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Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Paul Street at Jan 08, 2005

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Here, pasted in below, are two items from today's newspapers on some of the fascist machinations of the U.S. global police state. The first story, from the New York Times, relates soon-to-be bipartisanally approved right-authoritarian Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales' opinion that non-Iraqi occupation... resisters captured in Iraq have no protections under the Geneva Conventions. This is apparently also the position taken by the fascist US Justice Department last year. In his Senate pre-confirmation ritual, Gonzales recently (yesterday perhaps) gave the following reason for supporting that department's denial of basic human rights provisions to non-Iraqi and therefore illegal combatants: “We had members of Al Qaeda, intent on killing Americans, flooding into or coming into Iraq,. And the question was legitimately raised, in my judgment, as to whether or not - what were the legal limits about how to deal with these terrorists." Well, gee, but it seems that Iraq and the Islamic world have soldiers of the United States Empire flooding in, "intent on killing" Iraqis and Arabs in general. This is indeed very much the intent that is drummed into the heads of US soldiers in their boot camps, where they are encouraged to mercilessly butcher “sand-niggers” and led to believe that they will be avenging 9/11 in Iraq even though the Iraqi people, including Saddam Hussein, had nothing to do with the jetliner attacks. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed because of this racist war indoctrination ordered by the imperialist War Pigs in Washington D.C. Insofar as al Qaeda now has a presence in Iraq, of course, this is pretty much entirely due to the illegal and murderous US occupation of that once sovereign nation. The bloody war masters in the White House, the Pentagon, and the Justice Department will not mind, I hope, if impartial observers deem the American invaders to be illegal combatants and therefore fit to be murdered, tortured, and imprisoned indefinitely without right to counsel or even formal charges. Speaking of right-less illegal combatants incarcerated for life, this Times article contains an interesting bit of information from an anonymous US torturer who has been working at the United States' detention center in Guantanamo. “A veteran interrogator at Guantánamo told The New York Times in a recent interview,” Times reporters Jehl and Lewis note, “that it became clear over time that most of the detainees had little useful to say and that ‘they were just swept up' during the Afghanistan war with little evidence they played any significant role. ‘These people had technical knowledge that expired very quickly after they were brought here,' said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.” Regarding Guantánamo, the Times adds, “intelligence veterans not associated with the prison camp have long indicated that it was highly unlikely that most of the detainees could still have any valuable intelligence.” And speaking of getting swept up and flown to Hell, have you ever heard of the US government policy called "rendition?" The second article pasted in below, from the Chicago Tribune, is a real trip. It tells the story of a curious little Gulfstream V Executive Jet the CIA and the Joint Special Operation Command have been using to take suspected terrorists to countries where torture laws are lax. “Since Sept. 11,” Tribune reporter John Crewdson notes, “unnamed U.S. officials have been quoted in several publications discussing the U.S. practice of 'rendition,' which involves sending suspected terrorists or Al Qaeda supporters captured abroad for interrogation to countries where human rights are not traditionally respected.” The jet is registered in the name of "Leonard T. Bayard," a man who does not exist. Story 1 January 8, 2005 CAPTURED INSURGENTS U.S. Said to Hold More Foreigners in Iraq Fighting By DOUGLAS JEHL and NEIL A. LEWIS NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - After raids in recent months that captured hundreds of insurgents in Iraq, the United States has significantly increased the number of prisoners it says are foreign fighters, a group the Bush administration contends are not protected by the Geneva Conventions, American officials said. A Pentagon official said Friday that the United States was now holding 325 foreign fighters in Iraq, a number that the official said had increased by 140 since Nov. 7, just before the invasion of Falluja. Many of the non-Iraqis were captured in or around that city. Many of them are suspected of links to Al Qaeda or the related terror networks supporting the insurgency in Iraq, senior Bush administration officials said this week. Some of the non-Iraqis who were involved in the insurgency there could be transferred out of the country for indefinite detention elsewhere, the officials said, as they have been deemed by the Justice Department not to be entitled to protections of the Geneva Conventions. Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, testifying Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on his nomination to become attorney general, noted that the Justice Department had issued a legal opinion last year saying non-Iraqis captured by American forces in Iraq are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. "We had members of Al Qaeda, intent on killing Americans, flooding into or coming into Iraq," Mr. Gonzales testified. "And the question was legitimately raised, in my judgment, as to whether or not - what were the legal limits about how to deal with these terrorists." "There was a fear about creating a sanctuary for terrorists if we were to say that if you come and fight against America in the conflict with Iraq, that you would receive the protections of a prisoner of war," he said. He confirmed that the Justice Department had issued "some guidance with respect to whether or not non-Iraqis who came into Iraq as part of the insurgency, whether or not they would also or likewise enjoy the protection of the Geneva Convention. And I believe the conclusion was that they would not." The disclosure about new foreign detainees comes as a high-level group in the administration is struggling to come up with a long-term plan for how to handle the hundreds of prisoners accused of links to the Taliban and Al Qaeda who are already in American custody in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan. The administration has asserted an authority to detain such prisoners indefinitely, as unlawful combatants, but officials have acknowledged that they cannot say how or when the war on terrorism might be deemed to have reached an end. A senior American official said in an interview this week that the vast majority of the 550 prisoners now held at the American detention center at Guantánamo no longer had any intelligence value and were no longer being regularly interrogated. Still, the official said the Defense Department planned to hold hundreds of them indefinitely, without trial, out of concern that they continue to pose a threat to the United States and cannot safely be sent to their home countries. "You're basically keeping them off the battlefield, and unfortunately in the war on terrorism, the battlefield is everywhere," a senior administration official said. The extraordinary circumstances surrounding the suspected Qaeda and Taliban prisoners have prompted increasing statements of concern from members of Congress, who say the administration has shown little sign of willingness to put the prisoners on trial and who have questioned whether there is adequate legal basis for their indefinite detention. "It is time for Congress to thoroughly consider whether locking them away for life on the coast of Cuba or wherever is the appropriate solution," said Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. As part of the plan for their long-term detention, a Pentagon proposal nearing final approval in the administration calls for the construction of a second, permanent prison at Guantánamo, at a cost of at least $25 million, to hold about 200 of the suspected members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban who are seen as posing the highest security risk. The original purpose of detaining the prisoners at Guantánamo was said to be to interrogate them for information about terrorist operations. But at least three-quarters of the 550 prisoners there are no longer seen as worthy of regular interrogation, the senior American official said, reflecting a judgment that he said had been made in recent months. That assertion is at odds with statements made as recently as November by the top American commander at Guantánamo Bay, Brig. Gen. Jay Hood. He told reporters that the "vast majority" of the prisoners still had valuable information to impart. "Are they still of potential intelligence value to our mission? Yes." General Hood said. Asked if many of the detainees were of little value, he said the vast majority were still useful as an intelligence resource. The military has put in place two separate quasi-legal proceedings at Guantánamo that officials have said will confirm that almost all were properly imprisoned as enemy combatants and then will allow the authorities to reduce the population. Most of the 550 prisoners at the camp have been through the first process and deemed to have been properly imprisoned as unlawful combatants. The military has just begun the second process, an annual review as to whether they could be released because they are no longer judged to be threats. Military officials say no prisoners captured in Iraq have been transferred to Guantánamo. But government officials acknowledged last fall that about a dozen non-Iraqis suspected of ties to Al Qaeda had been transferred out of Iraq by the Central Intelligence Agency between March 2003 and March 2004 to