Rules of War Controversy

[Bruce Monkhouse]

To compare the prisoners of today to the taking of prisoners in either World War is stupid, chances were these prisoners would not be freed untill the war was over, hence not quite the fuss needed to be made about "sensitive" areas, etc..
Now,how many of these prisoners are back "there" spelling out in great detail any SOP's, etc.,that they picked up on?

Different world, different ball game, if anyone can't grasp that, well.......

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Different world, different ball game

different rules

 

[camochick]

I dont see the big deal with flex cuffs, i mean has anyone ever  been handcuffed for real by cops, I am not going to go into details but the handcuffs cops in Canada use cut off circulation and leave alot of bruises. What's the difference?

 

[big bad john]

Letter to the Editor from todays Ottawa Citizen:

Troops must obey rules of civility
 

The Ottawa Citizen


Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Retired colonel Jim Rycroft says Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan need unambiguous and useful directions, not statements that could be interpreted as a licence to abuse detainees. 


Re: Soldiers violating rules of war, Feb. 12.

a journalist quotes Department of National Defence officials as saying that, since the Afghan mission is a peacekeeping operation, any prisoners taken by Canadian troops are not subject to the Geneva Convention. In the context of the article, that statement is alarming.

I retired from the Judge Advocate General Branch of the Canadian Forces 10 years ago and no doubt things have changed since then. However, I am certain that Canadian citizens still expect that members of the forces deployed on operations will behave appropriately. It would be easy to pick apart the quote. For example, are we talking about detainees or prisoners?

There is not a single Geneva Convention but rather several, as well as protocols, customary laws of armed conflict, the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments or punishments -- and so on.

It is a neat academic point whether the UN, not being a state, is strictly bound by the conventions and protocols. But Canada as a nation is, and individual members of the Canadian Forces are.

Deployed soldiers need unambiguous and useful directions, not statements that could be interpreted as a licence to abuse detainees.

To quote Lt.-Col. Mathieu, from his evidence to the Somalia inquiry a decade ago: "You may have fallen victim to the soldier's first defence: When in doubt, play the fool. Because when you go into the army, you learn to treat prisoners with dignity. Because prisoners are pretty simple. You capture them, you secure them. If they are injured, you take care of them ... It's as simple as that."

Officers such as Maj. J.M. Wilson, commandant of the Canadian Forces Service Prison and Detention Barracks in Edmonton, are quite right to raise the propriety of procedures for handling detainees. The plastic cuffs and hoods may be justified in the circumstances, but to imply that international law does not apply to such missions is not.

I urge a journalist to write more on this important subject. We do not need another Somalia incident.

Jim Rycroft,

Orleans

Lt.-Col. (ret'd)

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

The American Response to Prisoner Treatment from Donald Rumsfeld:

A person wrote a letter to the White House complaining about the
treatment of a captive taken during the Afghanistan war. Attached is a
copy of a letter they received back:



Matthew.    

The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C. ,20016


Dear Concerned Citizen:


Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of
the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.

Our administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was
heard loud and clear here in Washington. You'll be pleased to learn
that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like you, we are creating a
new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the
"Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for
short. In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have
decided to place one terrorist under your personal care. Your
personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation,
under heavily armed guard, to your residence next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to
be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your
letter of admonishment.

It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers.
We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of
care for Ahmed are mensurate with those you so strongly recommended
in your letter.

Although Ahmed is sociopathic and extremely violent, we hope that
your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will
help him overcome these character flaws. Perhaps you are correct in
describing these problems as mere cultural differences. He will bite
you, given the chance.

We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling.
Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat
and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail
clippers. We do not suggest that you ask him to demonstrate these skills
at your next yoga group. He is also expert at making a wide variety of
explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish
to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend
him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters (except
sexually) since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This
is a particularly sensitive subject for him, and he has been known to
show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new
dress code that Ahmed will recommend as more appropriate attire. I'm
sure they will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka -
over time.

