Free Republic

The short answer is that a prisoner of war is entitled to the protections set forth in the 1949 Geneva Convention. In contrast, an unlawful combatant is a fighter who does not play by the accepted rules of war, and therefore does not qualify for the Convention's protections. Buried within that short answer, however, are a host of complexities and troubling implications. First, what does it take to qualify as a prisoner of war? The criteria are: "(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a...

The Department of Defense will no longer call captured terrorists "unlawful combatants," but will now refer to these people as "unprivileged enemies." In a joint publication released this month, terrorists captured and detained by the United States will no longer be called "unlawful combatants," which is now apparently an obsolete term. Instead, a more polically correct term, "unprivileged enemies," has been chosen. The manual explains, "Belligerent. In general, a person who is engaged in hostilities against the US or its multinational partners during an armed conflict. The term belligerent includes both privileged belligerent and unprivileged enemy belligerent." It also includes...

Our troops rock!  Thank you for serving! The Freeper Canteen    The Protocols to the Geneva ConventionsandUnlawful Enemy Combatants     Protocol IProtocol I is an amendment to the Geneva Conventions.Adopted on June 8, 1977 by the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law applicable in Armed Conflicts presided over by Pierre Graber of Switzerland. The protocol entered into force on December 7, 1979 (six months after its adoption by the conference) and is binding for a country six months after it has ratified it. As of 14 January 2007 it had been ratified by...