undisclosed locations. Asked about the review of non-Iraqi prisoners now under way, the officials have left open the possibility that more could be transferred to secret facilities run by the C.I.A. outside the United States. Those facilities are believed to house a total of about two dozen suspected high-ranking officials of Al Qaeda, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and others. When administration officials first described the legal opinion on detainees in Iraq in October, they acknowledged that the transfer of non-Iraqis by the C.I.A. had already taken place. Until last fall, the administration had asserted that the full protections of Geneva, including the prohibition on the transfer of prisoners, applied broadly to the conflict in Iraq, and had given no indication that any exception was being made for non-Iraqis. Altogether, the United States military still holds about 8,500 prisoners in Iraq, including about 7,500 at three main prisons in Iraq and an 1,000 or so at temporary battlefield detention centers. All are classified as security detainees, American military officials say. As for the American detention center at Guantánamo, intelligence veterans not associated with the prison camp have long indicated that it was highly unlikely that most of the detainees could still have any valuable intelligence. A veteran interrogator at Guantánamo told The New York Times in a recent interview that it became clear over time that most of the detainees had little useful to say and that "they were just swept up" during the Afghanistan war with little evidence they played any significant role. "These people had technical knowledge that expired very quickly after they were brought here," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Most of the emphasis was on quantity, not quality," the interrogator said, adding that the number of pages generated from an interrogation was an important standard. Story 2 Mysterious jet tied to torture flights Is shadowy firm front for CIA? Advertisement By John Crewdson Tribune senior correspondent January 8, 2005 CHICAGO TRIBUNE PORTLAND, Ore. -- The first question is: Where is Leonard T. Bayard? The next question is: Who is Leonard T. Bayard? But the most important question may be: Does Leonard T. Bayard even exist? The questions arise because the signature of a Leonard Thomas Bayard appears on the annual report of a Portland-based company, Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC, that was filed in August with the Oregon secretary of state. According to federal records, Bayard Foreign Marketing is the newest owner of a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V executive jet reportedly used since Sept. 11, 2001, to transport suspected Al Qaeda operatives to countries such as Egypt and Syria, where some of them claim to have later been tortured. The Central Intelligence Agency has declined to discuss the plane. But one retired CIA officer said that he understood the Gulfstream had been operated by the Joint Special Operations Command, an interagency unit that organizes counterterrorist operations in conjunction with the CIA and military special forces. A search of commercial databases turned up no information on Leonard Thomas Bayard: no residence address, no telephone number, no Social Security number, no credit history, no automobile or property ownership records--in short, none of the information commonly associated with real people. And yet, someone signed the name Leonard T. Bayard to Bayard Foreign Marketing's annual report. The report, which describes the company as an "international marketing firm," lists Bayard's principal place of business as a suite in a historic downtown Portland office building known as the Pittock Block. But a visitor to the suite who asked to see Bayard was told by a receptionist only that "Mr. Bayard doesn't work here." The telephone number on Bayard's annual report is listed to a private residence in a rundown section of northeast Portland whose doorbell went unanswered earlier this week. Calls to that number, however, appear to be answered by a bank of operators. An initial call was answered as "Baynard Foreign Marketing" by an operator who insisted she never had heard of Leonard Bayard. A second call two minutes later was answered as "Bayard Foreign Marketing" by a different operator, who said that "Mr. Bayard is away from his desk." A message left by a reporter went unanswered. The CIA has long had a well-known practice of "backstopping" local telephone numbers for its proprietary companies around the world, whose calls are forwarded to operators at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Scott Caplan, an attorney whose offices occupy the same Portland suite as the one listed by Bayard Foreign Marketing, identified Bayard as "a client" but declined to say more. Public documents show it was Caplan who filed the incorporation papers for Bayard Foreign Marketing when the company was created in August 2003. Ann Martens, a spokeswoman for Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, said that knowingly filing a false corporate document in Oregon is punishable by up to 6 months in prison and a $1,000 fine. November sale Leonard T. Bayard--whoever he may or may not be--became the sole owner of the mysterious Gulfstream jet on Nov. 16, according to public records compiled by the Federal Aviation Administration. The records show that Bayard Foreign Marketing purchased the plane, for an undisclosed sum, from Premier Executive Transport Services, whose address is the same as that of a Dedham, Mass., law firm that incorporated Premier Executive in January 1994. The Massachusetts law firm's address is shared by a second company, Crowell Aviation Technologies Inc., which according to Dun & Bradstreet claims to have only a single employee and $65,000 in annual revenue. Government records show, however, that Crowell is one of only nine companies, along with Premier Executive, that has Pentagon permission to land aircraft at military bases worldwide. The same day it transferred ownership of the Gulfstream to Bayard, Premier Executive sold an unmarked, 3-year-old Boeing 737 to Keeler and Tate Management LLC of Reno. That company's address is the same as that of the Reno law firm that incorporated it in October 2003, records show. Like Leonard T. Bayard, the only named principal in Keeler and Tate, one Tyler Edward Tate, also appears not to exist in any public records accessible by the Tribune. Premier Executive's only listed executive is its president, Bryan P. Dyess. A person with that name does appear in commercial databases, but his only addresses are two post office boxes in Arlington, Va., not far from CIA headquarters. Premier Executive purchased or leased the new Gulfstream V in 1999, FAA records show. The plane's original registration number, N581GA, would later be changed by the FAA to N379P, and again to 8068V. The first public mention of the Gulfstream appeared six weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, when a Pakistani newspaper reported that Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a 27-year-old microbiology student at Karachi University, had been spirited aboard the plane at Karachi's airport by Pakistani security officers in the early hours of Oct. 23, 2001. There is no information about where Mohammed was taken. But Pakistani officials said later that Mohammed, a Yemeni national, was believed by the U.S. to belong to Al Qaeda and to have information about the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Since Sept. 11, unnamed U.S. officials have been quoted in several publications discussing the U.S. practice of "rendition," which involves sending suspected terrorists or Al Qaeda supporters captured abroad for interrogation to countries where human rights are not traditionally respected. Well-documented case One well-documented rendition occurred in December 2001, when two Egyptian nationals, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed al-Zery, were flown aboard the Gulfstream from Sweden's Bromma airport to Cairo. A Swedish television broadcaster, TV4, reported last year that a check of the plane's registration number, N379P, showed it belonged to Premier Executive. The Swedish ambassador to Cairo later said Agiza and al-Zery both told him they had been tortured by Egyptian police. Al-Zery was released in October 2003 without charges. Agiza was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his alleged membership in an Egyptian terrorist group. The Swedish government has called on Egypt to agree to an international investigation into the torture charges. The government has said it had been assured by Egypt that the two men would not be mistreated. Another widely reported rendition to Egypt occurred in January 2002, when the Gulfstream arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia, to pick up a 24-year-old Al Qaeda suspect and dual Egyptian-Pakistani citizen, Muhammad Saad Iqbal, and transport him to Cairo. German intelligence sources later said Indonesia refused to permit subsequent renditions to Cairo after learning that Iqbal had been tortured. An international network of "plane spotters," hobbyists who log the comings and goings of specific aircraft around the world, have posted on the Internet photographs of the Gulfstream in various locations. The Sunday Times of London, which claimed to have obtained the plane's flight logs, reported in November that the plane was based at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. The newspaper said it had flown to at least 49 destinations outside the U.S., including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, other U.S. military bases, as well as airports in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, Afghanistan, Libya and Uzbekistan. Two days after the Sunday Times report, Premier Executive Transport sold the Gulfstream to Bayard Foreign Marketing. On Dec. 1, records show, the FAA assigned the plane yet another tail number, N44982.

