Posted on 03/23/2003 9:10:39 AM PST by Lessismore
On Sunday afternoon, the Qatar-based television al Jazeera broadcast Iraqi TV, showing a videotape of at least 10 US POWs, including one female soldier, and a room with some 15 bodies of US troops. The live broadcast included also a footage of a battle field area in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya with additional corpses of US soldiers as well as struck military equipment.
The videotape has also shown how the Iraqis investigate the American POWs. The prisoners were questioned on air and gave their names, military identification numbers and home towns.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Air Force conceded that there were American soldiers missing, but said that there were fewer than 10 troops unaccounted for in southern Iraq.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned Sunday it was possible that Iraqi forces had taken U.S. prisoners, saying there were unaccounted soldiers and journalists in the combat zone.
He noted that under the Geneva Conventions governing prisoners of war, "It's illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners."
Earlier, it was reported that U.S. Marines battled for control of Nassiriya, taking "significant" casualties in a fight to open a route north to Baghdad, military officials said.
Reuters quoted military officials as saying the Marine battalion spearheading the fight had suffered significant casualties in the battle.
A total of 11 U.S. soldiers were captured after taking a wrong turn, and 50 military personnel have been wounded in the massive firefight in Nassiriya, ABCNEWS reported Sunday.
According to the report, 11 soldiers, maintenance workers, had taken a wrong turn outside the city on a mission to carry out repair work. They were traveling in a column of vehicles that came under heavy fire, including from an Iraqi tank. The capture was observed by other forces nearby.
The firefight at Nassiriya blocked an advance by U.S. forces, who had earlier reported securing two key bridgeheads to enable them to cross the Euphrates and strike northwards toward the Iraqi capital.
Reuters said there was heavy U.S. helicopter traffic over the area, and that hundreds of U.S. military trucks and armored personnel carriers had stopped their advance.
Iraqi Information Minister Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference in Baghdad that foreign invaders headed to Nassiriya had been "taught a lesson they will never forget." "We have placed them in a quagmire from which they can never emerge except dead," he said. (Albawaba.com)
The last time my wife and I spent a social evening with her she was as pleasant and charming as always. She actually is most charitable and, I might mention, spoke of you as someone who, though she differed with you quite frequently, she appreciated, respected and thought of with great regard.
Likewise, I also felt differently than Askel on some topics, and wouldn't have found it difficult to quote chapter and verse from the actual Geneva Convention text just as I did at the time of the Al Qaeda captures, but alas, such effort is wasted now, its so much easier to cast them aside and pretend they are just the sum of a few comments rather than a valid compatriot.
Sure.. First of all, the "Geneva Convention" is a misnomer. There were several (4, I believe..) "Geneva Conventions" Both Iraq and the United States are signatories.
Askel is wrong in this case, the Geneva Convention is applicable.
Begin with 4th Geneva Convention. Part 1, Act 2.
That said however, I am sorry to see her go. I didn't follow her posts very closely, except some of the ones on abortion.. I caught some of those. I remember her as being very polite, very intelligent, even tempered, staunchly religious & unapologetically Pro-Life.
Anyone willing to speak out for the unborn automatically get's a good deal of respect in my book. You can't kill a dog the way we destroy millions of children today, I don't know why some "Conservatives" will rail endlessly about the "immorality" of taxes, then clam up entirely on religious matters and abortion:
"Go ahead and shred kids up with a vacuum tube, that's okey-fine, see you in church... but watch the 'immoral' taxes, will ya? I am a 'Conservative' ya know.."
It's a mystery for all time if you ask me.
I don't know what led to this blow up, but I wish it hadn't have come to this. She's wrong and this entire "Geneva Convention" argument could have been put down with 1 post.
I am so sick of hearing this. The Geneva Convention was in 1949 and from what I can tell we are the only ones who know what it even says. The Iraqis are Barbarians.
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