Just remind them that it is all part of "respecting his culture and his
religious beliefs" - wasn't that how you put it?

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you,
who know so much, keep us informed of the proper way to do our job.

You take good care of Ahmed - and remember...we'll be watching.

Good luck!

Cordially...Your Buddy,


Don Rumsfeld

 

[MOOO!]

Now Ive been on a few instances were the need for multiple restraints have been needed.  Also the ability to stop belligerents from increasing hostilities within their groups needed to be stopped with available materials.  Now I let the rule makers make up what they will in these regards, but its what we have to (as always) work with what we have.  Each day brings us into those unfortunate situations in a hostile environment were we cant determine how many handcuffs or silk blindfolds to bring.  I believe bags over a individuals heads have a place and there are in some instances the need to do this as Ive said to stop the unruly.

Flex cuffs do hurt, granted but! its a way to secure a person till handed over to the next level.  Security of the situation is needed and to ensure this, if the on site commander deems this a need and they don't abuse their authority over the prisoners what is the issue.  There have been many quotes linking our methods to instances of abuse with the U.S. troops, I for one, do not follow the U.S. method of detention and I know not intentionally these comments were brought out. 

We all have our methods and like some have stated rules are not followed by the opposite side, so we should use what we have to complete our mission.  Until the military hands out bags and bags of tactical handcuffs and MPs in the sections we have to adapt. 

MOOO!! "i like individuals, its the masses that are the cattle"

 

[Infanteer]

This story isn't about the author - doing so will only lead to an off-topic bunfight.   I've cleaned this thread up once before, so keep on target (hence, prior statements were removed).

As for the Rumsfeld Letter - False.   Always check Snopes with these kinds of things:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/lark.asp

Again, as I stressed on another thread, I don't see how Mr Rycroft can highlight the need "to obey the rules of civility" (implying that we weren't).

The Geneva Conventions do not define the "Rules of Civility", they are an agreement on how to "play the game" that were written in another time for another type of war.   By choosing to handle the prisoners or detainees in a different manner (that may not fly for the GC's treatment of an Enemy Soldier) does not mean we've automatically overstepped the bounds of decency.

As those who WERE ON THE GROUND can testify, these men were not mistreated and were handled in a professional manner.   Mr Rycroft's attempt to draw some sort of connection to Somalia is unfounded and I suspect that those who were involved might take it as a slight on how they carried out their mission that day (and I don't blame them).

Here's a solution - instead of crowing that Canada, by failing to carry out, to the letter, the Geneva Conventions when it comes to terrorists and thugs, how about we see some recommendations on how to make the Geneva Conventions more relevent to the War we are fighting today (or have generally been fighting for the last 30 years).   War has changed with society in the last 100 years, maybe it is time for the Geneva and Hague conventions to catch up, less they become irrelevant and ignored down the road (like the Kellogg Briand Pact or - for the most part - the UN).

 

[mdh]

Infanteer makes an excellent suggestion in terms of some kind of constructive response - but I am still baffled by the supine reaction of NDHQ. (again compare this to the Pentagon response I highlighted above regarding Seymour Hersh).  

There is still nothing addressing the controversy on the main CF website - and although Gen. Hillier's response on CTV's Question Period was very good - no attempt at follow up has been made (at least I haven't seen any).  

Unless there are some behind-the-scenes politics at NDHQ that we don't know about - you have to wonder why there isn't a more concerted strategy to manage an issue like this one.  

It reminds - in terms of a PA response - of the allegations made against the Navy that it had engaged in a coverup of information when the fire broke out on HMCS Chicoutimi - that story was allowed to run for about a week and half, IIRC, before the Navy finally responded forcefully - a tactic which put the controversy to rest,

cheers, mdh  

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

False - well duh.  ;D

L.A.R.K. - Liberals Against Responsibility for Killers.



Matthew.   