Comment On This Blog Post  See All Comments (24)

Person

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Child, Wandering at Jan 13, 2005 11:13 AM
Regarding the GC, no, there is no "separation" or "adition": each Convention rules different things and they complement each other. Again, you are wrong with your "interpretation" and it seems that you haven´t read the information provided.Where´s the debate about the GC?. The USA ignore not only the GC ( Abu Ghraib,Falluja,...)but the whole International Law and its own civil law and try to justify it with no better arguments than yours. "It also seem they cannot also be subject to civil law, as no civil laws exists yet." Sorry but what´s your legal basis for this nonsense. This has already been explained to you.

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Person

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Child, Wandering at Jan 13, 2005 11:11 AM
"As for the proof that a large proportion of the Iraqis killed are insurgents and their civilian victims that Wander Child asked" I didn´t ask you that, I suggested you to read the information provided regarding the International Law in order to correct your misunderstood and then I asked " Are you suggesting(correct me if I am wrong) that since some "insurgents" (I would like to know who exactly is included in this term) violate the Geneva Conventions they have not got legal rights and can be killed or tortured under a "non/para-legal process"?" As for the "insurgents" or civilians killed in Iraq, are you referring to this study?: "The researchers felt the excessive violence from combat in Falluja could skew the overall mortality rates. Excluding information from Falluja, they estimate that 100,000 more Iraqis died than would have been expected had the invasion not occurred. Eighty-four percent of the deaths were reported to be caused by the actions of Coalition forces and 95 percent of those deaths were due to air strikes and artillery."

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Person

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By B, Silent at Jan 13, 2005 04:57 AM
If that's the case, then still, terrorist and insurgents still don't qualify for Geneva Convention protection, as in the third one, Part 1 Article 4 Section 2 of the Convention III, as was pointed out to me, requires that any resistance to occupation have fixed signs, carry arms openly, adhere to the rules of war and so on, barring them from I, II and IV. It also seem they cannot also be subject to civil law, as no civil laws exists yet. Elections are still 3 weeks away in Iraq and Afghanistan's government is only weeks old. I suppose that's why there's so much debate and varying interpretations of the Geneva Conventions, as it would seem that some parts contradict another.

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Person

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By B, Silent at Jan 13, 2005 04:56 AM
That John Hopkins University study said that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed, not Iraqi civilians. Iraq's intelligence minister estimates that there are 120,000 to 200,000 insurgents. It's just statistically unlikely that anything more than a slight majority of Iraqis killed are innocent civilians killed by US forces. Over 200 Iraqis have been killed by car bombs in just the past 12 days, only 60 of which are “myrmidons,” borrowing strike-free.net's terminology for Iraqi policemen or soldiers. Over the past 20 months, insurgents have, when they weren't targeting Americas, blown up Mosques, clinics, marketplaces, fired into crowds and so forth. Thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed by the freaks strike-free.net describes as heroes, which leads back to the Geneva Conventions. Now, I originally wasn't aware that there was more than one Geneva Convention, and that I had only read the third, but now that I have had time to read I, II and IV, I'm not sure if each convention is separate or if each is an addition of the preceding.

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Person

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By B, Silent at Jan 13, 2005 04:52 AM
You still fail to point out how this war is racist . You seem to think that since America is a predominantly white nation and that Iraq is an Arab nation, that its automatically a racist war, yet Bush nor anyone in any serious position of power has never used the word "sand-nigger" or "A-rab" or described Arabs as inferior. The reason I bring up the issue of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan is because to me, the left is falling into believing fascist propaganda. You are always invoking the name and preservation of sovereignty. The worst crimes of every brutal authoritarian state have been justified by invoking the name and preservation of sovereignty. Hitler decimated Europe's Jewish population and Japan slaughtered countless Chinese in the name of sovereignty from Western European and American imperial interests. As for the proof that a large proportion of the Iraqis killed are insurgents and their civilian victims that Wander Child asked for, just go to the BBC website, or Reuters, or turn on CNN. Oh, right! I forgot! BBC, Reuters and CNN only represent the views of rightwing corporatists! Indymedia.org and strike-free.net are the only reliable news sources.

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4101

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Servo, Tom at Jan 12, 2005 05:48 AM
I find it funny that Silent B invokes Margaret Hasan, who had lived in safety under the evil Saddam Hussein, and is killed while the Bush Crime Family is in charge of Iraq. Add another corpse to the Bush Crime Family's body count..... Every civilian and every child above the age of 3 that is killed by Bush's hired guns was safer living under Saddam. Fact. Every man, woman, and child raped or tossed from a bridge (6 month sentence for murder) or otherwise tortured/killed by one of our uniformed personnel was safer under Saddam. Finally, does this mean that Halliburton employees (lowly truck drivers) can be beheaded and it is a-okay with the Geneva Convention as long as they do not have a "distinctive" badge? And what do they mean by distinctive? Can I get a judgment on this one?

