For more than a year, the Pentagon has been redrawing its policies on detainees, and intends to issue a new Army Field Manual on interrogation, which, along with accompanying directives, represents core instructions to U.S. soldiers worldwide.
The process has been beset by debate and controversy, and the decision to omit Geneva protections from a principal directive comes at a time of growing worldwide criticism of U.S. detention practices and the conduct of American forces in Iraq.
The directive on interrogation, a senior defense official said, is being rewritten to create safeguards so that all detainees are treated humanely but can still be questioned effectively.
President Bush's critics and supporters have debated whether it is possible to prove a direct link between administration declarations that it will not be bound by Geneva and events such as the abuses at Abu Ghraib or the killings of Iraqi civilians last year in Haditha, allegedly by Marines.
But the exclusion of the Geneva provisions may make it more difficult for the administration to portray such incidents as aberrations. And it undercuts contentions that U.S. forces follow the strictest, most broadly accepted standards when fighting wars.
"The rest of the world is completely convinced that we are busy torturing people," said Oona A. Hathaway, an expert in international law at Yale Law School. "Whether that is true or not, the fact we keep refusing to provide these protections in our formal directives puts a lot of fuel on the fire."...
Full article: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-torture5jun05,1,1143219.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on June 15, 2006]
Note: http://www.latimes.com/...
New Army Manual Omits Geneva Detainee Rule
Posted on Wednesday, June 14 at 20:00 by sthompsonContributed By
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We found our sister machinegun squad with their throats slashed in the woods of Poland and we always carried a handgrenade, for a fast cure in case we were wounded, as we knew there won't be any mercy.
Luckily, we never captured any Russians, as we were always running away, but some of our old soldiers would have killed any POWs on the spot.
There was no picking up of the wounded trapped between the lines under a Red Cross flag, as it was done on the West, and they either froze to death, or were shot from both sides.
Ed Deak.
Too bad the boys in BushCo seem to think they're above all law everywhere.
Congratulations George W, your place in Hell is now assured.
---
"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush
suggestion (below) is squarely in line with Vive's basic mandate.
When this story is headlined "New Army Manual ..." it is necessary for
assumptions to be made by the readers, before it makes sense. The
conscientious reader is left with work to do -- with options -- all of
them unsettling.
Do we as Canadians accept that any army news means somebody else's
army, not ours? If so, such an acceptance weakens our understanding of
ourselves.
Or do we assume that the Canadian Armed Forces has changed its rules
of engagement? Because whatever the U.S. Army does, the Canadian
Armed Forces are locked into, as well? If so, that subtle, relentless
inference that Canada doesn't count is a giant step forward on the road
to Deep Integration.
I feel certain that you don't intend that.
So wouldn't it be better to make a clear distinction? E.g., headline this
kind of story with "New U.S. Army Manual ..."
Do you want to give terrorists a pass since they are not covered by the Geneva Detainees Law( whatever that is) and they're not covered by the Geneva Conventions perhaps because there's no such animal as a detainee law anywhere but in your imagination. So the Nazis are better than the Americans. God help us.