> Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > You mean, after a legal debate in which we decided to give the terrorists > _more_ protections than they actually deserved under the laws of war, you > think that our soldiers will be retaliated against because we had that > debate?
Yep, because of the way in which it was handled. If you claim moral leadership then you have to live by it. Once you set the bar at a certain height, you can't then arbitrarily go mucking with that height and not expect a dose of cynicism to creep in. Again, it was all so unnecessary. Taliban captives are ipso facto prisoners of war. There is no way around that one. They were soldiers of a government, whether that government was recognised or not. If you want to argue that, then were Chinese soldiers in the Korean war prisoners of war or not? Communist China was not the recognised government until Nixon went to China in what, 1972? However, Chinese combatants were treated as POWs under the Geneva convention. Precedent. Another case. Were Japanese soldiers and airmen captured in WW2 POWs? Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, yet the Allies treated those captives as POWs. They were POWs. Precedent. So you cannot then go and start redefining criteria that have been used for well over 50 years. What has happened now is that any government can now say "Oh, based on how the Taliban were treated, we do not recognise these Americans as lawful combatants." You've now gone and lost the moral edge that had been available to US forces since WW2. > Well, the people we've fought in the past have not exactly been > paragons of civilization. Let's see - starting with WW2 we have: snip examples > So you think that if we had > publicly stated that people who _weren't_ covered by the Geneva > conventions > would be at the outset all of a sudden Saddam Hussein's government (you > know, the one that used poison gas on its own civilians) would decide to > act civilized? Why do you think that? First off, I had two cousins who were captured in Singapore in 1942. One was lucky, spending the next 3 years being abused, starved and receiving minimal medical treatment in Changi. The other spent a year working on the Burma railroad, along with another 12,000 Australian troops of whom nearly 8,000 died. I had another cousin who fought in Korea, fortunately not captured. You do not have to point out that Allied soldiers do not always get the treatment entitled to them under the Geneva Convention. I know it. But, the moral right was on the Allied side. In Australia we had thousands of Japanese POWs held in camps where they had full access to medical treatment, they were monitored by the Red Cross and where, apart from their own suicidal breakout at Cowra in 1944, they had an immeasurably easier time of their incarceration. Let's put it this way: Were any Australians tried for war crimes against POWs after WW2? No. Were any Japanese tried for maltreatment on the Burma railroad or Changi, or for the death march at Sandakan or for innumerable other atrocities against Australians? Yes. On what basis? Failure to adhere to the Geneva Conventions was one reason. No, I don't expect Saddam to become "civilised" in treating any captured US or other personnel. But, Saddam would have to actually decide NOT to adhere to those conditions. He would not be able to claim a US precedent, he would have no moral argument allowing him any wiggle room. Unfortunately, now he does have that doubt, because of a US precedent. >And why is so much of the world so > happy to condemn us when we give more protections to these people > than they > do deserve under law, but so obviously doesn't give a damn when it's our > people who are denied the protections that they do deserve? The > lot of the > American soldier for pretty much the entire history of our nation is to > fight people who treat him barbarously if he is captured. Did I or anyone else say that the treatment in Mogadishu was not odorous? No. We do give a damn. For starters, it may easily be some Australians who get captured, which is why I am so pissed off at my own government for not raising a peep. I have friends in the armed forces, too, y'know. Yes, it is often the case that a captured soldier, particularly of a Western nation, is maltreated. But that does not give us any excuse to ignore the due process that our nations have been signed up to for so long. Dammit how can we expect anyone to follow the Conventions if we are not seen to be squeaky clean in applying them? That is what moral suasion is all about - you set and maintain the standard in the belief that others will follow. > Banastre > Tarleton in the Revolutionary War started the tradition - Tarleton's > Quarter was what it was called when he executed Americans who surrendered > to him. According to Robert Leckie something in the range of _half_ the > American soldiers held in British prison ships died of maltreatment. Do you want to know how many Australians died in Turkish and