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Person

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Xyzak, Xyzak at Jan 11, 2005 00:31 AM
It's very hard for me to not to get irritated by the "freedom fighters" bearing m16a2's shooting people defending their countries. Iraq, Seriba and many others. The US of A procaim to be the single one country giving the most freedom to oneself ... n.c. I'm live in a country which was occupied for 123 years by Germany, Austria and Russia. Liberated after the I WW and traded to communism in 1945. I'll get to the point - leave Iraq and it's oil to its people. Leave Afghanistan. Cut the military bugdet by 50% and spend those money on humanitarian aid. Given time all the world would be fond to dub USA as the freedom bringers. I'm glad to see that there are people in America which haven't been affected by the pentagon propaganda.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Street, Paul at Jan 11, 2005 00:05 AM
Maybe the stupidest part of Silent B's commentary is where he tries to make an analogy between Saddam's Iraq and the fascist powers Nazi Germany and Japan before and during WWII and then asks "since when is sovereignty proof of innocence?" Who said "sovereignty is proof of innocece?" Not me. All I did was refer to Iraq as a "formerly sovereign nation." There isn't an "innocent" nation state in the world. So should they all be invaded? According to international law you can invade a sovereign state only if it poses an actual imminent and serious danger to your nation. If Silent B expects anyone at ZNet to think that Saddam's Iraq was such a threat, analogous to the real-deal fascist Axis powers, then he ought to think again. He should also read the Monthly Review piece that ZNet put up today (I think) on the real US motives for invading Iraq.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Street, Paul at Jan 10, 2005 23:46 PM
Silent B says that the reporters I quoted and I myself would be getting tortured behind bars if "fascism was taking root in America." No, that would be happening if fascism was fully installed. Nobody here is saying that America has become anything like fully fascist. I personally think it's entirely possible that some form of fascism is at least beginning to take root in post-9/11 U.S. and that people like Gonzales (who last year referred to the Geneva Conventions as quaintly irrelevant or words to that effect) are part of that. On proto-fascism in America, see the second chapter (titled "Under the Shadow of Authoritarianism" or something close to that...will correct when I get home) of Henry Giroux's 2004 book The Terror of Neoliberalism (Paradigm Publishers). As for the war being racist, that's pretty clear at various levels, including I would say the ease with which much of the US populace was led to merge the 9/11 attackers with the Iraqi people...."them A-rabs." It's clear in the tiny attention that is given to Iraqi "war" victims relative to dead US occupier solders and it's clear from the well known boot camp/basic training invocations of the need to kill "sand-niggers" and "towel-heads" and the like.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Street, Paul at Jan 10, 2005 23:34 PM
I have no idea precisely how many (if any) of the Lancet's 100,000 Iraqi deceased died from "insurgent" attacks, but Silent B should understand that the deadly geurrilla resistance to this insane, illegal, and immoral US occupation was widely predicted even within elite imperial US circles. For this and other reasons (including the predictable collapse of civil authority that followed final destruction of the already devastated Iraqi state), it's not unreasonable to say that US hands too are bloody with the victims of "insurgent" violence against Iraqis (just as they were long bloody with Saddam's victims).

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Street, Paul at Jan 10, 2005 23:27 PM
The bad news is that it all makes for grave danger, especially when the nuclear president is one of the stupid white male evangelical "ass clowns" (to use ebogan's colorful language) who professes to believe in Armaggedon, the Second Coming, and other nice things like that. Let's hope our own species at least can survive "4 more years" of this dangerous moron. On SilentB, who has been writing me individually, he is significantly corrected on the Geneva Convention by Bruce W and others, but the funny thing for what it's worth is that my post never said the US was violating Geneva Conventions with regard to the new officially (US-) designated illegal combatants in Iraq: I just said that US troops would seem to fit the profile of people not protected by the GC under the terms of Gonzales' statement. Of course the whole notion of US authorities having anything to solemnly propound about international law (GC or otherwise)in Iraq is pretty absurd since (as joeblogs56 points out), the whole invasion and occupation is completely and in fact quite seriously illegal under any reasonable understanding of that law.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Street, Paul at Jan 10, 2005 23:20 PM
tvekey makes an interesting point about US "desperation" beneath all the arrogant bravado of fascist police state tactics. I think we easily forget the ongoing and underlying decline of US hegemony in economic, political, and moral ideological sense and yes perhaps these declines are exacerbated (good) by the raw messianic insanity and blood and soil nationalist imperialism of the proto-fascist NeoBushcons. Sheer preponderance of savage, lawless military force is the American masters' last hegemonic refuge. Imperial seizure of the Persian Gulf oil stranglehold is their idea of a competitive response to the superior economic, social, and cultural performance of more dynamic states and regions in the world system....ctd