 

[big bad john]

More on the subject from todays Halifax Herald:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday, February 21, 2005 Back The Halifax Herald Limited

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beware giving troops OK to abuse detainees

By Scott Taylor ON TARGET

RECENTLY, there has been some public discussion about the manner in which Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan have handled prisoners. The discussion was sparked by the revelation of an internal memorandum written last year by Maj. J.M. Wilson - a military policeman - to his superiors at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa.

What concerned Maj. Wilson was the televised images of Afghan captives being herded about with sandbags over their heads and hands bound by plastic cuffs.

"I thought we had outgrown this method of handling prisoners, and arguably such treatment is contrary to the Geneva Convention," Wilson wrote.

When the story broke, DND officials didn't challenge Wilson's initial assumption. They simply advised reporters that "since the Afghan mission is a peacekeeping operation, any prisoners taken by Canadian troops are not subject to the (Geneva) Convention."

While such a statement is obviously nonsense (why would soldiers be regulated in their humanity in a wartime situation but be absolved of such restrictions in a less hostile environment?), the most startling comments on this issue were attributed to W. Hays Parks.

As a special assistant to the U.S. army's Judge Advocate General, Parks claimed that the hooding and handcuffing of prisoners is "a standard security procedure for most militaries, if not all, upon capture."

The response to Parks would have to be a big "What the hell are you talking about?" Other than post 9-11 images of U.S. soldiers herding prisoners into their detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan or Iraq, there are not too many instances that come to mind in which military captives endure such dehumanizing treatment.

Looking back at films and photographs of all the wars in the previous century, Parks would be hard pressed to find any evidence to support his assertion. It is a fact that during World War II, Canadian survivors of the 1942 raid at Dieppe were shackled on Hitler's direct orders for one year and 44 days. The reason for this mistreatment was that the Germans discovered from captured documents that the Canadians were ordered to "manacle their prisoners," which they expected to capture at Dieppe. The Canadians then shackled German prisoners held in Canadian camps, until the Red Cross intervened on behalf of both sides to stop the abuse.

Fast-forward to the March 2003 coalition forces' invasion of Iraq, and there is no example wherein American soldiers were bound or blindfolded after capture by Saddam's army.

In fact, the opposite was true. When Pte. Jessica Lynch and her six comrades from the 507th Maintenance Company were taken prisoner following an ambush outside Nasiriyah, they were treated with comparative courtesy. Even more astounding was the example of an American aircrew shot down near Kerbala. When seen on television, these pilots were shown calmly drinking tea with their Iraqi guards.

Nevertheless, both U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair immediately described the broadcasting of such embarrassing images to be a "war crime" and "in violation of the Geneva Convention."

One can only imagine what Bush and Blair would have said were those soldiers displayed hooded and handcuffed.

While it may have recently become common American practice to treat prisoners of war in this fashion, it is certainly not "standard" procedure elsewhere.

Another questionable statement by Parks regarding the use of blindfolds and hoods was his claim this was "not a matter of trying to abuse (prisoners) in any way" because "they obviously still can breathe."

What is obvious is that Hays Parks has never been on the receiving end of such treatment. I can speak from the personal experience of being held hostage by Iraqi insurgents last September, during which time I was frequently bound and hooded. Could I still breathe? Of course, but not without discomfort. The worst part of all was the heightened fear brought on by the sensory deprivation. Did I feel that I was being abused? Absolutely.

But if Canadian soldiers are authorized to treat their prisoners and suspects in this same manner, we can no longer claim any moral high ground.

One of the best arguments to surface regarding the Defence Department's liberal interpretation of the Geneva Convention in this instance was put forward by Jim Rycroft, a retired Canadian Forces Judge Advocate General lawyer. In a letter to the editor in the Ottawa Citizen, Rycroft wrote, "It is a neat academic point whether the UN, not being a state, is strictly bound by the (Geneva) conventions and protocols. But Canada as a nation is, and the individual members of the Canadian Forces are. Deployed soldiers need unambiguous and useful directions, not statements that could be interpreted as a licence to abuse detainees." I couldn't agree more.

