(OT) 4th Geneva Convention

But WE DID sign the Convention. Duh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

--
If you get what you want, what's to stop you
from asking for more?

"Perry" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 May 2004 09:15:17 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

Just to eliminate some of the superfluous chit-chat on the subject from
people
who obviously haven't looked at it, here is a copy of the 4th Geneva
Convention,
enacted in August 1949, to which both the U. S. and Iraq subscribed:

"Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character
occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each
Party to
the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members
of armed
forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by
sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all
circumstances be
treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race,
colour,
religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any
time and
in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,
mutilation,
cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and
degrading
treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without
previous
judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the
judicial
guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."


you left out one important part, not to publish pictures of the
captured. But since Iraq has not signed on to the Geneva accords what
difference does it make, Personally I'm sick in tired of the
anti-American media here in the states and wonder why they didn't
raise hell when our soldiers are mistreated by others.

Some people obviously have a reading comprehension problem. So, saying that we
signed the Convention, as you done, won't be enough for them to be able to put
two and two together and come up with four. You have to specifically point out
that the nation that signed the Convention is bound by its provisions regardless
of what the other nation in the dispute has done. Thus, we are bound by its
provisions and Iraq (which also signed the Convention) is equally bound. The
fact that they may have violated the terms of the Convention, or even that
people fighting independently on their territory may have violated those terms
does NOT give us the right to ignore or otherwise violate them.

Once we sign, we're permanently bound and if we ignore those terms for whatever
reason, we tell the world that our word is no longer our bond and that they no
longer need to believe that we mean whatever we say. That's what we give up
when we break the terms of the Convention.

George Z.

"meport" wrote in message
hlink.net...
But WE DID sign the Convention. Duh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

--
If you get what you want, what's to stop you
from asking for more?

"Perry" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 May 2004 09:15:17 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

Just to eliminate some of the superfluous chit-chat on the subject from
people
who obviously haven't looked at it, here is a copy of the 4th Geneva
Convention,
enacted in August 1949, to which both the U. S. and Iraq subscribed:

"Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character
occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each
Party to
the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members
of armed
forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by
sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all
circumstances be
treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race,
colour,
religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any
time and
in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,
mutilation,
cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and
degrading
treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without
previous
judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the
judicial
guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."


you left out one important part, not to publish pictures of the
captured. But since Iraq has not signed on to the Geneva accords what
difference does it make, Personally I'm sick in tired of the
anti-American media here in the states and wonder why they didn't
raise hell when our soldiers are mistreated by others.

George Z. Bush wrote:

Actually, the Convention is applicable to those who subscribed to it.
Nowhere
does it say that if one party to the armed conflict or whatever you want to
call
it fails to subscribe to the terms of the Convention that the other party is
excused from complying with its terms.

Not 100% accurate. The convention contains the "Law of Reciprocity" (did I
spell that right?) which says if one party violates part of the articles, the
opposing side is free to violate that article as well. Kind of an "eye for an
eye" rule.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

George Z. Bush wrote:

The
fact that they may have violated the terms of the Convention, or even that
people fighting independently on their territory may have violated those
terms
does NOT give us the right to ignore or otherwise violate them.

If they violate article X, (not Roman numeral 10, but X as in any article), we
are *permitted* by the convention to violate that same article as frequently as
it was violated by them. Its called the "Law of Reciprocity" and its pounded in
the head of aircrew to make the point that if you don't want your old high
school bombed, don't drop one on theirs.

Once we sign, we're permanently bound and if we ignore those terms for
whatever
reason, we tell the world that our word is no longer our bond and that they
no
longer need to believe that we mean whatever we say.

You need to read a little more about these articles George.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

On 12 May 2004 20:32:54 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

Not 100% accurate. The convention contains the "Law of Reciprocity" (did I
spell that right?) which says if one party violates part of the articles, the
opposing side is free to violate that article as well. Kind of an "eye for an
eye" rule.

'Eye for an eye' (that is, reprisal) is prohibited by Article 33 of
Convention IV: " No protected person may be punished for an offence he
or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise
all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage
is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property
are prohibited."

It's even more explicitly codified in Protocol I Additional (and yes,
I know America's relationship to that protocol).

Scott

"Perry" wrote in message
...
Personally I'm sick in tired of the
anti-American media here in the states and wonder why they didn't
raise hell when our soldiers are mistreated by others.

The only anti-American media I've seen coming out of the States in the last
few days has been the evidence of the actions of those criminal soldiers.
You want to look for anti-Americanism try starting by those few there who
also wear the star-spangled banner and who have fueled enough
anti-Americanism to last half a century.

Si

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
If they violate article X, (not Roman numeral 10, but X as in any
article), we
are *permitted* by the convention to violate that same article as
frequently as
it was violated by them. Its called the "Law of Reciprocity" and its
pounded in
the head of aircrew to make the point that if you don't want your old high
school bombed, don't drop one on theirs.

Should it simply be down to a rule of law that prevents us from doing those
kinds of things to people? If we claim to be the civilised, respectful
peoples that we do, should our morals be so easily cast aside with a "well
they started it" attitude?