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Person

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Hesed00, Hesed at Jan 09, 2005 21:59 PM
SilentB, is it your contention that the Geneva Convention articles you listed indicate that it is appropriate to torture those who don't have a flag, uniform or distinguished symbols?

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Person

Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Child, Wandering at Jan 09, 2005 16:45 PM
I forgot to ask which is the point of your odd "mixture" of Shiite,Sunni,truck drivers and Margaret Hassan. Are you suggesting(correct me if I am wrong) that since some "insurgents" (I would like to know who exactly is included in this term) violate the Geneva Conventions they have not got legal rights and can be killed or tortured under a "non/para-legal process"?. I mean, your comment about "the possibility that a large portion of the 100,000 Iraqis killed in the war are insurgents and their victims as well" explains quite well wich is your opinion but It would be good if you could confirm it.If you are going to answer, please read first the information provided above(I´m sure that you are interested in it since you expended 2h searching/reading an article of the GC) and then explain wich is your legal basis for such "argument".

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Child, Wandering at Jan 09, 2005 13:56 PM
It´s true that some of the "combatants"(including many US soldiers and civilians/war dogs) in Iraq are not protected by the Geneva Conventions but as Bruce B has pointed out those who are not protected by the Conventions are subjected to the Civil Law. Since there isn´t a civil law in Iraq right now and the US is the Ocuppying Power these "combatants" are subjected to the principles of the International Law, Human Rights Treaties and the American Civil Law. Right now the Supreme Court of the USA allows this nonsense term of "illegal combatants" so torture is allowed in the USA. P.S You have forgotten to say where in the Geneva Conventions (or in any other International Law treaty) the CIA Airlines appear, so ,please, it would be very useful if you could explain wich treaty allows this (obviously apart from the CIA Statute).

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Child, Wandering at Jan 09, 2005 13:43 PM
Silent B, since you are so interested in the International Law, I suggest you to read the following: 1.- "War" in Iraq. Art. 6(a) of the Nuremberg Laws/Statute (confirmed by the UN resolution (#95) in 1946 and by the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity of 1968 (Art. 1 (a)); also, Art 1,2,24,42 and 51 of the Charter of UN;and Nicaragua Vs EEUU, International Justice Court. 2.- Since you have misrepresented the whole Geneva Conventions (and La Haya Conventions btw), It would be good if you could read not only the Convention III but the rest of them and pay attention to Art.5(in relation to Art 1 to 4) of the Convention IV. ...

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By W, Bruce at Jan 09, 2005 12:11 PM
Silent B, please read the full text of the Convention: (1) Article 5 states that people are protected by the Convention until "such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." No tribunal has ever ruled on the status of alleged terrorists. (2) Article 3 applies to ALL persons not involved in combat, INCLUDING DETAINEES, and expressly forbids torture. Furthermore, if a person is not a POW under the convention, they are subject to the ordinary civil law: they are COMMON CRIMINALS. The US practice of declaring alleged terrorists to be "unlawful combatants", beyond the reach of any law, has no foundation. There is no legitimacy for the US torture archipelago.

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By B, Silent at Jan 09, 2005 05:11 AM
And what makes this war racist? Just because Iraq has to be populated by people of color? If the occupation of Yugoslavia had been this bloody, would you say it racist? And how is sovereignty proof of innocence? Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were sovereign nations. You seem to think America is guilty of so many crimes on so many levels, so would you say that the US is NOT sovereign? Besides, if fascism were taking root in America, you'd see that the writers of these NYT and Tribune articles, or perhaps Paul Street himself, would be violated in Abu Ghraib fashion, as fascist nations always show more brutality towards dissidents than towards foreign enemies.

