« Money Can't Buy You Victory | Main | 2004 Weblog Awards ... Vote For Us »

The Degenerating International Elite

I'm sure we've all heard of the recently leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross which condemns the United States for its treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They complain that our actions are "tantamount to torture" because the fact that the prisoners are held indefinitely puts stress upon them and, of course, that they are subjected to psychological stress during interrogation. Nothing of late has so convinced me that the old guard of international organizations is entirely out of touch with reality than this report.

The Geneva Conventions, which the ICRC purports to uphold, are very specific about who is a POW and what may be done with them - and the men we hold in Guantanamo Bay in no way meet the requirements of being a POW; they are men whom, if we so wished, we could put up against a wall without a hearing and shoot them - they are people captured under arms fighting American and allied forces with no recognizable chain of command, nor anything to distinguish them from civilians. Add the fact that they intentionally target civilians, and use them as a shield for their hostile actions, and what you've got is a sort of Stateless scum unprotected by any of the rules of civilized States. That we keep them alive at all is tribute to our extreme generosity.

The Rules of Warfare, so-called, are only rules provided that everyone obeys them - at the closing stages of World War Two, as the Russian armies pounded into eastern Germany, a great number of atrocities were committed; essentially, any female 8 to 80 was raped, and quite often murdered; anything not nailed down was stolen - it was absolutely disgusting - but it wasn't a crime. The Germans had broken the rules of civilized warfare first and the Russians were in no way bound by them when they gained the upper hand. On the flip side, when the Anglo-American armies entered the western part of Germany, no such widespread crimes happened - the Germans had fought a largely civilized war with us and we reciprocated; those Germans who did commit crimes were brought to justice, but there was no blanket removal of the protections of the Geneva Convention for the civil population and captured soldiers.

We are engaged in a sort of war where the other side by definition violates the known rules of warfare - we are, therefore, not bound by them in any way whatsoever. Any mercy we show is entirely out of the generosity of our hearts. We cannot, pace the ICRC, fight barbarians using rules they don't obey - to do so would be essentially to cede victory to them. I believe the elites of the world understand this full well - but they just don't care. Having the United States not win is more important than anything else - groups like the ICRC (and Human Rights Watch, etc) have entirely degenerated; they are now groups which just want to tear down the United States - it doesn't really matter what we do, whatever it is will be deemed unacceptable by the international elite.

Mark Noonan blogged for Bush at 12:44 AM in category War on Terror

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
mt/mt-tb.cgi/3100

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Degenerating International Elite:

» The Rules of War? from The Questions to Your Answers
Here is a peek into the mind and insight of the right wing lunatic Mark Noonan who writes for Blogs for Bush. Noonan writes, “...the men we hold in Guantanamo Bay in no way meet the requirements of being a... [Read More]

Tracked on December 3, 2004 02:42 AM

» Adam's Rib from Big Dog's Weblog
Mark Noonan posted at Blogs for Bush about the Red Cross report on Gitmo [Read More]

Tracked on December 3, 2004 02:47 PM

Comments

It's not quite as simple as you make it out to be: Crimes are crimes regardless of what the other guy did to you during the war. The Soviet rape of the Warsaw Pact nations was indefensible by any definition of the term. The Germans had committed attrocities against the Russian and Ukranian people, yes: but it was their SOLDIERS, not their CIVILIANS, who committed these attrocities.

The prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are "illegal combatants" as defined in the Geneva Conventions; they were irregular troops who hid among civilians, wore no uniform, and had little if any true chain of command leading back to a legitimate government. But that really only means that we aren't required to accept their surrender if they offer it. If we do allow them to surrender we are required to treat them humanely - which, with notable exceptions we've done pretty well at.

The Conventions say little otherwise about illegal combatatants except that they can be tried for crimes committed in the field by the controlling power (the USA in this case). We can try them by military tribunal and punish them in accorance with the UCMJ

Posted by: Orion at December 3, 2004 01:52 AM

How about organizing a letter campaign to the Red Cross to let them know how free individuals repudiate their defense of moral monsters like the ones at Gitmo? Just and idea.

Posted by: Miguel at December 3, 2004 06:02 AM

Where's the ICRC report on the Fallujha slaughterhouses?

Posted by: OhioOrrin at December 3, 2004 07:24 AM

Yet another example of the so-called "international community" ignoring the very rules they wrote just to slam the USA. As Kos would aptly put it..."Screw 'em!"

Posted by: Macker at December 3, 2004 09:34 AM

These are the same people that the liberals lament losing as 'friends.' As the saying goes, 'with friends like these, who needs enemies?'

Posted by: Scaramonga at December 3, 2004 10:40 AM

Post a comment