U.S. Forces Rounding Up Civilian Suspects: Some Detainees May Be Sent to Cuba

Washington Post ^ | March 31, 2003 | Peter Baker

[sarcasm]

MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq, March 30 -- U.S. forces have started rounding up Iraqi men in civilian clothes suspected of being involved with paramilitary squads that have been attacking them in southern Iraq and may ship some of them to the detention center at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military officers said today.

Marines patrolling Nasiriyah and other areas of heavy fighting have already detained more than 300 men in civilian clothes, initiating roundups intended to cope with the danger of an enemy that opens fire and then melts back into the population. "You round them up -- that way they're not a threat," said a senior Marine officer.

[DianaN]

Good; I hope they start bombing the bus loads of Arab/Muslim/Nationialist/Extremist volunteers willing to kill allied military.

[Az Joe]

He, he, hee. Cuba huh? I like it!

[truth_seeker]

"Marines patrolling Nasiriyah and other areas of heavy fighting have already detained more than 300 men in civilian clothes..."

Does wearing divilian clothes qualify as "illegal combatant" under US military law?

If this is the basis, would it apply in reverse, if our own "under cover" CIA, Special Forces were captured?

Is there an International Law concerning such issues, which is the basis for our Gitmo detainees?

Should someone know, I'm interested, insofar as the long term implications, as we prosecute our War on Terrorism, post 9/11/2001.

[Az Joe]

As far as I know, the Afgan terrorists were treated as if they were "pirates" on the high seas only on land, no nationality, not fighting as part of the nation's regular army, etc.

Not sure how the Iraqi "civilians" would be categorized. I say take 'em all to Cuba and sort it out later. We can always fly them back.

[lentulusgracchus]

The story that caught my eye was the TV news story that crossed Sunday night saying that Allied troops are reporting that Iraqi nationals are now volunteering to help guide and lead the Coalition troops, now that they're seeing the Ba'athist threat to their families recede....

You might say that we've been hearing from Saddam's locked-up wards for a while now, and the Ba'athist vote has been heard from, and now some of the other precincts are starting to come in, in Iraq's first free election since God knows when. Since maybe the days of the Sumerian city-states, before they became kingdoms? That's a long time.

FWIW, and IIRC, the Cambridge Ancient History says that the earliest Sumerian society was, indeed democratic. That would have been about fifty centuries ago, or longer.