German POW camps in WW1? Do you want to know why nearly 30 percent of the Eighth Division died under the Japanese? Do you want to know about the Australians among the 50 executed by the Gestapo after the REAL breakout from Stalag Luft III? It happens. It should not, because civilised societies should uphold the rules of war. Unfortunately some of them don't. And it makes no sense for one of the advanced Western societies to be seen to hold those very same treaties as negotiable or subject to whim. How can you expect anyone to hold to them if the US gives itself the right to ignore those treaties at will? That is what I see as being so stupid, especially now that the right decision has finally been made: that two and a half moths of to-ing and fro-ing has now set an ugly precedent and it is YOUR soldiers who are now likely to suffer because of some Whitehouse pig headedness. > It > does not seem likely to me that our enemies - who are, after all, our > enemies precisely because they have placed themselves outside the > bounds of > civilization - are likely to come to Jesus because we decided, right off > the bat, that captured members of Al'Qaeda should get Geneva Convention > protections that the Conventions themselves do not grant. > Enemies = outside bounds of civilisation? No. You may disagree with them, but not ALL enemies are outside those bounds. Were the Italians in WW2 outside the bounds of civilisation? Or the Finns? Or the Hungarians? You're trying to turn an emotional belief into a statement of fact that it is not. And I am not saying that Al Qaeda captives are completely covered: but the Taliban captives definitely are. It should always have been said that ALL captives will be treated under the terms of the Geneva Convention until their status is otherwise determined. That is in full accord with the Conventions and is how they are meant to work. Such a statement also clearly shows where the moral ground is and who holds it. Noone, certainly not me, would be arguing against that statement had it originally been made. Noone could then have any excuse NOT to automatically treat any captured American service personnel as anything other than POWs. But it wasn't made and the perception, that noone, other than perhaps Colin Powell, at the Whitehouse felt either bound by the Geneva Convention or up to actually treating the captives according to it has now been set. There is nothing in the Geneva Convention that prevents you from interrogating your prisoners. They retain the right to only give name, rank and serial, but NOTHING constrains you from asking anything you like. No you cannot torture those prisoners - is that something that the US intends to do to them? If so, then who is standing on what moral ground? There is nothing in the Geneva Convention that prevents you from charging a POW with a war crime or crime against humanity. You are free to do so, and then evidence must be presented at a properly conducted trial. So, why NOT treat them as POWs? Especially now that they are going to be? As for Al Qaeda, they could fit under Article 1: 1. They are commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates 2. Their black turbans could be argued as a distinctive emblem 3. Everyone in Afghanistan openly carries weapons 4. Is their conduct IN Afghanistan any different to normal laws and customs of war? I haven't seen anything that says it was not. (NOTE: The attacks themselves definitely were not according to normal laws etc. But those Al Qaeda are all dead. We're only talking about those that have been captured in Afghanistan.) Al Qaeda could be argued to be a militia or volunteer corps, which also fits the Article 1 criteria. So far, none of the above has been proved or disproved or even argued. Until it is done so, then Al Qaeda may or may not meet the criteria that enables POW status. The Taliban certainly do meet the criteria. Even had they not, accepted practice by all the Western powers is to apply the provisions of the Convention even if full application is not specifically legally required. Part of that moral highground we all pride ourselves in following. It is, again, stupid to arbitrarily decide the captives do not meet the criteria when it has not yet been proven otherwise. You may disagree - do so, I have no problem with that. But at the same time I still feel it was an incredibly shortsighted act for the US to arbitrarily decide that the captives were NOT entitled treatment under the Geneva Convention when: 1. none of the above had been argued, let alone accepted or proven 2. the US itself sees itself as the moral leader of the world 3. there is no provision within the articles of the Geneva Convention that prevents the US from getting additional information from any of the captives 4. a precedent could be argued for arbitrary judgement as to who is and who is not a lawful combatant (a phrase not even used in the convention) And especially when the government eventually decides to apply the Convention after all. Brett
