Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Heres a quote from an article in the Toronto Star, written by Lynda Hurst:
"Unlike soldiers captured in Iraq, the Taliban fighters and suspected Al Qaeda terrorists held incommunicado in Cuba are not deemed by the U.S. to be official prisoners of war, thereby protected by the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Harkening back to World War II, Washington categorizes them as "enemy combatants" and, in its view, how they are treated is not covered by international law."
There's been talk about the Vietnamization of the Iraq war and the inhuman qualities of war in general and how the terrorists have decided to ignore the so-called rules of war. Reading the above actually brought to mind another war and another of life’s atrocities. I thought of Japan and its treatment of allied prisoners of World War 2 and also of Vietnam’s treatment of their prisoners. They both used the same justification that we are using in Cuba.
The Japanese thought that anyone who surrendered was no longer a human and no longer required treatment that one would normally apply to humans. This gave them full justification to treat the prisoners in anyway they deemed fit. The Vietnamese did the same with the POWs they captured. After all, the US never officially declared war on Vietnam, so how could the prisoners they captured possibly be Geneva protected “prisoners of war?”
We shouldn’t allow ourselves to copy the lowest denominator of human behavior. Once we crawl down to the level of the very people we are trying to distance ourselves from, the distance is gone. We are supposed to be a country whose ideal is the protection of human rights. This isn’t done by tossing those human rights out the window. Or in this case, outside our borders. Using some legal technicality to keep them in limbo just isn’t right. If there is a case against them, prosecute the case and them. If there isn’t a case let them go. If they are in fact enemy combatants, then they should be executed. They shouldn’t just be tucked away on an island whose leader our country is accusing of human rights violations and have their rights violated.
2fers: Toronto Star and Geneva Convention
"Unlike soldiers captured in Iraq, the Taliban fighters and suspected Al Qaeda terrorists held incommunicado in Cuba are not deemed by the U.S. to be official prisoners of war, thereby protected by the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Harkening back to World War II, Washington categorizes them as "enemy combatants" and, in its view, how they are treated is not covered by international law."
There's been talk about the Vietnamization of the Iraq war and the inhuman qualities of war in general and how the terrorists have decided to ignore the so-called rules of war. Reading the above actually brought to mind another war and another of life’s atrocities. I thought of Japan and its treatment of allied prisoners of World War 2 and also of Vietnam’s treatment of their prisoners. They both used the same justification that we are using in Cuba.
The Japanese thought that anyone who surrendered was no longer a human and no longer required treatment that one would normally apply to humans. This gave them full justification to treat the prisoners in anyway they deemed fit. The Vietnamese did the same with the POWs they captured. After all, the US never officially declared war on Vietnam, so how could the prisoners they captured possibly be Geneva protected “prisoners of war?”
We shouldn’t allow ourselves to copy the lowest denominator of human behavior. Once we crawl down to the level of the very people we are trying to distance ourselves from, the distance is gone. We are supposed to be a country whose ideal is the protection of human rights. This isn’t done by tossing those human rights out the window. Or in this case, outside our borders. Using some legal technicality to keep them in limbo just isn’t right. If there is a case against them, prosecute the case and them. If there isn’t a case let them go. If they are in fact enemy combatants, then they should be executed. They shouldn’t just be tucked away on an island whose leader our country is accusing of human rights violations and have their rights violated.
2fers: Toronto Star and Geneva Convention
