Rumsfeld told reporters on the flight to Cuba that Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees at the Guantanamo Bay and Kandahar, Afghanistan, facilities "are not POWs" and characterized them instead as "unlawful combatants."
Listen Carl.. they are not lawful combatants because they themse, for the most part, are acting outside of the laws of war (not wearing clear insignia, using human shields, targeting civilians.. etc, etc)...
Rumsfeld stated that we were treating the Guantanamo detainees as IF the Geneva convention applied, not that stating that it actually did...
So technically, dependent upon the imperative requirement for a particular prisoner to break, we have considerable latitude to "stress" them into cooperation..
But does that mean we should abuse them? No.. I don't subscribe to the techniques that have been applied, and certainly not those at that prison.. It's a lack of imagination, IMO.. Tactics that are as de-humanizing and humiliating to the perpetrators, as they are to the victims.
And they should, and probably will be punished... In fact, I think Bush should probably appear in a national address and make an apology for the apparent abuses that took place there.. (within bounds of not compromising any particular investigation or trial).
Hawk |
