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OPINION: POW Rights Don't Apply To Al Qaeda Prisoners
Friday, January 25, 2002
By Charles Krauthammer
The New York Daily News

Denying such murderers POW rights vindicates the Geneva Convention, and encourages others to adhere to it, by reserving its protections for those who observe its strictures.

Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands -- stalwart allies who held America's coat during the war in Afghanistan -- are complaining that the Guantanamo prisoners are not accorded POW rights under the Geneva Convention.

Amnesty International is shocked that we are using shackles. The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson, is disturbed that the U.S. might be violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. (Yes, the same Mary Robinson who, in the name of famine relief, made the idiotic demand for a cessation of U.S. bombing five days after it began -- a demand that would have resulted in untold Afghan deaths in a famine now ended by the American victory.)

The critical issue in the treatment of these captured fighters is whether, under international law, they are prisoners of war or unlawful combatants. An Iraqi soldier captured in Kuwait is a prisoner of war entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. An Al Qaeda fighter captured anywhere is not. By self-definition, Al Qaeda members are unlawful combatants, meaning people who fight outside the recognized rules of war.

Among the distinguishing characteristics of unlawful combatants are these: They deliberately attack civilians, and they deliberately infiltrate among civilians by not wearing an insignia or uniform.
(More: The New York Daily News Source)
2002 © The New York Daily News.

My sentiments exactly,
Dan