AMERICAN RESERVISTS, HAVE THEY NOT HEARD OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION?

By Jennifer T. McCray, M.A.
May 9, 2004


Examinig and studying the deplorable conditions experienced by Iraqis at the Abu Gharib prison, led me to ask one question: did they have any knowledge about the Geneva Convention of 1949 and its governance of the treatment of prisoners of war. I thought anyone who has ever seen the old TV series Hogan's Heroes knew that. Hogan was an American colonel in a German prison of war camp commanded by Colonel Klink? Over the least little infraction Hogan would threaten Klink with violations of the Geneva Conventions.

Exactly what is the Geneva Conventions? It is an ordinance advocating for the humane treatment of POWs. Adopted on August 12, 1949. Due its length I cannot detail the entire provisions (you can find that at www.unhchr.ch/htm/menu3/b/91.htm). I will go over the general provisions and how they relate to the Iraqi situation.

Part 1
Article 3

"In the case of armed conflict occurring the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply a minimum, the following provisions:

1) Persons taking no active part in the hostility, including members who have laid down their arms and those place hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction found (based) on race, color, religion, or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and any place with respect to the above-mentioned:

a) Violence to life and person, in particular, murder of all kinds, mutilations, cruel treatment and torture.
b) Taking of hostages
c) Outrage upon the personal dignity, particularly, humiliating, and degrading treatment."

Clearly, this horrific type of torment was the norm at Abu Gharib prison, especially c). The torturers were atrociously brutal given their sick lust of being photographed with frightened naked young men. They knew the Arab custom in terms of their strict adherence to the human body being fully clothed in public and private situations.
They know how the Arabs regard women, yet they chose have one particularly gleeful American woman man dragging a naked leashed man on all fours like an animal. Again she was in sight when the photographed men being forced to masturbate for the camera. These atrocities are taboo in Middle Eastern culture. However, it took one brave reservist Joseph Darby to anonymous blow the whistle on this scandal.

The lame excuse that they were ordered to participate in these dehumanizing activities does not suffice, since military law and ethics clearly state that no soldier is bound to blindly follow illegal orders. My career army father used to tell me that when he was in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars he never blindly took part in illegal activities regardless what his commanding officer said.

Little wonder that the reservists treat the Iraqi's that way when their Commander-in-Chief and Defense Secretary refer to them as evil doers, bad men, thugs,etc. Such language lead young and untrained soldiers to regard these people as subhuman. To be treated as humiliating barbarically as possible. Why didn't leaders like Army Brigadier of all prisons Janis Karpinski and Brigadier General Mark Kimmel or better yet their US-based Commanding Offficers teach them the a course in the rules of the Geneva Conventions in the first place, knowing how immature and ignorant these young people are? My deceased career army father said he learned about the Geneva Convention in basic training. I don't know what kind of ethical training these young people received - obviously it was poor or nonexistent. The President for being ignorant of what was going on, the Secretary of Defense for keeping everything hidden, Brig. Generals Karpinski and Kimmett, as well as the field soldiers involved in the atrocities should all be tried as war criminals and incarcerated by a special international war tribunal council. Only this would deter such future behavior.

..your rights if YOU get captured by the enemy...

Besides which as a HUMAN BEING you know that stripping a person naked and dragging them around on a leash is WRONG Geneva Convention or not...

They may not have specific knowledge of the Geneva Convention, however, in basic training, all military personnel are taught what to do if they are captured, and what is expected from both them and their captors.

Did they really think that those rules didn't apply to them as well?

They weren't trained and/or supervised properly for this activity.

As for any instruction re the Geneva Convention, whether one is the captor or captive, IMO, with most people getting only a superficial crash course in this, it goes in one ear and out the other.

At that point, if you're moving out shortly, you're not focused on anything except survival, no matter what - and G*d help anybody or anything that stands in your way of coming home in one piece.

Piss poor training.
Piss poor discipline.
Piss. Poor. Leadership.


:nuke:

Of common decency? Do they have a moral bone in their body? Do they have the intelligence and self realization to ask the question "Would I want these actions performed on myself and my comrades, even during a time of war"?

If this is the kind of human being that is getting rolled out of boot camp, then we might as well scrap the whole damn force and start over, for what we are training here is a bunch of thuggish goons, sadists with no sense morality amongst them. Yes, I know I'm generalizing, and that there are fine upstanding men and women in the armed services. But the more of this kind of shit gets aired, the less faith I have that those who are fine and upstanding are actually the majority in our armed forces.

This kind of treatment, of prisoners, enemy combantants, of HUMAN BEINGS, is, plain on the self evident face of it, torture and sadistic cruelty. The people who were doing this, under orders or not, Geneva Convention aside, should have realized that what they were doing was WRONG, in the truest, most moral sense of the word. If they truly didn't make this connection, then there is a lot more wrong with these sick puppies than a simple lack of training, there is a lack of a moral compass in these people.