If you’re looking for pieces on Jack Idema and his team, please click on this link.

Here is a puzzling article from the New York times talking about how the Red Cross, the Guardian of the Geneva Conventions, is objecting to the United States’ keeping certain detainees at “secret” locations. In light of what’s happened in the Jack Idema case–and the fact that the Red Cross and the Karzai Government along with the American government–have denied them their rights afforded under the Geneva Convention, I just find it interesting that the Red Cross is completely pulling for the rights of terrorists for whom this does not apply.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - The United States said Friday that it would continue to deny the International Committee of the Red Cross access to “a very small, limited number” of prisoners who are held in secret around the world, saying they are terrorists being kept incommunicado for reasons of national security and are not guaranteed any rights under the Geneva Conventions.

boo-hoo, I think we should all start crying for them now. Sorry, I don’t have any sympathy for them.

Adam Ereli, the State Department’s deputy spokesman, said the United States would not alter its position after the president of the International Red Cross said in Geneva that his organization was holding discussions to gain access to all detainees, including those held in secret locations.

Mr. Ereli said that the Geneva Conventions requiring humane treatment of prisoners of war did not apply to certain terrorism suspects seized as “unlawful enemy combatants,” but that, in any case, the United States treats most of them as prisoners of war.

What about Americans who should be protected under the Geneva Conventions and article 4? This is preposterous.

“We’re going the extra mile here,” Mr. Ereli said, by allowing the Red Cross access to Al Qaeda suspects and others held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. The Red Cross also has access to prisoners held in Iraq.

Extra mile? You’re stretching something and forcing it to apply to an enemy who doesn’t even qualify for this protection while ignoring the rights of Americans who were going strictly by the book but are now being held at Pulacharke in Afghanistan and have been denied mail, denied fresh water, and for the last 4o-something days, have been without power because Karzai has shunted electricity it to the highest paying bidder.

Karzai’s opinion is that the prisoners at Pulacharke don’t deserve anything, and that they’re the Red Cross’s responsibility. The Red Cross, on the other hand, has been extremely brutal to the Americans at Pulacharke, denying them water, while simultaneously bringing water to the members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban who are being held there.

Prisoner Of War status has become a hot issue in the War On Terror. (See: AP articles on Saudi AQ Terrorist Yaser Esam Hamdi captured in Afghanistan in 2001. Newsweek, June 28, 2004; an illegal combatant who was reclassified as a POW subject to Geneva Convention Protections; and, Jose Padilla vs. US). The DOD has started calling POWs by the relatively new name- EPWs- Enemy Prisoners of War and by another brand new name- Illegal Combatants, aka, Enemy Combatants. The legal grounds to deny POW and Geneva Convention status to al-Qaida, Iraqi, and Taliban terrorists is simple– they don’t meet the requirements of Rule 4 of the Geneva Convention for Combatant Prisoners. Few terrorists do. To see these rules, follow this footnote: READ RULE 4 below. TASK FORCE SABER 7 followed these requirements to the very letter of the law (See POW Status Request below).

Terrorists don’t wear uniforms, have ID Cards, carry their weapons openly, wear unit patches (what would it say? AQ Killer Group with two burning towers as a logo?), or any of the other things required by Rule 4, except that they might be subordinate to a commander (like bin Laden, Hekmatyar, Mullah Omar, etc). But being subordinate to a madman does give rise to GC protections, you need to follow all of the requirements of Rule 4.

Some people say that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Cute saying, but not legally correct. Freedom fighters and guerillas, historically, wear uniforms- no matter how ragged or mismatched, they carry their arms openly, rarely target civilian women and children, have military ranks and often have Identity Cards. Examples include; Tito’s resistance in WWII, Cuba- 1950’s, Dominican Republic- 1960’s, Nicaraguan Sandinistas- 1970’s, the Salvadoran FMLN and the US backed Contras in the 1980’s, Karen Rebels-1990’s, and Commander Massoud’s Mujahadeen resistance against the Soviets between 1980 and 1989, and Massoud’s Northern Alliance resistance against he Taliban between 1996-2005.

On the flip side, you have the Taliban, al-Qaida, and other terrorist organizations, which do none of these things. Nor do they abide by or follow the Rules of Land Warfare {GC Article 4 ß 2 (d)}. Terrorists indiscriminately kill women and children through acts of terror. Terrorists behead their hostages (as compared to Jack, who was denounced by the Taliban Judge/bomber he captured for failing to allow the terrorist to use the bathroom for a full twelve hours). Terrorists are defined as people who engage in “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are general political, religious, or ideological (US Army Special Forces Force Protection Handbook; Joint Pub 1-02 dated March 23, 1994)

Rule 4

Geneva Convention Relative To The Treatment Of Prisoners Of War of August 12, 1949, Part I, Article 4, states:

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 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 [This and #1 apply to Jack, Bennett, and the other Americans not originally captured/arrested by Karzai’s Pro-Taliban government] of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belong to a Party to the conflict and operation in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movement fulfill the following conditions:
1. that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
2. that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
3. that of carrying arms openly;
4. 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 [Major Amin, Lt. Banderas- UFMF] [Northern Alliance].
4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents [Caraballo], supply contractors… [ ] 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. [Refers to Aircrews]
6. [Refers to inhabitants, who upon invasion, take up arms]

While the Red Cross is pursuing imagined and fabricated rights of known terrorists who don’t qualify under the Geneva Conventions, it is totally ignoring the rights of the Americans held at Pulacharke Prison for whom those rules DO apply. It’s outrageous and it must not continue.

In Europe over the last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphasized that it is American policy not to subject detainees to “cruel, inhumane or degrading” punishment in any location, no matter whether they are held by military or intelligence authorities.

That’s a laugh.

Ms. Rice also said on her European trip that the United States would not hand any prisoners over to other countries in the process known as rendition without obtaining assurances that they would not be tortured.

That’s a breathtaking statement, considering what we know happened to the Americans in Afghanistan, isn’t it? So I’d like to know, then, why journalists aren’t raising hell about the plight of our boys at Pulacharke. Ms. Rice said she would “obtain assurances that they would not be tortured”. She is talking about enemy combatants, I guess it’s ok to cast aside American citizens like trash, and disavow them because American policy secretly changed and we’re now appeasing terrorists instead of fighting and killing them.

So how about some kind of consequences for those actions? Or an admission that it occurred and an apology? These are most certainly reasonable expectations, considering the circumstances.

By the way, I wonder what Soj has to say about the Geneva Conventions and how they don’t exist NOW?

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