On a larger scale you have a passenger liner filled to capacity with commuters and have every reason to believe it will be crashed into a large building occupied by civilians. Do you order your airforce or ground missiles to shoot down the plane? God help the one who has to make that call, but sooner or later it will probably have to be made.
Do you think the Geneva Conventions prohibit a nation from defending itself?
The Geneva Conventions address the issue of un-uniformed combatants. They address the issue of using innocent civilians as shields. They address the issue of targeting innocent civilians.
Israel is a signatory, too. Why do you think the Geneva Conventions don't apply?
Foxfyre wrote:On a larger scale you have a passenger liner filled to capacity with commuters and have every reason to believe it will be crashed into a large building occupied by civilians. Do you order your airforce or ground missiles to shoot down the plane? God help the one who has to make that call, but sooner or later it will probably have to be made.
That's actually a good example. Here, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (~ equivalent of your Supreme Court) has ruled that a passenger aircraft cannot be shot down, even if it has been hijacked with the intention to use it as a weapon. The court decided that a proposed law was unconstitutional, because by shooting down a passenger plane, the state would intenionally kill a minority of its citizens in order to protect majority.
I absolutely agree with the underlying principle here.
But maybe we could pick up the conversation where we left off... I was asking you
old europe wrote:Do you think the Geneva Conventions prohibit a nation from defending itself?
and, later,
old europe wrote:The Geneva Conventions address the issue of un-uniformed combatants. They address the issue of using innocent civilians as shields. They address the issue of targeting innocent civilians.
Israel is a signatory, too. Why do you think the Geneva Conventions don't apply?
ican:
...
The Arabs may not have 'owned it' but they sure lived there. Just because they were conquered doesn't mean they evaporated.
I agree that Arabs lived in Palestine before and after the UN's 1947 resolution!
Also, Jews lived in Palestine before and after the UN's 1947 resolution!
Just because a bunch of Americans took over Texas doesn't mean the Mexicans disappeared, does it?
I agree that Mexicans lived in Texas both before and after Americans conquered Texas.
Moslems (Muslim/Islam) can be other than Arab. Assyrians are an ancient people. The majority of Saladin's troops, generals, and advisors were Arabic. They liberated the holy land from the European Crusaders brief conquest. The people who benefitted from that were indigenous Arab Christians, Arab Moslems, and Arab Jews who all lived in peace even after the Turks took over Syria and the holy land. Saladin forced a stalemate on England's Richard I (1192) during the third Crusade leaving the Muslims masters of Palestine.
The Muslims want their independence like anyone else. You can't seem to extrapolate and understand that.
I disagree that Arab Moslems, and Arab Jews ... all lived in peace after 1919. I also disagree that the Arabs want their independence like everyone else. What the Arabs want is for the Jews in Palestine not to have their independence like everyone else.
Britannica wrote:
...
1918 AD: Ottoman Empire Ends Control of Palestine.
................British Protectorate of Palestine Begins.
1920 AD: 5 Jews killed 200 wounded in anti-zionist riots
................in Palestine.
1921 AD: 46 Jews killed 146 wounded in anti-zionist riots
................in Palestine.
1929 AD: 133 Jews killed 339 wounded
................116 Arabs killed 232 wounded.
1936 thru 39 AD: 329 Jews killed 857 wounded
.........................3,112 Arabs killed 1,775 wounded
............................135 Brits killed 386 wounded.
............................110 Arabs hanged 5,679 jailed.
1947 AD: UN resolution partitions Palestine into a Jewish
................State and into an Arab State.
1948 AD: Jews declare independence and establish the
................State of Israel.
................War breaks out between Jews defending Israel
................and Arabs attempting to invade Israel.
................State of Israel successfully defends itself and
................conquers part of Arab Palestine.
...
I honestly don't know enough of the intricities of the Geneva Convention to answer your question intelligently. I only know that it is not immoral to protect innocent men, women, and children from murderers who intend to murder them. That is the principle I start with. And I think any rules that apply should follow once that principle is addressed.
UN CHARTER Article 51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Foxfyre wrote:
...
I honestly don't know enough of the intricities of the Geneva Convention to answer your question intelligently. I only know that it is not immoral to protect innocent men, women, and children from murderers who intend to murder them. That is the principle I start with. And I think any rules that apply should follow once that principle is addressed.
Maybe this is relevant:
Quote:UN CHARTER Article 51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
The ruling of your Supreme Court would sentence everybody to death instead of saving as many as they could? I would have to think long and hard about the morality of that.
Haaretz is outraged and a little amused that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came to Washington and said this to Bush about Iraq:
SOURCE
' "We in the Middle East have followed the American policy in Iraq for a long time, and we are very much impressed and encouraged by the stability which the great operation of America in Iraq brought to the Middle East. We pray and hope that this policy will be fully successful so that this stability which was created for all the moderate countries in the Middle East will continue." '
There is no mystery here. Olmert has already proved that he does not understand asymmetrical warfare or the Arab world, and that he has a mystical faith in tanks. Saddam had a tank army, of which the Israeli military was always mysteriously afraid, and it is gone. Iraq has 78 tanks, last I knew. If you equate a big tank army in the hands of an enemy of Israel as "instability," then now you have "stability."
