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We as spiritual beings or souls come to earth in order to experience the human condition. This includes the good and the bad scenarios of this world. Our world is a duality planet and no amount of love or grace will eliminate evil or nastiness. We will return again and again until we have pierced the illusions of this density. The purpose of human life is to awaken to universal truth. This also means that we must awaken to the lies and deceit mankind is subjected to. To pierce the third density illusion is a must in order to remove ourselves from the wheel of human existences. Love is the Answer by means of Knowledge and Awareness!



More Lies on Afghan prisoners

WSWS : News & Analysis : The US War in Afghanistan

Defending the indefensible:
More US lies on Afghan prisoners and Geneva Convention
By Kate Randall   5 February 2002

The US treatment of the 158 prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, 
Cuba has generated shock and revulsion around the world. Photographs 
showing the captives on their arrival, kneeling on rocky ground, with 
blacked-out goggles and their hands shackled behind their backs, 
conjure up images of the treatment meted out by Latin American 
dictatorships against their opponents.

But despite growing condemnation of US policy at "Camp X-Ray," the US 
continues to maintain that the men are "detainees," and not prisoners 
of war who must be afforded all the protections of the Geneva 
Convention. In fact, government officials contend that the prisoners—
who are locked in individual open-air cages made of concrete and 
chain-link fencing—are being treated humanely, and should be happy to 
be in "sunny Cuba."

Recent statements by President Bush that he might consider applying 
the rules of the 1949 treaty to the prisoners in Cuba represent a 
shift in rhetoric on the part of the administration, and not a 
substantive change in policy. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald 
Rumsfeld have made it clear that under no circumstances will the 
detainees be designated as prisoners of war. They maintain the 
position that they are "unlawful combatants" who can be interrogated 
at will and held indefinitely.

Responding to international pressure over US policy, in a memo leaked 
to the press last week Secretary of State Colin Powell urged the 
administration to consider applying the Geneva Convention to the 
process of determining the status of the Guantanamo prisoners. 
Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also reportedly support a change 
in official US policy. But these gestures are also thoroughly 
hypocritical, and not motivated by any humanitarian consideration for 
the civil liberties of the prisoners.

The overriding concern of the military chiefs is that the US policy 
might set a precedent for the mistreatment of captured US soldiers in 
the future. And while Powell is worried that the administration's 
flouting of international law will discredit the US among its allies 
in Europe and the Middle East, he has also made it clear that the 
prisoners should never be granted POW status.

"The debate is not actually over whether these people are prisoners 
of war," the New York Times quotes one State Department official as 
saying. "They are not. The debate is why they are not prisoners of 
war." In other words, Powell and others in the administration, 
including Rumsfeld, are considering using the process of the Geneva 
Convention—presumably utilizing tribunals to determine POW status—to 
arrive at a determination they have already decided upon in advance.

The Washington Post quotes an unnamed administration official making 
the same point: "We already know the end point, which is they're not 
POWs.... Now the question is, why are they not POWs." Overall, the 
statements emanating from the White House and other sections of the 
government are full of such doubletalk, and are aimed at confusing 
public opinion while proceeding with the same brutal policy. The Bush 
administration is also counting on the general lack of knowledge in 
the American public about the Geneva Convention and is resorting to 
verbal trickery and outright lies to justify its position.

The first lie is that the US can choose whether or not to abide by 
the Geneva Convention. Article 1 of the Conventions states: "The High 
Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for 
the present Convention in all circumstances." Article 2 says 
that "the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war 
or any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of 
the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not 
recognized by one of them."

Both the US and Afghanistan are signatories to the 1949 treaty. The 
Bush administration declared a "war on terrorism," and went to war 
against Afghanistan, publicly stating that the ousting of the Taliban 
regime was its objective. The US initiated bombing raids and 
dispatched ground troops. But when enemy fighters are captured, 
including Taliban, the government claims they are not prisoners of 
war and their treatment is not governed by international law.