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By B, Silent at Jan 09, 2005 05:10 AM
The insurgents break conditions b, c and d of Part I Article 4 Section 2. They do NOT have fixed, distinctive signs recognizable at a distance, they do NOT carry arms openly, as the favorite suicide and car bombs are ways for sneaking weapons by and killing large numbers of mostly innocent people, which goes on to section d. The insurgents do NOT conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. When ever insurgents aren't turning their guns towards US forces, Sunni insurgents murder Shiite civilians, Shiite insurgents murder Sunni civilians (Paul Street has refused to answer my question asking if he acknowledges the possibility that a large portion of the 100,000 Iraqis killed in the war are insurgents and their victims as well). They behead lowly truck drivers and sometimes even truly benevolent, sympathetic aid workers (remember Kim Sun-Il and Margaret Hassan?) they hide and attack in and from mosques and hospitals, which also violates the Geneva Convention, they send death threats to election workers and eager voters. You have to be some ignorant nutcase if you think these insurgents are heroic.

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By B, Silent at Jan 09, 2005 05:05 AM
First off, have any of you ever even bothered to read the Geneva Convention? I just spent the last two and a half hours reading and rereading it, and you know what? Gonzales is right; insurgents to not are not qualified for Geneva Convention protection. Part I Article 4 Section 2 of the Geneva convention states that to qualify for protection, “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.

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Cryofan, Cryofan at Jan 09, 2005 01:16 AM
Sounds like business as usual for the CIA. Those scum have involved in this sort of stuff even since the agency was created. Same as it ever was.... I say break up the CIA, and then indict and try most of the upper CIA management for treason, and if they are found guilty, let Dog sort 'em out....

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Vekey, Tvekey at Jan 09, 2005 00:51 AM
These oppressive, extra-judicial processes are good indication of a regime in desperation and not without unfavorable consequences to the US government as well. With the one exception of Israel, it has lost its legitimacy to the rest of the world. It has polarized the domestic society, where about half the population is alarmed by these developements, and it is in a good way to alianate and stress-out the military as well. Yes, the crisis made the system harder, but it is also more brittle.

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Gammon101, Bwong at Jan 08, 2005 21:05 PM
Sometimes ago the Canadian media reported that the U.S assault on Falluja was triggered by several American "civilians" being lynched in the city. For a moment I thought these unfortunate souls were tourists caught in a shopping trip. How can we not feel sorry for them and be outraged by the baberity of "the terrorists"? The fact that these people were "defense contractors" was only briefly mentioned, and this was dropped altogether in later reports. Then I listened to European news on the radio, they referred to the deceased as "mercenaries". North American media routinely refers to U.S mercenaries in Iraq as "civilians". So there are "civilian interrogators" in Iraqi prisons, etc. Technically this is "objective" reporting because true enough, these guys are not in uniform. But is it honest? This is yet another subtle way to whitewash war crime.If the media were consistent, American soldiers of fortune should be called "illegal combatants" or, better still, "terrorists".

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Re: Geneva Conventions? They're Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When They'll Be Back Again

By Child, Wandering at Jan 08, 2005 20:27 PM
"There was a fear about creating a sanctuary for terrorists if we were to say that if you come and fight against America in the conflict with Iraq, that you would receive the protections of a prisoner of war,” Gonzales said. I wonder which is the "advantage" of receiving the protections of the Geneva Conventions in the USA these days; the "insurgents" have 2 options depending of the "label" they receive: 1. Abu Ghraib for those who recieve the rights of the Geneva Conventions; 2. The CIA Airlines for the "illegal combatants". Not sure wich one is better. Sadly, as long as the Supreme Court of the USA continues with its current position in this issue, things will not change and torture (in the terms expressed in the GC) will continue to be allowed. The "war pigs" (as Paul calls them) are pretty satisfied with the present situation and they even try to do it "better".

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