The torture thread!

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MikeH
Yes, that doesn't mean we can't be bound by newer more strict rules AS WELL. No-one's saying that the new rules break the GC, only that they enhance it.

What's so hard to understand about that? The US signed up to both and has to follow both.

You're right in that the laws most likely should be modernized though I believe the UN treaty does an exeedingly poor job of defining terms. The GC is very clear however. When conflicts arise it wins both treaties define torture differently so it is clearly a conflict.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ramo

Not at all. The GC only covers warring parties in armed conflict.

Eh? Peace treaties cover warring parties in armed conflicts.

If the GC are the only laws that govern the state of war, then Peace Treates are illegal. So are Declarations of War.

Not at all since peace treaties end wars and do not dictate the laws of war. The GC does define the laws of war so there is no conflict.

[MikeH]

Not really, take the superset of both. If either of them defines it as torture it's torture. Simple.

[Ramo]

Not at all since peace treaties end wars and do not dictate the laws of war. The GC does define the laws of war so there is no conflict.

Of course they dictate the law of war. Specifically, they make war between two states illegal.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The Genevea Convention is very clear. It is the "supreme law of war" and when ever other "treaties, proclamations, agreements, or national laws" conflict with it the Geneva Convention wins during wars or armed conflicts.

I'm reading the GC of 1949 and no where does it say it is the supreme law of war and overrides anything that comes after it. In fact that would be highly suspect for a convention to bind all future conventions.

And no international lawyer, AFAIC, follows your interpretation.

So if you can point me to where it says supreme law of war, applying to anything coming to the future.

[Ramo]

When conflicts arise it wins both treaties define torture differently so it is clearly a conflict.

The GC calls certain certain acts under certain circumstances torture and prohibits them, the Convention Against Torture does the same, the Federal Anti-Torture Statute does the same. There's no contradiction. All of these actions are illegal; that they all call these actions under these circumstances the same thing is irrelevent.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Btw, here is the treaty:

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

Can you point out the word "supreme" for me. Or anything that indicates that it is the final word and all future conflicts are to be decided solely by the GC?

[MikeH]

Was Oerdin a US Army PR guy?

Was it part of his job to contradict things like this?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Mike, probably. There is nothing in the Geneva Convention that says it is supreme over LATER Conventions. And, indeed, the UN did not acceed to that interpretation when creating the Convention Against Torture, which has a provision saying that it applies during wartime!

[MikeH]

Well I can't be bothered to argue with him about it anymore then. You've convinced my my interpretation was right and now I have more facts to back that up. CASE CLOSED!

[Imran Siddiqui]

[Gibsie]

The GC by definition, according to Oerdin does not apply to unlawful combatants, and my thinking may be a little blurred, but if there are laws concerning lawful combatants that don't apply to unlawful combatants, then the laws that apply generally and are "overruled" by the GC must therefore apply to the unlawful combatants if nobody else.

It's like saying a law about animal cruelty doesn't count because more important laws say that you can't charge a man with assault for beating a dog ( <-- if that makes you go "what the hell is that idiot talking about?!", Oerdin, then bear in mind that is the quality of the argument you're presenting)

[laurentius]

Look, the term "unlawful combatant" is a made-up term and has absolutely no legal value of any kind. The taliban fighters are obviously regular militias/soldiers and are therefore covered by the GC.

[St Leo]

December 06, 2004
TORTURE USA

The Lubyanka Prison’s heavy oak main door swung open. I went in, the first western journalist to enter the KGB’s notorious Moscow headquarters, a place so dreaded Russians dared not utter its name. When they referred to it at all, they called it `Detsky Mir,’ after a nearby toy store.

After interviewing two senior KGB generals, I explored the fascinating museum of Soviet intelligence and was briefed on special poisons and assassination weapons that left no traces. I sat transfixed at the desk used by all the directors of Stalin’s secret police, on which the orders were signed to murder 30 million people.

Descending dimly lit stairs, I saw some of the KGB’s execution and torture cellars, and special `cold rooms’ where naked prisoners were beaten, then doused with ice water and slowly frozen.

Other favored Lubyanka tortures: psychological terror, psychotropic drugs, prolonged sleep deprivation, dazzling lights, intense noise, days in pitch blackness, isolation, humiliation, constant threats, savage beatings, attacks by guard dogs, near drowning.

Nightmares from the past….but the past has returned.

According to report just leaked to the `NY Times,’ the Swiss-based International Red Cross has accused the Bush Administration for a second time of employing systematic, medically supervised torture against suspects at its Devil’s Island at Guantanamo, and at US-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The second Red Cross report was delivered to the White House last summer while it was trying to dismiss the Abu Ghraib prison torture horrors in Iraq as the crimes of a few rogue jailers.

Many tortures perfected by the Cheka ( Soviet secret police), notably beating, freezing, sensory disorientation, and sleep deprivation, are now routinely being used by US interrogators on Muslim suspects.

The Chekisti, however, did not usually inflict sexual humiliations. That technique, and hooding, were developed by Israeli psychologists to break resistance of Palestinian prisoners.
Photos of sexual humiliation were used by Israeli security, and then by US interrogators at Abu Ghraib, to blackmail Muslim prisoners into becoming informers.

All of these practices flagrantly violate the Geneva Conventions, international, and American law. The Pentagon and CIA’s secret gulag in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan has become a sort of Enron-style, off-the-books operation, immune from American law or Congressional oversight.

Suspects simply disappear into a black hole, recalling Latin America’s torture camps and `disappearings’ of the 1970’s and 80’s, or the Arab World’s sinister secret police prisons.

The US has been sending high-level anti-American suspects to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and, reportedly, Pakistan, where they are brutally tortured with violent electric shocks, savage beatings, drowning, acid baths, and blowtorching – the same tortures, ironically, ascribed to Saddam Hussein.

Protests over these crimes by members of Congress, respected human rights groups, and the public have been ignored. President George W. Bush just named Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General, the nation’s highest law officer. As White House counsel, Gonzales wrote briefs justifying torture and advised the White House on ways to evade or ignore the Geneva Conventions – both violations of US law.

Grossly violating the Geneva Conventions undermines international law and endangers US troops abroad. Anyone who has served in the US armed forces, as I have, should be outraged that this painfully-won tenet of international law and civilized behavior is being trashed by the Bush Administration.

If, as Bush claims, terrorism suspects, Taliban, and Muslim mujihadin fighters deserve no protected under the laws of war because they wear no uniforms, or are `illegal combatants,’ and may be jailed and tortured at presidential whim, then what law protects from abuse or torture all the un-uniformed US Special Forces, CIA field teams, and those 40,000 or more US and British mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan euphemistically called `civilian contractors?’

Behaving like the 1930’s Soviet secret police will not make America safer. Such illegal, immoral and totally un-American behavior corrupts democracy and makes us no better than the criminals we detest.

The 20th century has shown repeatedly that when security forces use torture abroad, they soon begin using it at home, first on suspected `terrorists,’ then, dissidents, then on ordinary suspects.

It’s time Congress and the courts wake up and end this deeply shameful and dangerous episode in America’s history.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2004

I wish he'd stop bashing Israel in every column, but this is good stuff otherwise.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by laurentius
Look, the term "unlawful combatant" is a made-up term and has absolutely no legal value of any kind. The taliban fighters are obviously regular militias/soldiers and are therefore covered by the GC.

Besides the fact that the GC specifically says they aren't?