a question and my usual ranting

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday March 26, 2003 23:36 by hunter hunterthompsonmachinegun at yahoo dot co dot uk

I'll start with a question. An Iraqi national in the USA (one who hasn't been interned yet) - in full military uniform - walks into a US military compound and opens fire, killing people. Is this a justified act of war?

What I mean is if this person is apprehended, will he be given full rights under the Geneeva Convention (GC), and as soon as hostilities are ended, would he be repatriated immediatly?

Of course, we all know the answer is no. It's just something I was thinking about earlier and thought I'd share.

But it does bring me nicely on to what I want to talk about - the US, Geneva, censorship and general double standards all round.

*I'll admit a lot of this is taken from Monbiot's article in the Guardian yesterday*

Lets start off with the alleged breach of the GC by Al Jazeera. Simply put, Al Jaz cannot breach the GC because it is a company, not a state. And the state that runs Al Jaz (Qatar) is not at war. Therefore, it is not subject to the GC! But if we follow this logic through, and deduce that it is in fact the Iraqi state, or rather its media, that allowed the filming to take place, then they have broken the GC. Ok, depeneding on how you view what defines 'public curiosty', then this may very well be the case. (But then the question of were these pics shown for 'public curiousity' or propaganda purposes, which according to the Guardian's law expert are not the same thing, anyway i digress)

However, if we follow this logic, then the US/UK military officials who allowed the filming and photographing of Iraqi prisoners for consumpition in the western world are also guilty of this crime. It matters not that in *some* of the films and pics the faces were digitised - the fact is that the military allowed these people to be filmed for reasons of 'public curiosity'. Therefore, these officials should immediatley be recalled and placed before a war crimes court. No? Well obvioulsy it doesn't matter if this is the case, cos its not going to happen.

Yet, showing their 'outrage' at Al Jaz's broadcasts, censorship has been imposed on Al Jaz. Yesterday their reporters in NY were stripped of their credentials for visiting the Stock Exchange. The obstentail reason for this is that 'there are too many journalists in the building as a result of the war, its getting too crowded and preference must be given to business organs'. Question? Surely any business organ that carries nay kind of clout would already have hacks in the NY Stock Exchange? I don't see where a new influx of business reoprters can come from. Obviously this is not the case, and perhaps its a simple showing of 'patriotism' by the controllers of the stock exchange, but who doubts that the order came from somewhere else? Legit, dedicated and (in my opinion) objective journalists being stripped of their journalistic rights. Meanwhile the Bush junta is fighting a war for democracy in Iraq while democracy is denied at home. Mind you, its not like this is the first time, or even surprising.

As an aside, for those who don't already know, the Al Jaz websites (appearently on all servers) have been hacked or otherwise interfered with, and have been down since last night. Interestingly the hacking occurred just after reports were coming in from Al Jaz journalists in Basra who were denying that any 'uprising' was taking place. (more on this later)

So, Geneeva. I've never been, and by the looks of things the Bush junta don't intend on ever going back. Screams of 'foul play' at Al Jaz and Iraq over 'war crimes' abound. Of course, all the puppet mouthpieces, so-called journalists, conviently forget to mention the one place in the world where it seems neither US domestic nor international law seems to be applicable. I am of course refering to Guantanamo Bay, US Imperialism's foothold in the Republic of Cuba.

(I wonder are they making preparations to overthrow the 'evil' Fidel and his cigars of mass destruction? "Satellite pictures show many small cylindrical objects, that when lit emit txins that can kill over a long period" - "Pull up the Nukes!")

The 641 prisoners held in Guantanamo are being denied the rights of the GC, and have been from day one. I'll let Geroge Monbiot take over from here: "In breach of article 18, they had been stripped of their own clothes and deprived of their possessions. They were then interned in a penitentiary (against article 22), where they were denied proper mess facilities (26), canteens (28), religious premises (34), opportunities for physical exercise (38), access to the text of the convention (41), freedom to write to their families (70 and 71) and parcels of food and books (72).

They were not "released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities" (118). Article 17 rules that captives are obliged to give only their name, rank, number and date of birth. No "coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever." (ie their detention for purposes of interrogation is totally illegal).

The US government claims that these men are not subject to the Geneva Conventions, as they are not "prisoners of war", but "unlawful combatants". The same claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis holding the US soldiers who illegally invaded their country. But this re-definition is itself a breach of article 4 of the third convention, under which people detained as suspected members of a militia (the Taliban) or a volunteer corps (Al Qaeda) must be regarded as prisoners of war.

Even if there is doubt about how such people should be classified, article 5 insists that they "shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal."6 But when, earlier this month, lawyers representing sixteen of them demanded a court hearing, the US Court of Appeals ruled that as Guantanamo Bay is not sovereign US territory, the men have no constitutional rights." Thanks Mr Monbiot - to read the full article http://www.monbiot.com/dsp_article.cfm?article_id=569

Anyhoo - onto to other things. Such as the so-called uprising at Basra. All the info about this came from embedded journalists and military officials - none of whom were in the city. Also the main (Shia) Islamic anti-Saddam group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolutoin in Iraq stated that a Shia revolt was underway in Basra against the Ba'ath party. All night I listened and looked for an alternative viewpoint (Al JAz as I said was hacked down). I did see a comment on here by James McKenna saying Al Jaz was his source that seemed to bear out what I thought was probably the case. This was that civillians were either mistakenly(?) fired on by UK artillery, or that, given that Jihad has been declared on invaders, the Shia and the Ba'aths were actually fighting in unison, or holding a mass meeting or something like that. The military source said that they were firing on mortar positions that were in turn firing in the 'revolters'. James said that the UK were firing on civillians, and the death toll was expected to be big.

Whatever the truth of James' post (and i have no reason to disbelieve him), the only info being reported (on rte anyway) today was that Al Jaz said that "nothing happened" while Brit officals were saying that "something" happened. And the Islamic Council crowd said that "an uprising did not take place, only disturbances". But I just heard on Today FM bulletin that something else was happening in Basra that the UK military spokesman described as 'suicidal'. I missed the start of the report, so I don't know what exactly he was talking about and i can't find anything on the wire services.

And in other news, at least 15 civillians were killed in the al-Shaab residental area of Baghdad. The US deny they targetted it, or that any missiles had been dispacthed in the area, and insinuated that Iraqi military had done it themselves. Nice bit of spin coming from the Whitehouse.

Last night, it also seems the US set a new precedent in this war, by bombing the Iraqi satellite and domestic media buildings. Echos of Al JAz's bombing in Kabul and the news service bombing in Belgrade in 1998. It appears that the media is once again 'fair game' because they broadcast propaganda - as opposed obviously to the concrete truth being churned out by FOX, CNN and friends.

War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery and now it seems Lies are Truth.

I'll leave you with a quote from the Onion.com which I think says it all - "Dead Iraqi Would Have Loved Democracy" .

Laugh? I nearly cried.