Si

"John Harris" wrote in message
...
Of course this means that ONLY the United States should observe the rules.
It is OK for the Terrorists (who by the way are not signators to the
Geneva
Convention) to demand the one-sided protection of that Treaty while
disallowing it to those they murder, take hostage, torture, etc. Under
such
circumstances the Geneva Convention is NOT applicable..only the word of
God
as given to Christians is. Islam requires the death of all infidels
without
mercy, pity, or second thoughts. It is their Satanic Religion given by
the
Angel of the Devil...Mohammed..that has so distorted the minds and
thinking
of the Arabs. The Convention
requires BOTH parties to observe the terms. Besides, the war in IRAQ is
only being carried to terrorists...not the law abiding Iraqi people who
loath the terrorists as much as we do.

Fundamentalist Christians scare me almost as much as Islamic extremists.
Strange how un-Christian in their opinions many Christians can be.

Si

In message , BUFDRVR
writes
George Z. Bush wrote:
The
fact that they may have violated the terms of the Convention, or even that
people fighting independently on their territory may have violated those
terms
does NOT give us the right to ignore or otherwise violate them.

If they violate article X, (not Roman numeral 10, but X as in any article), we
are *permitted* by the convention to violate that same article as frequently as
it was violated by them. Its called the "Law of Reciprocity" and its pounded in
the head of aircrew to make the point that if you don't want your old high
school bombed, don't drop one on theirs.

Reprisals are prohibited unless *explicitly* authorised. That's often a
deterrent: not many folk like signing their name to what may later be
called deliberate breaches of "international law". (Sad fact of life -
the first breach was by "unauthorised renegades who would have been
court-martialled if they hadn't conveniently died", the reprisal was "a
calculated deliberate war crime ordered by and with the full assent of
the chain of command")

Look at how history views Lidice or Oradour-sur-Glane for how well
"reprisals" work. For that matter, what happens if Mr Berg's murderers
formally claim their act was a "reprisal" for US breaches of the GCs? I
don't consider his murder lawful in any circumstances.

It's a damn sight easier to hold the high moral ground, than it is to
fight in the foggy valleys. It's much easier and more convincing to
simply say "we do not torture detainees" than to argue "shoving Cyalumes
up a prisoner's arse isn't *technically* torture so we're just
interrogating with extreme prejudice, what are you complaining about?".

(And it plays really badly when folk say "hey, this is routine back in
the US, we do this to each other all the time..." I tell you, I am
*never* turning my back on a US policeman or serviceman with a
lightstick again )


Meanwhile, *unauthorised* reprisals are war crimes pure and simple.

Yes, this sucks for signatory nations when fighting a foe who explicitly
rejects "the rules" and yet has a sizeable civilian population to hide
behind and have take casualties for retaliatory action (indeed, the Bad
Guys _hope_ for indiscriminate reprisals).

No, I don't have any easy answers beyond "don't wrestle with that tar
baby" which is now badly OBE.

Once we sign, we're permanently bound and if we ignore those terms for
whatever
reason, we tell the world that our word is no longer our bond and that they
no
longer need to believe that we mean whatever we say.

You need to read a little more about these articles George.

Under what circumstance can an individual soldier / sailor / airman
decide that the GCs are no longer relevant?

If "any servicebeing" can't make that call, what's the minimum rank for
the decision to be made?

Does there need to be any audit trail or is anybody caught raping some
good-looking local or decapitating a kidnapped civilian entitled to
claim it as a 'lawful reprisal' for the enemy's violations of the GCs?



There are many bad and misguided reasons to be brutal in pursuing the
current scandal up the ranks as possible. There are, though, also two
*good* reasons.

One, for outside consumption as well as the home audience: make it clear
that this was not ordered policy but a mistake. I do not believe that
the President or his SecDef woke up one morning and decided "Gee,
wouldn't it be neat to make detainees in Iraq pretend to have gay sex
with each other?" Their error was a major fault of oversight and
omission, but the point at which laissez-faire turned into malice needs
to be found and fixed to deter recurrence. Below that point you have
intent, above it you have negligence. Both need fixing, but there *is* a
large difference.


Two, for internal use: "Understand your Orders". If you run a detention
centre, then guards arranging prisoners in naked pyramids or adorning
them with electrical wiring and ladies' underwear is either approved
policy to be proud of and with signed orders for it... or a major
disciplinary offence to be dealt with promptly.

While I don't accept "only obeying orders!" as a defence, I'm willing to
consider it as mitigation if the orders *appeared* credible and lawful
(back to the 'legal reprisal' part): especially if, as has been
advanced, this sort of treatment is routine in the US (prisons, military
recruit training and college fraternities are the examples cited so far
where this would apparently be routine and unexceptional behaviour -
makes me glad I'm law-abiding, past easy drafting age and beyond campus
study).


To quote a Michael Crichton translation of a Japanese saying - "Fix the
problem, not the blame".

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

Scott MacEachern wrote:

No protected person may be punished for an offence he
or she has not personally committed.

The Law of Reciprocity is not considered as a punishment per se and as such
does not fit Article 33.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property
are prohibited.

I'll have to find the Law of Reciprocity, because this statement runs counter
to its intent. The intent of the Law of Reciprocity is that if nation X bombs
religious sites in nation y than nation y is *legally* allowed to bomb nation
X's religious sites on a 1 for 1 basis.

I'll have do a Google and find the article dealing with reciprocity.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"