Hypocrite, Eric Holder, in 2002, says the Gitmo terrorists aren’t covered under the Geneva Convention. What article in the Geneva Convention you ask? Well, it’s Article IV and it goes a little something like this:
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A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
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 militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government [not a deity] or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.
5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:
1. Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.
2. The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.
C. This Article shall in no way affect the status of medical personnel and chaplains as provided for in Article 33 of the present Convention.
In summary, these terrorists are not covered under the Geneva Convention because they are not normal soldiers, conducting war by international rules and guidelines. They are not regularly uniformed armed forces that abide by this Convention or any other treaties. These terror cells do not act on the behalf of a government, but rather as underground radical factions set up to terrorize other cultures and individuals. If they were uniformed soldiers, I would agree that they should be treated in a manner that abides by the Convention, however that has not, nor was it ever, the case.
A lot of thought and legal drafting went into the appropriateness of interrogation techniques used against Al-Qaeda and the terrorists at Gitmo who initiated the attacks on 9/11. I fail to see where the means of interrogation were unjust and completely inhumane? Waterboarding did not take place for every single prisoner and for those who were waterboarded, they could only be waterboarded so many times, while our men and women serving get waterboarded more often. Doctors are also required to stand by during a waterboarding session. As far as bugs in a corner or sleep deprivation – well that just reminds me of college, so what’s the big deal? Did these terrorists consider the lives or feelings of anybody before they attacked innocent civilians? I will never understand how the liberal mind works – and maybe that’s a good thing.
Oh, and it would be nice for all the Bush bashers and the liberal elite media to at least acknowledge the hypocrisy of Holder and this administration…
The Crabby Constituent 