-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
CONGRESS ACTION: February 3, 2002 ================= GENEVA CONVENTION: The hysteria over the alleged "rights" of the terrorists being held in custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has reached absurd proportions. The most stupidly simplistic analysis goes like this: we are at war, the terrorists were taken prisoner during the war, therefore the terrorists are Prisoners of War, and prisoners of war are entitled to certain rights under the Geneva Convention. If the people making that argument (those from the "my mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts" school of non-thought) would take the simple step of actually reading the document that they want to invoke, the Geneva Convention, they might have some second thoughts. And they might also discover something else -- that they really don't want to apply the Geneva Convention to the terrorists after all. Or at least, they would want to treat the Geneva Convention in the same way many of them try to treat the United States Constitution, that is, selectively applying only those clauses that suit their agenda, ignoring those that they don't like. A Prisoner of War is what's known as a "term of art" -- it has a specific legal definition, in this case contained in Article 4 of the Geneva Convention, the relevant portions of which read: Article 4 "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 a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces. 2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions: (a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) That of carrying arms openly; (d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. Despite the fact that al Qaeda terrorists clearly do not fall within any of these definitions of Prisoner of War, the rights crowd suggests that there remains some doubt, and thus a "competent tribunal" should determine their status: Article 5: "Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." If the detainees are granted the official status of Prisoners of War, several consequences would flow from that status. Perhaps the most important, and the reason why those who are concerned with the national security of this country resist the POW classification, is contained in Article 17. According to those charged with safeguarding our national security, the terrorists in custody are giving up information that is helping to thwart additional terrorist attacks. That flow of information would cease if they officially became POWs: Article 17: "Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information." There are additional consequences that would follow the classification of the detainees as POWs. For one thing, all of the gawking media would have to be immediately sent packing. The media is constantly at odds with the Pentagon over what media types claim is "unnecessary" (in their own "expert" military judgment) military secrecy. How would they all like to be kicked out of Guantanamo entirely, as would be required by the Geneva Convention?: Article 13: ".prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly.against.public curiosity." Then there are gender complications. Our military contains women soldiers, some of whom, it has been reported, are guards at Guantanamo. Given what has been reported about the utter subservience of women in pre-war Afghanistan, it is clear that those women soldiers would have to go, squawks from radical feminists notwithstanding: Article 14: " Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour. . The Detaining Power may not restrict the exercise, either within or without its own territory, of the rights such capacity confers except in so far as the captivity requires." The tobacco Nazis around the world would also have reason to complain about the Geneva Convention: Article 26: "The use of tobacco shall be permitted." Article 28: "Canteens shall be installed in all camps, where prisoners of war may procure foodstuffs, soap and tobacco and ordinary articles in daily use." Finally, all of the objections over the plan to use military tribunals to try the terrorists would be rendered irrelevant. Under the dictates of the Geneva Convention, military courts would not only be preferred, they would be required: Article 84: "A prisoner of war shall be tried only by a military court, unless the existing laws of the Detaining Power expressly permit the civil courts to try a member of the armed forces of the Detaining Power in respect of the particular offence alleged to have been committed by the prisoner of war." TEST MEDIA OBJECTIVITY: Any time anyone accuses the mainstream media of left-wing bias, the cacophony of protest from the accused is deafening. Oh No! they protest. We're just objective reporters of the facts! By a curious confluence of events, entailing the bankruptcy of two major corporations, the mainstream media now has the opportunity to prove their objectivity. The corporations in question are Enron and Global Crossing. The outlines of the Enron case are well known to everyone by now -- huge campaign contributions primarily to prominent republicans, the sudden bankruptcy of the corporation, major cashing-out of stock holdings by corporate executives before the fall, laid-off employees and impoverished shareholders. Now comes the case of Global Crossing -- but in this case there were huge campaign contributions primarily to prominent democrats, the sudden bankruptcy of the corporation, major cashing-out of stock holdings by major shareholders and executives before the fall, laid-off employees and impoverished shareholders. Essentially the same set of facts, with the significant difference being that Enron benefited primarily republicans, while Global Crossing benefited primarily democrats. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the total amount of money Global Crossing contributed to politicians exceeded even the amounts contributed by Enron, and last year 64% of that money went to democrats. There is one other difference -- according to a report in the Washington Times, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, cashed out $18 million of Global Crossing stock in the late 1990's, from an initial investment of $100,000 two years earlier. That's nearly double the rate of profit that Hillary Clinton garnered from trading cattle futures. The media has been all over the Enron debacle. Multiple articles appear in every newspaper every day, multiple stories on every new broadcast on a daily basis. A dozen committees of Congress are investigating. We're waiting to see what the "unbiased" media and the democrats in Congress make of the Global Crossing case. Jesse Jackson organized a bus trip for impoverished Enron employees to go to Washington and yell at members of Congress. Is there room on your bus for the impoverished employees of Global Crossing, Jesse? You can go yell at Terry McAuliffe, who can probably be found at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. No doubt you know where that is. BANKRUPTCY OF VISION: The contrast couldn't have been more stark. In his State of the Union address, President Bush spoke of freedom, country, duty, honor, and God. The democrat response from House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt spewed typical class warfare rhetoric, blamed Bush for the Enron bankruptcy, and spoke of the need to increase government dependency and to shred the Constitution with so-called campaign finance reform. President Bush spoke of a war to defend our nation against the growing threats from extremist regimes with weapons of mass destruction, democrats demanded that we not invade some mythical government entitlement "trust funds" in order to defend our nation. Liberty versus servitude. The Green Beret versus the green eye-shade. Defense of the nation versus defense of entitlements. Who said there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two political ideologies? DESPISING FREEDOM: Dick Gephardt isn't the only one who despises freedom and thinks that enslaving private citizens to government servitude is a fine idea. Columnist Paul Craig Roberts, commenting about the current tax burden on the productive segment of our economy, noted that "Successful Americans own no more of the income that they produce than did medieval serfs and 19th century slaves. The share claimed by the IRS is equal to the share claimed by feudal lords and slave owners. We can be said to be free only by ignoring government's extraordinary claim to our personal incomes." Democrats, led by Tom Daschle and Ted Kennedy, would like to repeal even the minimal tax cuts enacted last year; and if they were honest, they would have to admit that they would like to continue raising taxes on anyone who isn't already an abject ward of their welfare state. AND DESPISING AMERICA: Hollywood film director Robert Altman, quoted in the London Times: "This present government in America I just find disgusting, the idea that George Bush could run a baseball team successfully - he can't even speak! I just find him an embarrassment. . When I see an American flag flying, it's a joke." Leftists are so predictable. Despite constantly portraying themselves as kind, compassionate, caring, and tolerant, to find the most vile hatred and contemptible intolerance, seek out a leftist. What does it say about the left's values when they are embarrassed by a president who respects his office and the nation, but not by the prior occupant? FOR MORE INFORMATION. ======================== Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mr. Kim Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! Write to same address to be off lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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