From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Mar 28 2003 - 20:27:55 MST
--- Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:
> Cees de Groot <cg@cdegroot.com> wrote:
>
> > > As I've repeatedly stated on this list, it appears that far too
> many
> > > people are either ignorant of the Geneva Conventions, or just
> don't
> > > give a damn about them.
> >
> > Lots of people. Like CNN, the Pentagon, ...
> >
> > Or have I dreamt that I saw lots of Iraqi POW around a week before
> the
> > US POW's were shown on TV?
>
> Arguably the Iraqi POWs weren't presented as individuals. They
> were shown from a bit of distance and they weren't interviewed on
> TV. The US POWs were presented in personal closeups and were
> subjected to taunting questions. This is an awfully fine line,
> though.
Every depiction of Iraqi prisoners demonstrates the fair treatment by
allied forces of Iraqis. Every depiction of allied prisoners by Iraqis
demonstrates their abuse of prisoners. I haven't seen any Iraqi corpses
with bullet holes with powder burns in the exact middle of their
foreheads... nor have I seen any US soldiers hiding in civilian
clothes, or faking a surrender as an ambush, or shooting Iraqis who
surrender (or shooting their own soldiers intentionally, either.)
Only the hopelessly deluded could ever conclude that the US is the bad
guy here.
>
> It would have been hilarious if the Iraqis had declared the captured
> US troops to be "unlawfull combattants" rather than POWs. After
> all, we do have some precedent for this, and without Security Council
> sanction this war violates international law (according to the legal
> experts in this part of the world). In fact, has there even been
> a proper declaration of war?
Yes, the US Congress authorised the use of force last fall, with no War
Powers Act limitations. What the anti-war faction seems to keep
forgetting is that all of the UN weasling and sqirming since last fall
was nothing more than the US giving the UN the opportunity to be
involved and be satisfied that all attempts had been made at forcing
Saddam peacefully to comply. There is nothing the UN could have done to
prevent the US from going to war short of a complete attitudinal
capitulation by Saddam. Resolution 1441 was not in any way construable
to claim that anything but a complete capitulation on WMD by Saddam
would exclude the use of force. France's threatened veto on the last
resolution was not on whether or not to use force, but on whether or
not the UN would go along with the allied use of force.
There is nothing in the UN Charter which prevents a nation from acting
in self defense. Preemptive acts of self defense are not excluded by
the UN Charter either. If you see a million troops assembled on your
border, you have every right to assume they are there for one reason
only.
Given the recent SARS outbreak, it should be rather obvious that when
it comes to bioweapons, the bio-equivalent of a million troops on your
border is to allow any despotic regime to posess them anywhere in the
world, unless you intend to live in a nutshell, like North Korea prefers.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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