Sunday, July 09, 2006
Geneva Convention Quiz
Some of us have been in failed, one sided relationships where the other person has all the power and we give and give in an effort to win the other back and we get nothing from her but bare bones complacency and a bitter acquiescence. (That might be too much info). I fear the Americans are beginning to act that way with the rest of the world. Specifically, I'm talking about treatment of our prisoners of war in the last 70 years. This is a question I have asked here before, but it bears repeating:
When was the last time American soldiers captured on the battlefield were afforded all the minimum requirements for POWs prescribed in the Geneva Conventions?
Think about it.
The answer is May, 1945 when the Germans surrendered and let our POWs go. Since that time, our prisoners of war in the Pacific theater, Korea, Viet Nam, the Gulf War, everywhere, have been treated like slaves--neglected, tortured, starved, and sometimes murdered.
Think about that--the last guys to treat our POWs humanely were the NAZIs. Everyone else since that time have been worse than NAZIs. How can you be freakin' worse than the NAZIs?
So we have been ordered by the philosopher kings on the Supreme Court to treat terrorists and serial beheaders like real Prisoners of War. Screw that. They have not earned the right to POW status by adhereing to the basic rules of war. What's worse, we haven't received the benefit of the Convention in three generations; there is no need to pretend that we ever will. The Hamden decision regarding war crime tribunals is fixable in Congress. The second part, about affording captured criminal combatants the protections of the Geneva Conventions is not fixable in my opinion, unless we withdraw.
We should withdraw from the Conventions and then treat the prisoners of war and criminal combatants we capture fairly; that is, a clean, safe confinement for the former and, for the latter, fair military tribunal (just like the NAZI spies and saboteurs got in 1942 and Japanese war criminals got in 1946, see Ex Parte Quirin and In Re Yamashita) before we execute them.
It is a very easy prediction to make that my proposals will never happen.
When was the last time American soldiers captured on the battlefield were afforded all the minimum requirements for POWs prescribed in the Geneva Conventions?
Think about it.
The answer is May, 1945 when the Germans surrendered and let our POWs go. Since that time, our prisoners of war in the Pacific theater, Korea, Viet Nam, the Gulf War, everywhere, have been treated like slaves--neglected, tortured, starved, and sometimes murdered.
Think about that--the last guys to treat our POWs humanely were the NAZIs. Everyone else since that time have been worse than NAZIs. How can you be freakin' worse than the NAZIs?
So we have been ordered by the philosopher kings on the Supreme Court to treat terrorists and serial beheaders like real Prisoners of War. Screw that. They have not earned the right to POW status by adhereing to the basic rules of war. What's worse, we haven't received the benefit of the Convention in three generations; there is no need to pretend that we ever will. The Hamden decision regarding war crime tribunals is fixable in Congress. The second part, about affording captured criminal combatants the protections of the Geneva Conventions is not fixable in my opinion, unless we withdraw.
We should withdraw from the Conventions and then treat the prisoners of war and criminal combatants we capture fairly; that is, a clean, safe confinement for the former and, for the latter, fair military tribunal (just like the NAZI spies and saboteurs got in 1942 and Japanese war criminals got in 1946, see Ex Parte Quirin and In Re Yamashita) before we execute them.
It is a very easy prediction to make that my proposals will never happen.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 11:00 AM 
