09-12-2003, 02:24 PM
Your citation of that article is a good use of an argument for use against laymen, and to be frank with you, holds some water. Yet that provision is easily unfulfilled at points "b" and "d" alone by someone reasonably well versed in working the Geneva Convention and its rules over, and leaves a big enough hole to work around . . . if there is a perceived need. If there were no perceived need, I doubt the whole Gitmo business would have been adopted, since it is so much extra work. Also, undeclared foreign combatants of extranational organizations, particularly without uniform and insignia, are easily classifiable as spies, saboteurs, and by default are not protected. It takes minor evidentiary fact to make those determinations.
As to "we are holding them for questioning" well, yeah, it's a war, sort of, and intelligence is critical to public security, war or no.
But the problem is not cut and dried, and you put your finger right on it: who is doing the interpretation? At the moment, posession is 9/10ths of the law, and the US interpretation holds. There will be an accountability, short or long term, (there is already carping) for the processes used. This is a special case because war, the and the political nature of war, has changed fundamentally since 1947.
Most rules of war are and were established by precedent, and often that precdent was custom before it was encodified. In the next 20 years, we may well see changes to The Code of International Conflict: none of that is written stone. In the meantime, the fellows in Gitmo, by all accounts, are allowed to pray to Mecca five times per day, well fed, and kept in good health. American prisoners in at least five cases that jump out in my mind, have been treated far more harshly. Extranational organs who hold prisoners do not offer them any Geneva protections, and occsionally assasinate or mutliate them to make a point.
Why should they get any better treatment as a class? From us, they do.
As to "we are holding them for questioning" well, yeah, it's a war, sort of, and intelligence is critical to public security, war or no.
But the problem is not cut and dried, and you put your finger right on it: who is doing the interpretation? At the moment, posession is 9/10ths of the law, and the US interpretation holds. There will be an accountability, short or long term, (there is already carping) for the processes used. This is a special case because war, the and the political nature of war, has changed fundamentally since 1947.
Most rules of war are and were established by precedent, and often that precdent was custom before it was encodified. In the next 20 years, we may well see changes to The Code of International Conflict: none of that is written stone. In the meantime, the fellows in Gitmo, by all accounts, are allowed to pray to Mecca five times per day, well fed, and kept in good health. American prisoners in at least five cases that jump out in my mind, have been treated far more harshly. Extranational organs who hold prisoners do not offer them any Geneva protections, and occsionally assasinate or mutliate them to make a point.
Why should they get any better treatment as a class? From us, they do.
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete