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How we can fight Tehran David Frum, National Post Published: Saturday, March 31, 2007 The Iranian seizure of 15 British naval personnel is an outrage -- and an opportunity. Iran invaded Iraqi territorial waters, attacked British naval personnel enforcing resolutions of the UN Security Council and committed an act of piracy and kidnapping. Iran then displayed its captives on national television and compelled them to read coerced political statements. It forced the captured female sailor to wear the Islamic hijab, a violation of her Geneva Convention right to practice her own religion. These violent and lawless actions have shocked...

Iran TV shows female navy captive Faye Turney said her captors had been 'friendly' and 'nice' Iranian state television has broadcast an interview with captured British female sailor Faye Turney and footage of the 14 servicemen seized with her.Leading Seaman Turney, 26, said they had been seized in the Gulf because "obviously we trespassed" in Iranian waters - something the UK disputes. She said her captors had been friendly and the 15 personnel were unharmed. The circumstances of the filming are not known. The Foreign Office said the footage was "completely unacceptable". 'Hospitable' Earlier Iran said it would release...

If it’s true that all Americans want proper national defense measures while enforcing and adhering to humane treatment of enemy captives, then we must begin with knowing what the Geneva Convention says, knowing to whom it applies (and doesn’t apply), being honest in the assessment of events, and applying the same rules of engagement expected of ourselves, to enemy forces. The Boston Globe writes ''Ex-General at Abu Ghraib Says Rumsfeld OK'd Abuse. That is a sensational headline to be sure, and the average reader would assume that this column is referring to the photos we’ve all seen of US soldiers...

To my American Friends, The Judge that ruled that the US is bound by the Geneva Convention is wrong, and should be removed from the Bench for such an outrageous misinterpretation. Read the Geneva Convention here: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm For the US to be bound by the Convention, a number of circumstances must be present, including: (A Party is a Country that signed up as a party to the Geneva Convention) "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...

What could be the first public appearance of the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq has been posted on the Internet, showing him executing a Turkish hostage. Abu Ayyoub al-Masri succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was slain in a US airstrike June Seventh. The new leader is also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer. The video shows three men in masks standing behind a blindfolded hostage. The militant in the middle, identified as al-Masri, reads a statement criticizing companies and people that cooperate with the US military. Then he shoots the hostage three times in the head.

by Mark Finkelstein September 22, 2006 - 07:08 The bio of Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks couldn't be much more impressive in terms of conventional credentials: Harvard, Oxford, Yale. Adviser to State Department. Kennedy School Fellow. But despite having her ticket prestigiously punched time and again, her column of today reveals that nowhere has she learned much in the way of nuance or common sense. Her opposition to President Bush's efforts to clarify interrogation rules so as to allow some more forceful technqiues is absolute and implacable, utterly failing to acknowledge the realities of terrorism on a scale unimaginable...

President Bush's stalled anti-terrorism agenda edged forward Tuesday, with a rebellious House member rewriting her bill on wiretaps more to his liking and maverick Senate Republicans reopening talks over how to handle detainees. Rep. Heather Wilson R-N.M., offered to substitute her original bill on giving legal status to Bush's warrantless surveillance program with a bill that would grant a key administration request: allow wiretapping on Americans in the event of an "imminent" terrorist attack. In exchange, the administration would be required to share with Congress more details of the nature of the threat, presumably with the House and Senate Intelligence...

The Senate is stalling another Bush Administration proposal to effectively fight the war on terror. After the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year that the President does not have inherent authority to try captured terrorists using military tribunals, President Bush asked Congress to grant him that authority in law. The Senate is balking at the President’s proposal, though, claiming that it runs afoul of a portion of the Geneva Conventions known as Common Article 3. But Heritage national security expert James Carafano notes that the administration’s proposal as it exists now would “satisfy[y] U.S. obligations under the Conventions.” In fact,...

by Mark Finkelstein September 19, 2006 - 07:46 In the course of the last few weeks Keith Olbermann's 'Special Comments' have become a Countdown staple in which the host plays to his Daily Kos demographic with vitriolic condemnations of all things Bush. I thought Olbermann had reached the nec plus ultra of nastiness with his suggestion a couple weeks ago that the Bush administration represented "a new type of fascism." I might have been wrong. MRC's Brad Wilmouth has comprehensively documented Keith Olbermann's 'Special Comment' of last night. In the course of those comments, Olbermann chose to invoke, of all...