It seems to me in contrast that Hamas is picking up Ramadi and Falluja as hinterland support, and Hizbullah now has the opportunity for backing from the ruling Iraqi Shiite parties of Da'wa, SCIRI, and the Sadr Movement, which in turn have the prospect of getting rich off Iraqi petroleum. But if Olmert and Bush understood these sorts of things, they wouldn't have adopted such disastrous policies.
Olmert's predecessor was trying openly to goad the United States into a war with Iran. Most of the time you can't listen to Israeli hawks about Middle East policy. They are like carpenters with a hammer to whom every problem looks like a nail. Every political issue looks to them like a good little war would solve it. They don't seem to be able to notice that nearly 60 years of such war-at-the-drop-of-a-hat has not gotten them anywhere in the region and if anything, as Bashar al-Asad said last summer, every generation of Arabs hates them more. The hawks don't fear the hatred of the masses because they only understand tanks, not asymmetrical or geopolitical struggles. And that is where we came in.
Considering Germany's history, I can understand the need for that kind of law. I am sure they could call Ramstein Air Base though, and have a couple of American fighters take it down. One of those extra perks of having an American presence in Germany.
Thanks Ican. But I think several here will interpret this to mean that the authority of the UN supercedes and can override the right to self-defense and once the UN steps in, they are to be in the driver's seat. From time to time don't you see undercurrents of a notion (from some) that the UN is seen as sort of the government of the New World Order? That's a real scary thought to me.
A Brief History of the Laws of War
Attempts to put limits on wartime behavior have been around since the beginning of recorded history and there have been numerous attempts to codify the rules of appropriate military conduct.
In the sixth century BCE, Chinese warrior Sun Tzu suggested putting limits on the way that wars were conducted.
Around 200 BCE, the notion of war crimes as such appeared in the Hindu code of Manu.
In 1305, the Scottish national hero Sir William Wallace was tried for the wartime murder of civilians.
Hugo Grotius wrote "On the Law of War and Peace" in 1625, focusing on the humanitarian treatment of civilians.
In 1865, Confederate officer Henry Wirz was executed for murdering Federal prisoners of war at the Andersonville prisoner of war camp. He was only one of several people who were tried for similar offenses.
In fact, it's been the past century and a half that has really seen a qualitative jump in the degree to which constraints have been placed on warring parties, and only this century that an international body has been formed to police the nations of the world.
The first Geneva Convention was signed in 1864 to protect the sick and wounded in war time. This first Geneva Convention was inspired by Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross. Ever since then, the Red Cross has played an integral part in the drafting and enforcement of the Geneva Conventions.
These included the 1899 treaties, concerning asphyxiating gases and expanding bullets. In 1907, 13 separate treaties were signed, followed in 1925 by the Geneva Gas Protocol, which prohibited the use of poison gas and the practice of bacteriological warfare.
In 1929, two more Geneva Conventions dealt with the treatment of the wounded and prisoners of war. In 1949, four Geneva Conventions extended protections to those shipwrecked at sea and to civilians.
The Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property was signed in 1954, the United Nations Convention on Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Techniques followed in 1977, together with two Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, extending their protections to civil wars.
There is no one "Geneva Convention." Like any other body of law, the laws of war have been assembled piecemeal, and are, in fact, still under construction.
Foxfyre wrote:Thanks Ican. But I think several here will interpret this to mean that the authority of the UN supercedes and can override the right to self-defense and once the UN steps in, they are to be in the driver's seat. From time to time don't you see undercurrents of a notion (from some) that the UN is seen as sort of the government of the New World Order? That's a real scary thought to me.
Well..... I think I have not made any statement about the authority of the United Nations. Furthermore, the UN was founded in 1945, whereas the history of the Geneva Conventions goes back to the year 1864.
I'm totally willing to discuss the role of the United Nations, too. But for the moment, could we maybe limit the discussion to the topic to the Geneva Conventions?
Here's something about the history of the "Laws of War ":
Quote:A Brief History of the Laws of War
Attempts to put limits on wartime behavior have been around since the beginning of recorded history and there have been numerous attempts to codify the rules of appropriate military conduct.
In the sixth century BCE, Chinese warrior Sun Tzu suggested putting limits on the way that wars were conducted.
Around 200 BCE, the notion of war crimes as such appeared in the Hindu code of Manu.
In 1305, the Scottish national hero Sir William Wallace was tried for the wartime murder of civilians.
Hugo Grotius wrote "On the Law of War and Peace" in 1625, focusing on the humanitarian treatment of civilians.
In 1865, Confederate officer Henry Wirz was executed for murdering Federal prisoners of war at the Andersonville prisoner of war camp. He was only one of several people who were tried for similar offenses.
In fact, it's been the past century and a half that has really seen a qualitative jump in the degree to which constraints have been placed on warring parties, and only this century that an international body has been formed to police the nations of the world.
The first Geneva Convention was signed in 1864 to protect the sick and wounded in war time. This first Geneva Convention was inspired by Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross. Ever since then, the Red Cross has played an integral part in the drafting and enforcement of the Geneva Conventions.