Even if the US wants to claim that they are not POWs because the US 
never formally declared war, this doesn't pass muster, as the Geneva 
Convention does not require that both parties recognize a state of 
war. This is a ludicrous argument in any event, as the people of 
Afghanistan undoubtedly interpreted the dropping of multi-ton bombs 
and the ravaging of their country as a clear sign that the US was 
waging war against them.

Bush also claims the reason these captured fighters are not POWs is 
because "al Qaeda is not a known military. These are killers, these 
are terrorists, they know no countries." Defense Secretary Rumsfeld 
commented: "They will not be characterized as prisoners of war, 
because that is not what they are. They're terrorists."

But all that has been established about these prisoners is that they 
were captured by the US in course of an invasion of Afghanistan. Many 
of those fighting with the Taliban came into Afghanistan after the US 
launched the war and may not have had any connection with Osama bin 
Laden and al Qaeda.

But the Bush administration purposely describes the Guantanamo 
prisoners as including both Taliban and al Qaeda, using the terms 
interchangeably, in an effort to blur any distinction and justify 
their refusal to grant any of them POW status. Calculating that 
members of al Qaeda are less likely to qualify as prisoners of war, 
they utilize this verbal trick in an attempt to cover up their 
blatant violation of international law.

Article 5 of the Geneva Convention states: "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."

In other words, it is not up to the US to dictate who is a POW and 
who is not. Furthermore, until their status is determined, they must 
be provided with all the protections of a prisoner of war. All those 
detained have the right to refuse to provide any information aside 
from name, rank and serial number. Whether or not they are determined 
by a tribunal at a later time to be terrorists, or defendants to be 
tried for war crimes, can have no bearing on their treatment upon 
capture.

Another baseless contention of the Bush administration is that the 
prisoners in Guantanamo do not qualify as POWs because they do not 
meet the four requirements contained in Article 4, section 2 of the 
Geneva Convention. These include being under the control of superior, 
having a "fixed distinctive sign," carrying arms openly and 
functioning in accordance with the "laws and customs of war."

These four items have been wrongly cited in numerous press reports as 
the virtual litmus test for POW eligibility. But in truth these 
requirements apply to only one of the many categories of captured 
soldiers that are afforded prisoner of war status by the Conventions, 
including some members of organized resistance movements and other 
volunteer corps. The majority of potential POWs—including both 
civilian and military forces—are not required to meet these 
qualifications. Again, US officials have thrown up this argument in 
an effort to deflect attention from their refusal to abide by Geneva 
Convention.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of prisoners taken in Afghanistan 
were captured in the course of open combat, and would clearly qualify 
for POW status as defined in Article 4, section 1, as "Members of the 
armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of 
militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces." 
Nearly all of them were captured by the Northern Alliance and then 
handed over to the US. Even the so-called al Qaeda are largely 
prisoners captured from the "Arab Brigade," which fought as a regular 
combat unit.

It has also been reported that some prisoners were not even aware 
until their arrival in Guantanamo of the September 11 terrorist 
attacks, a further indication that they are not part of any terrorist 
organization and are mainly poor and misled Muslim youth who joined 
up to fight the Northern Alliance.

The criteria for qualifying for prisoner of war status in the Geneva 
Convention is extremely broad, and includes a wide variety of 
categories of those who can be considered POWs. These included 
civilians, engineers, war correspondents, members of resistance 
groups, and members of militias not recognized by one of the warring 
parties.

The treatment and accommodations of the prisoners in Guantanamo also 
violate the provisions of the Geneva Convention, which the US has 
chosen to defy. Article 25 states: "Prisoners of war shall be 
quartered under conditions as favourable as those for the forces of 
the Detaining Power who are billeted in the same area." Being held in 
6-foot by 8-foot chain-link, open-air cages hardly qualifies. Article 
21 also states that "prisoners of war may not be held in close 
confinement except where necessary to safeguard their health and then 
only during the continuation of the circumstances which make such 
confinement necessary."

