of the photos we've heard about...

Sigh. So you're all for ignoring due process and just trying people in the court of public opinion. Is that what you're saying?


What part of "Let's let the legal system handle this" is "wrong"? There was an investigation going for a couple months before the first photos were leaked (yet oddly, many people assumed nothing was being done about this before "the public" heard about it). Are any of those photos from *after* the investigation started? If not, then what exactly has our government done wrong? They discovered abuse going on in the prison, they put a stop to it, and they've been investigating the facts and evidence so that they can try and punish those responsible.

Isn't that the way the system is supposed to work? Or are you really suggesting that we should base our legal system on whether or not *you* think someone's guilty? Better yet, let's just take an opinion poll before we know anymore then "Some bad things were done", and start rolling some heads around..


Great idea!