h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK - so the US has declared that the captured Taleban members in its possession are not prisoners of wars but 'unlawful combatants' and therefore not applicable to the Geneva Convention. This means the don't have to treat these prisoners as well as international law demands - and the conditions at Guantanamo are pretty mediaeval - and also means that after (possibly military) trial these prisoners could face execution.

The status of PoW's is usually decided by an outside body, but the US has made this decision themselves. Considering the US belief in the right to bare arms does it have any right to declare anyone as an unlawful combatant?

I can see their point, but I would rather the whole process were decided by an outside body.

What is there point then? I just don't see it. Either they accept international law, or they are pirates.

The US are not really attacking a country, they are attacking an organisation. It's not a war in the commonly accepted sense. Unless the Taliban soldiers have been to America and commited a crime, though, I see no way that a trial under American law can stand up.

It seems to me that their treatment of these prisoners already has brought the US's position into question. They can't get away with this surely.

"It seems to me that their treatment of these prisoners already has brought the US's position into question."

I didn't know about this - imagine the outrage if US citizens were treated this way

"They can't get away with this surely."

C'mon, autist, you know better than that. They can and will.

They won't get away with it if enough pressure is applied. We have to encourage countries holding US pow's to declare them not applicable to the terms of the Geneva convention as a result of this.
And we have to go to war with America.

E-mail your MP, your EMP, your UN rep. Demand that the UN insist that these prisoners be handed over to a third party to ensure their fair treatment and demand that Guantanamo be handed back to the CUbans.

I can't believe the moderators just did that either...

The US military base a Guantanamo Bay is a relic of US intervention in Panama - as the US was to police the canal, it needed a stopover naval base - so it forced the Platt ammendment to the Cuban constitution in 1901 as part of the peace treaty with the new republic. When then US withdrew from Cuba in 1906 they maintained this base as a toehold in the region. While US backed dictator Batista was in power this was a mutually beneficial arrangement. After the 1959 Castro revolution Guantanamo was a military toehold in enemy territory, and despite 'requests' by Cuba, the US refuses to withdraw.

The base is just a base - unlike Gibralta it does not have a civilian town and population - and it's holding camp is know as "Camp X-Ray" as it is just the skeleton of a compound. No cells just cages, unshielded from the carribean sun or the cold nights and rain.



I seem to remember there's a popular film featuring the base with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise - i can't remember it's name.

On the radio today they said the US said the Taliban weren't POW's so they don't have the 'protection' of the Geneva Convention, and because they were being held in Cuba, they weren't protected by the US laws on the treatement of prisoners and humans rights. When asked to comment on their treatment, a US military spokesman said they were being treated in relation to the outrages they had committed (or something like that - not an exact quote).

All I can say is this implies to me that they are being beaten, tortured and probably will be finally executed. If any other country acted in this way we would all be up in arms....and the US would be the first. Why is it where the US are concerned, it's one law for them and one for the rest of the world? .... and they wonder why everybody hates them so much!!

International Law demands that prisoners be designated as PoW's / Spys / Unlawful Combatants / civilians by a third party, not the warring / holding nation. The UN recognise these men as PoW's.

The US has taken this upon itself, it seems that they know best. Odd that.

The men were transported to the base by aircraft, they were hooded throughout, their hands were bound and their legs were shackled, they were chained to their seats, which were comode seats, so they needn't be released to perform their 'bodily functions'. Some were sedated for the journey.

I've put a couple of related links here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A651296

"The UN recognise these men as POWs"

Where is this from? The Human Rights Watch link posted by Gonzo states that POWs are members of a state's armed services or of an organised militia which abides by the rules of war. I'm not aware that either al Qaeda or the Taliban recognise or abide by the rules of war, or that the Taliban fighters could be said to be 'members of the armed services' rather than a militia. I think, therefore, that the discussion should be around the detainee's treament as 'unauthorised combatants' rather than POWs, unless someone can convince me otherwise.

'unauthorised' -> 'unlawful'

Rules of war? A fairly unrealistic thing isn't it? Like the Geneva convention.

The US have hold terrorists in prison before. I can't see why these should get any special status as being POW's or combatants. To me they are like the other terrorists, except that they are government funded.

As the Taleban was the recognised government of the country surely any forces they put on the ground are authorised so how can they be 'unauthorised combatants'.

The international rules of war demand some regonisable badge of uniform (even dog tags will do) and a command structure - nothing else to be 'regular troops'.

Moves to declare irregular but recognised forces as 'milita' - such as Hitler's declaration on the Home Guard in WWII - are outside international law.

The point is, it's not for the USA to decide. And the UN were quoted on question time the other night as saying that the should be PoW's.

And as i say, the US is denying its own constitutional agenda of the right to bare arms.

I don't think anyone here would deny the Taliban (or even al Qaeda) the right to have bare arms . Seriously though, surely the right to bear arms should be separated from the right to use them. You seem to be implying that these people were taken prosoner simply because they happened to be carrying weapons, which would be permitted under the constitution if they were in the US ?

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These were soldiers, captured defending their home and government. We have rules for these things. They may be a bit odd, but we do at least have rules.

Any soldier is a terrorist when he fights abroad, that's what he's there for, to subdue the local people by force into accepting his rule.

Do we know whether those taken to Cuba are Taliban, al Qaeda or a mixture? autist's arguments have some validity for Taliban, but not for al Qaeda, which is an international terrorist organisation using Afghanistan as a convenient base, rather than armed services defending 'their' turf.

These guys were cause during a war - they're PoW's

There are a mixture of Taleban and al-Qaida according to the US. But the dividing line is somewhat vague as al-Qaida (apparently) served as armed forces for Afganistan. Wasn't an ex-al-Qaida quoted as saying that they were integral to the defence of Afganistan.

It's not what organisation they were part of that matters here, it's what role they were playing when they were caught. Which it seems, was the role of soldiers / commanders.