When you enter a boxing ring, you agree to abide by the rules of boxing. But when you are attacked from behind in a dark alley, you would be a fool to abide by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. If you do, you can end up being a dead fool.Even with a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon and the prospect that its nuclear weapons will end up in the hands of international terrorists that it has been sponsoring for years, many in the media and in the government that is supposed to protect us have been preoccupied with whether...

Earlier this year, I made a friendly wager with a Republican legislative aid whereby I picked U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to be the GOP's presidential nominee in November 2008. Though the Viet Nam veteran was responsible for some highly dubious legislation in the past, including the infamous McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Bill, I still believed the Party's base could have given him their vote, in order to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House. However, McCain--who obviously loves to see his name in print--cannot seem to stand prosperity within his own political Party. Earlier this year he was one...

Dear Senator McCain: I just returned to town and learned about the debate taking place in Congress to redefine Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. I do not support such a step and believe it would be inconsistent with the McCain amendment on torture which I supported last year. I have read the powerful and eloquent letter sent to you by one [stet] my distinguished predecessors as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Jack Vessey. I fully endorse in tone and tint his powerful argument. The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight...

Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949. Preamble The undersigned Plenipotentiaries of the Governments represented at the Diplomatic Conference held at Geneva from April 21 to August 12, 1949, for the purpose of revising the Convention concluded at Geneva on July 27, 1929, relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, have agreed as follows: Part I. General Provisions Art 1. The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances. Art 2. In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace time,...

President Bush wasted no time yesterday responding to the Senate Armed Services Committee's passage of legislation that could damage the ability of intelligence agencies to obtain information from terrorist detainees. On Thursday, four Republicans [on] the Senate Armed Services Committee -- John Warner and John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins -- joined committee Democrats in passing flawed legislation governing detainee treatment that fails to respond to Bush's critical request. The lawmakers must clarify what interrogators can and cannot do when interrogating suspected jihadists. ... ...it would be difficult to imagine a more irresponsible decision... American forces captured Abu Zubaydah...

by Mark Finkelstein September 15, 2006 - 08:01 Like a baseball player - rescued from the nether reaches of the minor leagues and brought up to the Yankees - who cuts his hair, shaves the shaggy mustache and minds his grammar in his first TV interview, Keith Olbermann was on his better behavior in a 'Today' appearance this morning. In a temporary reprieve from the ratings purgatory that is his own Countdown on MSNBC, Olbermann was awarded an interview on Today for purposes of plumping his new book, 'The Worst Person in the World.' Lauer gave Olbermann respectful treatment, inviting...

TEL AVIV, Israel — In the least friendly fire imaginable, Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon encountered Hezbollah wearing Israel Defense Force uniforms, the Jewish state's leading investigative news program reported. During a battle on the evening of August 6 and early hours of August 7, in the town of Hule, an IDF unit found two Hezbollah dressed in Israeli fatigues and helmets in a civilian home. The battlefield commander was forced to order his men to remove the white hats they wear on their helmets to distinguish his men from the enemy. An embedded reporter, Itai Engel, from the weekly...

An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts. Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment. In light...

The latest grand Islamist atrocity was directed against the huge city of Mumbai, Tuesday. At least seven big explosions ripped through rush-hour commuter trains, along a string of stations on the principal north-south rail artery -- temporarily disabling the city's principal economic lifeline. It was a reprise of the Islamist attacks on Madrid's rail system, 28 months ago.As we must surely realize from recent arrests around Toronto, New York, Miami, London, Beirut, and elsewhere, the menace is hardly receding. For each Islamist cell police break up, they are dimly aware of several others. In Mumbai, the police anti-terrorist squad...

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 govern the treatment of lawful combatants and civilians during wartime. But now a new Pentagon memorandum concludes that Common Article 3 of the Conventions also governs the treatment of unlawful combatants: pirates, drug mafias and especially terrorists. So, five years after 9/11, the U.S. is about to give to people who ram commercial jets into buildings many of the same legal privileges and immunities as the average GI. How did we get to this Osama in Genevaland world? Credit belongs to last week's Hamdan Supreme Court decision, and to Pentagon officials who have overinterpreted the...

(Australian) FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer says the United States has always treated terror suspect David Hicks and his fellow Guantanamo Bay detainees in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The Bush administration said overnight that all detainees in US military custody in Cuba and elsewhere would be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The new policy appears to reverse Washington's earlier insistence that Guantanamo detainees, including Mr Hicks, were not prisoners of war and therefore not subject to Geneva protections. It reflects the recent five to three US Supreme Court decision blocking military commissions set up by US President George...