Life in a POW camp as outlined in the Conventions is far different 
from that which exists at Camp X-Ray. Article 28 stipulates 
that "Canteens shall be installed in all camps, where prisoners of 
war may procure foodstuffs, soap and tobacco and ordinary articles in 
daily use." According to the April 38: "Prisoners shall have 
opportunities for taking physical exercise, including sports and 
games, and for being out of doors. Sufficient open spaces shall be 
provided for this purpose in all camps."

Bush administration officials would counter that such conditions 
should not be provided for "terrorists." But the US has taken it upon 
itself to reject POW status for these men—without bringing them 
before a "competent tribunal," as set down in the Geneva Convention. 
This also means their questioning of the prisoners is not subject to 
the scrutiny of international law. On January 23, interrogators from 
several US civilian and military agencies began questioning the 
prisoners in Guantanamo. The prisoners have been isolated and 
questioned individually, and have not been provided legal 
representation.

Another reason the US does not want to grant POW status to these 
prisoners is because under the Geneva Convention "Prisoners of war 
shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation 
of active hostilities" (Article 118). The Bush administration wants 
to reserve the right to hold the prisoners indefinitely, subject them 
to interrogation and possibly try them in military tribunals. A US-
backed regime has been installed in Afghanistan and hostilities have 
effectively ceased, but the Bush administration has given no 
indication that the prisoners will be repatriated to their native 
countries.

An estimated 25 countries are represented among the prisoners, 
including Britain, Australia, France, Belgium, Sweden, Algeria, 
Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan. France has sent a delegation to the 
base to verify the citizenship of a number of French-speaking 
prisoners. Australia has asked that the one Australian national known 
to be among the prisoners be returned to that country to face 
charges. Saudi Arabia says that 100 of its citizens are being held in 
Guantanamo. About 15 percent of the prisoners are Afghans. The US 
claims that even these Afghan soldiers—captured fighting on their own 
soil—do not qualify as POWs.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said Wednesday that the number of 
prisoners transported from Afghanistan to Cuba will most likely be 
far fewer than the 2,000 earlier projected. Late last month the 
Pentagon suspended all flights of prisoners to the base, saying they 
would need more interrogators and detention cells to handle a new 
influx of prisoners.

In addition to the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, the US says there are 
309 suspects being held in military custody in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld 
said "thousands of these people" are still being held by the Afghans, 
Pakistanis and US forces in Central Asia. Many of these prisoners 
have been held in appalling conditions since mid-November in 
makeshift prisons and jails, and their plight has received little 
media attention.

The Shibarghan prison in northern Afghanistan is packed with about 
3,500 men, more than 10 times its capacity, with prisoners sleeping 
up to 60 men to each six-by-nine foot room, on cold concrete floors. 
The prison is about 75 miles west of Mazar-i-Sharif, the scene of a 
US-led massacre of hundreds of POWs inside the Qala-i-Janghi prison 
in late November. Shibarghan is the base of the Uzbek warlord General 
Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was in charge of the surrender of Kunduz and 
the thousands of captured Taliban.

The prison warden said that US interrogators—looking for Taliban 
leaders and al Qaeda members—moved several dozen prisoners from 
Shibarghan in December. One of General Dostum's commanders said the 
other prisoners would remain until the US completes its 
investigations. One Afghan prisoner pleaded with reporters: "Will we 
be here forever? No one can tell us. We were simple fighters. We know 
nothing about the Taliban leaders."

Like the prisoners at Guantanamo, these prisoners have not been 
afforded POW status and their treatment is not subject to its 
protections. A delegation for the Physicians for Human Rights, which 
visited Shibarghan earlier this month, wrote in its report on the 
prison conditions: "The United States cannot wash its hands of 
responsibility for prisoners whose fate from the start it has been in 
a position to influence or determine."
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