October 27, 2004
Still "Abusing" Prisoners
Non-Iraqi prisoners captured by U.S. forces on the Iraq battlefield are not entitled to the protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions, according to a recent legal opinion from the Justice Department.
The opinion allows U.S. military forces and CIA operatives to handle the foreign fighters captured in Iraq in the same way they are handling al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
In confirming the legal opinion first reported in The New York Times, Justice Department officials said the guidance is consistent with their previous position taken regarding battlefield detainees in Afghanistan.
"This administration has made it clear from the outset that members of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups do not necessarily enjoy the protections of the Geneva Conventions," a senior Justice Department official said. "Al Qaeda members and other foreign terrorists in Iraq illegally would not be entitled to the Geneva Convention protections. That's consistent with our opinion on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan."
Never mind, if you must, that by any definition imaginable the "Multinational Force" in Iraq is comprised of "foreign terrorists".
What happened to all of the, "This is not America," whinging which accompanied the Abu Ghraib photos? What happened to the, "This shows the nature of the enemy we are fighting," hot air which accompanies each new beheading?
And just what is torturing "enemy combatants" supposed to achieve? We already know it's of no useful intelligence value. We can't but assume that it will make it that much more unlikely that any American soldiers or civilians caputed somewhere in the world will be treated humanely.
So, besides being antithetical to any sort of moral compulsion, what is the fucking point of it all? Pure racist sadism? Are Ashcroft and Rumsfeld jerking off to all the photos of naked A-rabs piled up in mounds? This is, really, the only explanation that makes any sort of sense.
U.S. officials have acknowledged some prisoners were moved out of Iraq but refused to say where they were taken.
Safely out of the Supreme Court's Guantanamo-seeing eyes, presumably.
Posted by Eddie Tews at October 27, 2004 10:01 AM
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