You can't have your cake and eat it too.
We refuse to call the people we capture "prisoners of war" because it would qualify them for a specific type of treatment under the geneava (sp?) convention. Can we demand our guys be classified as POWs when we don't extend the same thing to the people we capture?
The taliban probably wouldn't recognize any type of civilized rules when it comes to the treatment of prisoners (much as the Japanease didn't in WWII), but we undercut our claims that our guys should be treated as POWs when we don't treat the people we capture as POWs (I know we treat the people we capture fairly well, but we are not extending them all of the protections and benefits a POW would get under the Geneva convention, that's why we're not calling them POWs.)
No, we refuse to call them prisoners of war because, under the Geneva Convention, they do not qualify as such: They do not wear organized uniforms and do not have an organized command structure, among other things. According to the Geneva Convention, they thus cannot be considered POWs.
We refuse to call the people we capture "prisoners of war" because it would qualify them for a specific type of treatment under the geneava (sp?) convention. Can we demand our guys be classified as POWs when we don't extend the same thing to the people we capture?
That is NOT why we don't call them POW's.
There is no comparison. Our guys are in uniform (and therefore identifiable), and members of a regular army. The al Queda members are neither. They are merely mercenaries and, as such, not covered by the Geneva Convention.
We always knew this is how our men would be treated if captured. The point is, this gives those whiny little creeps who have been running around complaining about the treatment of the prisoners at Gitmo an idea of what we're dealing with. I hope now that they just shut their mouths before the rest of us start thinking about THEM as the enemy.
Puhleeeeze. Civilized war existed before the Geneva Convention, you know. Probably more so!
And we all dote that these ragheads are "living in the 16th century"...so why do we concern ourselves with 20th century international agreements?
Excuse me, but we refuse to call the people we capture "Prisoners of War" because they do not meet the qualifications to be classified as belligerents under the Rules of War.
The 1907 Hague Convention defines the customary internatitonal "Rules of War" and it specifically denies individuals such as Al Qaeda fighters belligerent rights. Prisoner of War status is such a belligerent right.
Even if Osama bin Laden is assumed to be the commander responsible for his fighters, the Al Qaeda members clearly fail the other three qualifications for belligerent rights.
It may be argued that Taliban members may meet all four conditions for belligerent rights. Those individuals that have been released in Afghanistan are Taliban. Al Qaeda, who deliberately targets civilians and attacks by pretending to be part of the civilian population of America, clearly does not.
REGULATIONS RESPECTING THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR ON LAND
SECTION I
ON BELLIGERENTS
CHAPTER I
The Qualifications of Belligerents
Article 1.
The laws, rights, and duties of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps fulfilling the following conditions:
To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;
To carry arms openly; and
To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
In countries where militia or volunteer corps constitute the army, or form part of it, they are included under the denomination "army."
We cannot "demand" anything from animals such as Al Qaeda and expect to get it as they function outside the rule of law. We can only treat them as War Crimminals once we have them in our power.
They don't meet the qualifications for being prisoners of war. That's why we don't call them that -- not because we don't want to treat them as such under the Geneva Convention.