You Will Anyway: Saddam is a POW

Saturday, January 10, 2004

Saddam is a POW

Pentagon lawyers have determined that Saddam Hussein has been a prisoner of war since American forces captured him Dec. 13, a Defense Department spokesman said Friday.

Despite that determination, aides to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were grappling Friday with what to say publicly about the issue. A senior defense official who insisted he not be named said Hussein's legal status was still under review.

...Rumsfeld said earlier in the week that Hussein and all Iraqi captives are being treated in compliance with the Geneva Conventions. article

Sure. They. Are.

Bridge anybody?

And what about the Guantanamo "detainees"? Now that's a different story, I guess. If the Iraqi captives are being treated in compliance with the Geneva Conventions but the Guantanamo detainees don't have to be, I can only imagine what treatment they are getting.

The general counsel office in the Pentagon -- the Defense Department's top civilian lawyers -- has determined that Hussein is a prisoner of war because of his status as former commander in chief of Iraq's military, spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said Friday.

The lawyers determined that no formal declaration of Hussein's status was needed, he said.

Hmmm... what's that supposed to mean?

The Geneva Conventions say POWs can be tried only for crimes against humanity by an international tribunal or the occupying power, which in this case is the United States.

POW status also would entitle Hussein to meet with representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross. No such meeting has happened. Some human rights groups have complained that other top former Iraqi officials in U.S. custody haven't been given access to Red Cross representatives.

Hussein is being held and interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Daily Twain:

And other words of wisdom...

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. -- John Andrew Holmes

There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack. -- Molly Ivins

[War] is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious [racket]. ... It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives ... It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. -- Major General Smedley Butler

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe. -- Albert Einstein

"The brain of our species is, as we know, made up largely of potassium, phosphorus, propaganda, and politics, with the result that how not to understand what should be clearer is becoming easier and easier for all of us." -- James Thurber

One of the fun aspects of Empire is how many ironies it creates. -- Glenn Greenwald

I had a slightly insane discussion the other day with a winger who wanted urgently for me to understand that the Haditha massacre is the kind of thing that happens in war. Whereas I was trying to point out to him that the Haditha massacre is the kind of thing that happens in war. -- Molly Ivins

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. --George Orwell

I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare. –- Howard Zinn

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it. --Upton Sinclair

If we're the greatest country in the world, then maybe we could have the greatest government. -- Lewis Black

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. -- Aristotle

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. -- H.L. Mencken

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -- James Madison, 4th President of the United States

No nation builds a wall out of strength. They build it out of fear. -- Michael Flynn

They call it The American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. -- George Carlin

Texas justice is Texas justice. -- Victoria Nuland, US State Department spokeswoman

When you hold up your arm and swear to uphold the Constitution, you don’t say, “Except in wartime.” -- George McGovern

Sometimes I go about with pity for myself, and all the while Great Winds are carrying me across the sky. ~Ojibway saying