US violates Geneva convention right of CHILDREN

[Jon_in_london]

The US military has admitted that children aged 16 years and younger are among the detainees being interrogated at its prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a US military spokesperson, yesterday said all the teenagers being held were "captured as active combatants against US forces", and described them as "enemy combatants".

"That the US sees nothing wrong with holding children at Guantanamo and interrogating them is a shocking indicator of how cavalier the Bush administration has become about respecting human rights," said an Amnesty International spokesman, Alistair Hodgett.

Shame on US.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=13500

 

[corplinx]

Illegal combatants are not covered by the geneva POW status. I like how you try to lump two things in.

You could have just said "US violates human rights of teenagers" but instead you threw in the Geneva thing. Not sure why you would use this tactic. I think we can have a reasonable debate about teenage detainees without having to rehash the whole "illegal combatant" thing.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Exactly which provisions of the Geneva Convention are being violated?



I can see the usual PC people with their panties in a wad about this. I'm sure it's the same people who check the age of all suicide bombers who board the bus with them.

 

[Agammamon]

I don't believe the Geneva Conventions specify a minimum age for either soldiers or POW's. If they did I'm pretty sure the Sov's and Nazi's and French and Pole's and Chzeck's have been in violation.

 

[Clancie]

The whole detainee policy is a disgrace anyway. No charges? No right to counsel? In 21st century America, its shocking.

This Bush/Ashcroft policy will undoubtedly go down in the history books right alongside Manzanar and the Communist witch hunts as an example of the impact of political hysteria on civil liberties.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The whole detainee policy is a disgrace anyway. No charges? No right to counsel? In 21st century America, its shocking.

This Bush/Ashcroft policy will undoubtedly go down in the history books right alongside Manzanar and the Communist witch hunts as an example of the impact of political hysteria on civil liberties.

I say we take their cover-alls away, wrap a towel around them and drop them back in the desert.
I would even give them a litre of Evian and a case of MRE's.

What do you think?

 

[armageddonman]

Re: Re: US violates Geneva convention right of CHILDREN

Illegal combatants are not covered by the geneva POW status.

That's because in international law there is no such thing as an "unlawful combatant" as the US calls those people. The term was invented by the US to have a pretext to ignore international law.

 

[armageddonman]

What do you think?

I think that people like you would have made a great career in 1930's Germany. Or in any other place or period were laws and human rights were considered things to play with.

 

[Fade]

So if a country decides to use ten year olds with semi-automatic weapons, we need to just ignore them?

 

[EvilYeti]

So if a country decides to use ten year olds with semi-automatic weapons, we need to just ignore them?

Apparently. I mean, really, if a fifteen year-old is shooting at you with an automatic weapon, do you just write it off as a youthful indescretion?

There is legal precedence for trying minors as adults for really awful crimes, no surprise there.

 

[iain]

Apparently. I mean, really, if a fifteen year-old is shooting at you with an automatic weapon, do you just write it off as a youthful indescretion?

There is legal precedence for trying minors as adults for really awful crimes, no surprise there.

So you see no middle ground between letting off the fifteen year old completely and holding them without access to legal counsel, charges etc.? Funny, because there is lots of middle ground. Things like due process, for example.

 

[Troll]

Re: Re: Re: US violates Geneva convention right of CHILDREN

That's because in international law there is no such thing as an "unlawful combatant" as the US calls those people. The term was invented by the US to have a pretext to ignore international law.

Not to ignore international law, but to cover an area which international law has failed to look into. If I kill a Frenchman I am simply a murderer. If I gather people together and decide to kill all frenchmen, I am not doing so as a warrior/representative of my nation but as a terrorist freak that is unable to declare, through the international community, war on a country.

 

[armageddonman]

Re: Re: Re: Re: US violates Geneva convention right of CHILDREN

Not to ignore international law, but to cover an area which international law has failed to look into.

If the US felt that this part of international law should be changed why haven't they tried to change it accordingly? How is it possible that the US is able to detain anyone for an unlimited period of time, without legal counsel or charge? Tha's a practice, countries like China or Noth Korea are usually known for. Regardless of the justification, it's against any legal standard that should apply to anyone.

 

[Agammamon]

So you see no middle ground between letting off the fifteen year old completely and holding them without access to legal counsel, charges etc.? Funny, because there is lots of middle ground. Things like due process, for example.

The kids aren't entitled to any more due process than the adults we're holding. The way we are handling this is rather disgraceful but if the kid wants to pick up a weapon and play with the big boys he's got to play by the big boy rules.

 

[iain]

The kids aren't entitled to any more due process than the adults we're holding. The way we are handling this is rather disgraceful but if the kid wants to pick up a weapon and play with the big boys he's got to play by the big boy rules.

Agammamon,

That's not the point I was making at all. Some posters were implying that keeping children in this way was justified because the alternative was to do nothing at all.

Fade wrote

So if a country decides to use ten year olds with semi-automatic weapons, we need to just ignore them?

EvilYeti wrote

if a fifteen year-old is shooting at you with an automatic weapon, do you just write it off as a youthful indescretion?

My point is that it is not a black and white issue : either we lock them up in this way or we do nothing at all. There is the whole range of actions inbetween which can be taken.

The suggestion from Fade and EvilYeti that anyone is proposing just letting the children go is silly.

Edited to add and don't you think that children are more likely to be forced into doing this than adults? Do you really think that children who work in sweatshops have a choice? Or the children in Africa who are threatened with death unless they fight for some group or other? Why do you assume that these children are fighting (if they were fighting) of their own free will.

 

[crackmonkey]

So... apparently, then, you're not against the idea of punitive action against these kids, but merely the method implemented. Okay.. what do you propose?

 

[iain]

So... apparently, then, you're not against the idea of punitive action against these kids, but merely the method implemented. Okay.. what do you propose?

I have no problem at all with punitive action against the children and I haven't seen any suggestion that anyone else has either.

I propose that they are treated according to International and US law, either as criminals or POWs and that the children are treated appropriately for their age, again according to International and US law.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Come on... Drop the ' Children ' crap..

 

[Clancie]

I have no problem at all with punitive action against the children and I haven't seen any suggestion that anyone else has either.

I am. I'm against the whole policy. Its a lie to not classify them as POW's, just for the purpose of avoiding the Geneva Conventions.

These people need to be charged with something. ''
They need to have access to legal counsel.
They need to be humanely housed.
They need to have the presumption of innocence.

That goes for adult or child, imo. This policy will haunt Americans for years and years to come (as will the Ashcroft policy of detentions of immigrants without charges, without counsel, without presumption of innocence).

 

[Nitpick]

Re: Re: Re: Re: US violates Geneva convention right of CHILDREN

Not to ignore international law, but to cover an area which international law has failed to look into.

Wow, reading threads like this one, you can really hear the mid-atlantic rift cracking as it widens...

So, if a person/state comes to the conclusion that the laws of the state/international community he/she/it is a member of have failed to look into a specific matter, he/she/it can simply ammend those laws on his/her/its own?

Evil minded persons would argue that in such a case you don't need any laws in the first place.

By the way: were the afghans and/or arab volunteers who fought the Soviets in the 80s legal or illegal combatants (they wore no uniform, remember?).

Convention:
...
2. An agreement between states, sides, or military forces, especially an international agreement dealing with a specific subject, such as the treatment of prisoners of war.
...