Bill Sykes' - In Retrospect
IV.
(December 2006)
Bill
Sykes looks back in retrospect at material which has
been published in previous editions of "View from
America", in an attempt to determine whether the
subject matter written then is still applicable in
today’s world.
Preface:
Article, #4 in the new series, takes a look back in
retrospect at a number of articles that I published
on the subject of the Bush Administration’s denial
of the rights of prisoners under the Geneva Convention
by shipping prisoners to foreign jails where torture
was used to extract information from them, which President
Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, amongst
others, have stated publicly that the obtaining of
such information was of prime importance in the battle
against worldwide terrorism.
A tortuous path - the President of the United States gets "bush" whacked.
On the 14th of September 2006, President Bush suffered
a severe political set back in his desire to continue
opposing the applicability of the Geneva Convention
to enemy combatants when four members of the republican
party went along with the Democratic Party in a fifteen
to nine vote of the Senate Armed Services Committee
which approved Senator McCain’s "Tribunal
bill" which would expand the legal rights of
terrorism detainees.
Four republican Senators, John McCain of Arizona, Chairman
John W. Warner of Virginia, Lindsay Graham of South
Carolina, and Susan Collins of Maine, joined the panel’s
eleven Democrats in a recommendation that the bill
be sent to the full Senate for adoption and ratification.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a letter
sent to Senator John McCain, criticized and opposed
the Bush proposal to allow more extreme methods of
the interrogation of enemy combatants.
General Powell said that the world is beginning to
doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism
and would place our own troops at risk
Well done General Powell, can one say that it’s
about time that you rattled the chains that used to
bind you and speak out against the wrong approaches
made by this President and his Administration to the
current wars that are being fought by the young soldiers
of the United States Military Forces.
Perhaps your new approach to the political arena could
absolve you from some of your previous well intentioned
but apparent subservient, acquiescent, obedience to
this President.
By speaking out against the foolishness of some of
the dubious decisions and actions that this President
and his Administration have made you will regain your
past stature as a soldier of distinction and a honorable
member of society in general.
The open defiance by a majority of members of the Armed
Forces Committee surely is a condemnation of the President’s
attempts to provide the CIA with the power to use more
extreme methods in the torture of enemy combatants
in order to obtain information under duress from their
captives, in my opinion is long overdue.
Being a prisoner of war myself in Germany during World
War Two I have always supported the Geneva Convention
for obvious reasons and I must say that in my particular
experience the German army strictly adhered to that
convention - well in my case anyway.
The focus for the political fight, which sent President
Bush rushing to the Capital Building was "Common
Article Three of the Geneva Convention", which
establishes basic protection to all combatants whether
they be regulation troops, terrorists, warring tribes,
insurgents, or any other type of combatant and prohibits
cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners and maintains
that prisoners of war should not be subjected to "outrages
upon their personal dignity".
The new bill if passed would provide the same protections
to enemy combatants as outlined in the United States
Constitution.
The President and his Administration contends that
"Common Article Three of the Geneva Convention",
which outlaws torture as well as affronts to personal
dignity is too vague and therefore is not relevant
in the United States fight against terrorism and a
spokesperson for the President said that the administration
was not trying to amend the Geneva Convention but to
clarify it.
Senator McCain has argued that re-interpreting the
Geneva Conventions would send a message that the United
States was no longer following the accepted definitions
of Common Article Three, (which America has not been
doing since the two wars that we are engaged in started),
therefore giving other countries, and armed insurgent
groups worldwide, the excuse and opportunity to strip
international protection rights from captured soldiers,
including Americans.
Note: On the 29th of June 2006 the Supreme Court of
the United States declared the President Bush had over-stepped
his authority in the war against terrorism and ruled
that he does not have the power to set up special military
trials at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility without
the approval of Congress.
In a 5 to 3 decision, the high court said that the
planned military tribunals lacked the basic standards
of fairness required by the nation’s Uniform
Code of Military Justice and by the Geneva Convention.
This ruling is the most sweeping legal defeat for the
administration in the five-year- old war on terrorism
as it rejects the President’s broad claim that
the Commander in Chief has the authority to make the
rules during an unconventional war.
Since 1929, the Geneva Convention has set the rules
for the conduct of wars and the treatment of prisoners,
but President Bush and his top advisors have maintained
that the rules do not apply to suspected terrorists.
President Bush and his Republican controlled Congress
are following a very dangerous path which is in accordance
with their usual arrogant American traditions suggests
that if an issue does not suit their particular purpose
then America will attempt to change it in their own
image.
In this particular case the American Administration
are attempting to make amendments to the Geneva Convention
(*) in order to provide changes which
they state to be necessary in order to clarify issues
in Common Article Three which they claim are ambiguous
with respect to the involvement of the torture of prisoners
in order to obtain information from them.
(*) Relevant information:
The original American National Red Cross was incorporated
under the laws of the District of Columbia in 1881,
in order to cover relief of suffering by war and other
calamities of sufficient magnitude that they could
be named National in extent, the laws were incorporated
by Congress in 1905 and were made a distinctive part
of National Government.
In 1906, representatives of 37 nations met in Geneva
to discuss the original International Red Cross treaty
and applied revisions to that treaty. The new treaty
was officially accepted and proclaimed by the President
of the United States on the 3rd of August 1907 and
was named the Geneva Convention.
This edition of Bill Sykes looking back in retrospect
will include articles extracted from the following
previously published articles of "View
from America" in an attempt to qualify the progress,
or lack of progress, that America has made with respect
to the treatment of enemy combatant prisoners.
The articles included in this edition are as follows:
Article
#4A. Extracted from the December 2001 edition
of "View from America".
Entitled: Does the end justify the means.
Article #4B. Extracted from the October 2002 edition
of "View from America".
Entitled: Medieval torture.
Article
#4C. Extracted from the November 2002 edition
of "View from America".
Entitled: John writes from Canada
Article
#4D. Extracted from the September 2004 Edition
of "View from America".
Entitled: Violation of prisoners exposed on video tape.
Article #4E. Extracted from the April 2005 Edition
of "View from America".
Entitled: Rendition - Anti-terrorism abduction and
torture.
Article
#4F. Extracted from the July 2005 Edition of "View
from America".
Entitled: Detention center or Gulag
We welcome feedback about any of the contents
of these articles. Please send all correspondence
to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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