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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (118123)	10/30/2003 4:37:04 PM
From: aladin	Respond to of 281500

Jacob, What is the specific difference between an illegal combatant and POW? As to the ICC, the Belgian (yes - the people who gave us the Congo) attempts at prosecuting US officials make the very point that it would be used for politically motivated prosecutions. I will give you the point that the Belgian courts and the ICC are different entities, but what protections are built into the ICC to prevent such prosecutions? Be specific. John

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (118123)	10/30/2003 4:43:00 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 281500

We are following neither the letter nor the spirit of the Geneva Conventions, not in Guantanamo or Iraq or Afghanistan. If we are in fact not following the terms of the Geneva Convention, we are absolutely within our rights in refusing to do so. The Convention does not apply to organizations that are not signatories to it. Period. Full stop. The question is whether we should voluntarily adopt the Convention as the minimum standard of treatment for any POWs, regardless of the fact that the Convention does not technically apply to them. I think that the answer is ....it depends. Is the conflict a more or less traditional one, in which combatants are identified, in which terror attacks are not made against civilians, and in which some minimum standards of "humane" warfare are in place? If so, the Convention should be applied to POWs despite its otherwise technical inapplicability. If, on the other hand, the warfare consists of terror attacks on civilians, highjackings of civilian airliners, random bombings of tourist facilities, etc., then I'd favor not treating the combatants as being protected by the Convention. As I said previously, to do so would rob us of a means of deterring these abominable acts.