 

[George Wallace]

So the US had Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, we now have Scott Taylor.

GW

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Quote,
Even more astounding was the example of an American aircrew shot down near Kerbala. When seen on television, these pilots were shown calmly drinking tea with their Iraqi guards.

Quote,
What concerned Maj. Wilson was the televised images of Afghan captives being herded about with sandbags over their heads and hands bound by plastic cuffs.

DISCLAIMER: The following is my opinion only,
Hey Scott,
Did ya even think a nice little thing called "freedom of the press' might have something to do with this?
You are digging low for your journalistic professionalism here, did you actually bother checking to see if those airmen "having tea" were being threatened just off camera or not?
I mean come on lad, I supposed a machine that somehow looked just like the Governor of California actually came back from the future also..........

 

[pbi]

IMHO it depends on whether the people we arrest are PWs  who are clearly under the GC as enemy soldiers,or "detainees" who may be criminals, terrorists, etc. with no formal status. Restraining the latter so that they cannot get away or effect an attack on their captors, or blindfolding them for security reasons, do not seem excessive to me. ( A sandbag might be a bit much...) After all, if you or I are arrested by our own local civil police forces, they can handcuff or flex cuff us on reasonable grounds.
IMHO we need the same abilty to handle the people we detain on ops, if for nothing other than force protection reasons. Maybe the GC needs to be brought up to date to reflect modern military ops not some European gentlemen's conception of conventional inter-state formal warfare from another century.

Cheers.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

This tweaked my interest, so I accessed the Geneva Convention on handling of PWs:

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

There are no specific references to restraints on detention - but there are some general guidelines:

Article 13
Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
Article 14
Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour.
Women shall be treated with all the regard due to their sex and shall in all cases benefit by treatment as favourable as that granted to men.
Prisoners of war shall retain the full civil capacity which they enjoyed at the time of their capture. The Detaining Power may not restrict the exercise, either within or without its own territory, of the rights such capacity confers except in so far as the captivity requires.

I am not a lawyer, but I don't see a problem here... if in fact the detainees are subject to the Convention - and Article 5 has this to say:

Article 5
The present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation.
Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.

Dave

 

[Kurhaus]

Here is another source to clarify the point.  The following is a quote from the B-GG-005-027/AF-022, "Code of Conduct for CF Personnel" taken from the JAG home page:
http://www.dnd.ca/jag/training/publications/code_of_conduct/Code_of_Conduct_e.pdf

SECURITY
8. Restraint devices (such as handcuffs, shackles, flex-cuffs, tie-wraps, etc.) will only be used on a case by case basis where individual PWs or detainees represent an immediate threat. Those restraints will be removed as soon as the individual no longer poses a threat to security. In exceptional circumstances a PW or a detainee may be blindfolded for security purposes. However, in nearly all cases the nature of the operation and the lack of an opportunity to escape will mean there is no requirement to even consider the use of a blindfold. The Law of Armed Conflict permits the use of force to prevent the escape of PWs. In the case of detainees, however, force may only be used to stop an escape where it is authorized in your ROE.
SOURCES
9.  Hague Convention IV, Regulations, Art. 23.
Third Geneva Convention, Art. 18.
Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, Art. 40, 41, 44.

Unless you were there, I don't think you're qualified to say what was right or wrong in a given situation.      

 

[Too Poor]

Kurhaus well put!!

 

[Infanteer]

The constant rallying call of opponents of this that we are "mistreating" enemy prisoners-of-war.  Please show me how restraining and blindfolding a suspected narco-terrorist is some grave abuse of human decency.  For Pete's sake, the way these journalists are portraying it, we've beheaded these guys with a rusty knife.  No news here, move along now.

Scott Taylor's examples of the 507 Maintenance and the Karbala pilots are comparing Apples to Oranges.  That was in a clear, interstate war were both Iraqi and Coalition soldiers were wearing uniforms, etc, etc.  I'm sure any Iraqi's who surrendered were treated by Americans and British in the same fashion.