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Gibsie
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all over the proverbial shop
Jan 1970
time: 05:17
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The GC by definition, according to Oerdin does not apply to unlawful combatants, and my thinking may be a little blurred, but if there are laws concerning lawful combatants that don't apply to unlawful combatants, then the laws that apply generally and are "overruled" by the GC must therefore apply to the unlawful combatants if nobody else.
It's like saying a law about animal cruelty doesn't count because more important laws say that you can't charge a man with assault for beating a dog ( <-- if that makes you go "what the hell is that idiot talking about?!", Oerdin, then bear in mind that is the quality of the argument you're presenting)
Last edited by Gibsie on 08-12-2004 at 22:10
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St Leo
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Member of the Apolyton Social Democratic Party
Jul 2005
time: 00:17
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quote:
December 06, 2004
TORTURE USA
The Lubyanka Prison’s heavy oak main door swung open. I went in, the first western journalist to enter the KGB’s notorious Moscow headquarters, a place so dreaded Russians dared not utter its name. When they referred to it at all, they called it `Detsky Mir,’ after a nearby toy store.
After interviewing two senior KGB generals, I explored the fascinating museum of Soviet intelligence and was briefed on special poisons and assassination weapons that left no traces. I sat transfixed at the desk used by all the directors of Stalin’s secret police, on which the orders were signed to murder 30 million people.
Descending dimly lit stairs, I saw some of the KGB’s execution and torture cellars, and special `cold rooms’ where naked prisoners were beaten, then doused with ice water and slowly frozen.
Other favored Lubyanka tortures: psychological terror, psychotropic drugs, prolonged sleep deprivation, dazzling lights, intense noise, days in pitch blackness, isolation, humiliation, constant threats, savage beatings, attacks by guard dogs, near drowning.
Nightmares from the past….but the past has returned.
According to report just leaked to the `NY Times,’ the Swiss-based International Red Cross has accused the Bush Administration for a second time of employing systematic, medically supervised torture against suspects at its Devil’s Island at Guantanamo, and at US-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The second Red Cross report was delivered to the White House last summer while it was trying to dismiss the Abu Ghraib prison torture horrors in Iraq as the crimes of a few rogue jailers.
Many tortures perfected by the Cheka ( Soviet secret police), notably beating, freezing, sensory disorientation, and sleep deprivation, are now routinely being used by US interrogators on Muslim suspects.
The Chekisti, however, did not usually inflict sexual humiliations. That technique, and hooding, were developed by Israeli psychologists to break resistance of Palestinian prisoners.
Photos of sexual humiliation were used by Israeli security, and then by US interrogators at Abu Ghraib, to blackmail Muslim prisoners into becoming informers.
All of these practices flagrantly violate the Geneva Conventions, international, and American law. The Pentagon and CIA’s secret gulag in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan has become a sort of Enron-style, off-the-books operation, immune from American law or Congressional oversight.
Suspects simply disappear into a black hole, recalling Latin America’s torture camps and `disappearings’ of the 1970’s and 80’s, or the Arab World’s sinister secret police prisons.
The US has been sending high-level anti-American suspects to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and, reportedly, Pakistan, where they are brutally tortured with violent electric shocks, savage beatings, drowning, acid baths, and blowtorching – the same tortures, ironically, ascribed to Saddam Hussein.
Protests over these crimes by members of Congress, respected human rights groups, and the public have been ignored. President George W. Bush just named Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General, the nation’s highest law officer. As White House counsel, Gonzales wrote briefs justifying torture and advised the White House on ways to evade or ignore the Geneva Conventions – both violations of US law.
Grossly violating the Geneva Conventions undermines international law and endangers US troops abroad. Anyone who has served in the US armed forces, as I have, should be outraged that this painfully-won tenet of international law and civilized behavior is being trashed by the Bush Administration.
If, as Bush claims, terrorism suspects, Taliban, and Muslim mujihadin fighters deserve no protected under the laws of war because they wear no uniforms, or are `illegal combatants,’ and may be jailed and tortured at presidential whim, then what law protects from abuse or torture all the un-uniformed US Special Forces, CIA field teams, and those 40,000 or more US and British mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan euphemistically called `civilian contractors?’
Behaving like the 1930’s Soviet secret police will not make America safer. Such illegal, immoral and totally un-American behavior corrupts democracy and makes us no better than the criminals we detest.
The 20th century has shown repeatedly that when security forces use torture abroad, they soon begin using it at home, first on suspected `terrorists,’ then, dissidents, then on ordinary suspects.
It’s time Congress and the courts wake up and end this deeply shameful and dangerous episode in America’s history.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2004 |
I wish he'd stop bashing Israel in every column, but this is good stuff otherwise.
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laurentius
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Helsinki, Finland
Jun 2001
time: 07:17
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quote:
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.
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08-12-2004 21:19
conceded.
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