These included the 1899 treaties, concerning asphyxiating gases and expanding bullets. In 1907, 13 separate treaties were signed, followed in 1925 by the Geneva Gas Protocol, which prohibited the use of poison gas and the practice of bacteriological warfare.
In 1929, two more Geneva Conventions dealt with the treatment of the wounded and prisoners of war. In 1949, four Geneva Conventions extended protections to those shipwrecked at sea and to civilians.
The Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property was signed in 1954, the United Nations Convention on Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Techniques followed in 1977, together with two Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, extending their protections to civil wars.
There is no one "Geneva Convention." Like any other body of law, the laws of war have been assembled piecemeal, and are, in fact, still under construction.[/[/b]quote]
Well good then. So there is hope that better rules will be devised for conduct of a war against terrorists who play by nobody's rules but their own and who IMO consider any talk of peace, compromise, or rules of war to be a weakness they can exploit. Any law is only as good as its reasonableness in a given situation. Walter's post was dead on accurate I think. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do and then be at the mercy of the criticis and judges in the aftermath.
You really can't leave the UN out of this discussion, however, as some do seem to defer to them to judge issues of violations of the 'rules of war'. But how many of us give credibility to judges who regularly condemn choices we consider to be what we have to do while giving our opponents a pass in comparison?
Well good then. So there is hope that better rules will be devised for conduct of a war against terrorists who play by nobody's rules but their own and who consider any talk of peace, compromise, or rules of war to be a weakness they can exploit. Any law is only as good as its reasonableness in a given situation. Walter's post was dead on accurate I think. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do and then be at the mercy of the criticis and judges in the aftermath.
You really can't leave the UN out of this discussion, however, as how many of us give credibility to judges who regularly condemn choices we consider to be what we have to do while giving our opponents a pass in comparison?
SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD HAASS
"Iraq Is Not Winnable"
What happens next in the Middle East? SPIEGEL spoke to Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, to find out. A widely respected foreign policy expert, Haass warns that the Middle East could become dangerous for years to come.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Haass, were the election results a message from the voters to President George W. Bush that it's time for US troops to be pulled out of Iraq?
Haass: The mid-term election is a signal of widespread popular dissatisfaction with the course of the Iraq war. But it should not be read as a signal of support for a particular alternative. Nor will it lead most Democrats in Congress to call for a quick and complete withdrawal of US forces. Instead, it will reinforce the likelihood that American policy will be adjusted. We can anticipate force reductions and redeployments and possibly a greater emphasis on diplomacy, both within Iraq and with Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria.
SPIEGEL: Meaning that the Bush Era has come to an end?
Haass: There is something to what you say, in that Iraq was a war of choice that proved to be much more difficult and expensive than Americans bargained for. As a result, the public is pushing back. However, it is not just premature but wrong to say the Bush era is over. The president will be president for another 800 days. He will be able to take initiatives, especially in foreign policy given that our system favors executive leadership. He also may have a better chance to fashion a consensus on immigration reform. And unanticipated crises almost always provide a president with the opportunity to do dramatic things.
SPIEGEL: Can you remember a time when US foreign policy was confronted with so many challenges and difficulties?
Haass: The short answer is: No. During the Cold War, the United States faced a single challenge that was greater than any we face now. But I can't think of a time when the United States has faced so many difficult challenges at once. What makes it worse is we are facing them at a time when we are increasingly stretched militarily. We are divided politically. We are stretched also economically, and there is a good deal of anti-Americanism in the world. It's a very bad combination.
SPIEGEL: Almost five years ago Bush grouped Iraq, North Korea and Iran together in the now-notorious "Axis of Evil." Now the US is faced with considerable crises in all three countries. What to do?
Haass: We have allowed ourselves to get into three very difficult situations. As the United States has learned to its great cost in Iraq, military force is no panacea. Any option that would be heavily reliant on the Army is not a realistic option, because the only Army we have is busy right now.
SPIEGEL: But diplomacy is still an underused tool.
Haass: In the case of Iran and North Korea, I would be willing to have the United States engage in diplomacy directly with them, essentially offering them whatever mix of political and economic and security benefits in exchange for demanding a package of behavior changes. We need to get away from the idea that diplomatic interaction is a value judgment. History suggests that isolation reinforces hardliners.
SPIEGEL: But it seems as if the Bush administration is still debating whether regime change or diplomacy is the best way to deal with them.
Haass: For quite a few years, there was very little diplomacy, and the emphasis was on regime change which, in my view, was never going to happen. Now you are seeing a bit more diplomacy, but not as much as I would like there to be. I'm not sitting here confident that diplomacy will work, but I think it is worth trying, simply because the alternatives are not terribly attractive. Diplomacy may work; if not, we should demonstrate that we did everything possible to reach a fair and reasonable diplomatic outcome and we couldn't, not because of our policy, but because of theirs. The Bush administration will learn that that puts them in a better position to manage the domestic and international politics of escalation.
SPIEGEL: You just invited Iran's President Ahmadinejad for a discussion in New York. Did you get the impression that he is interested in any kind of deal?
Haass: There was very little, if anything, in that two-hour meeting that was reassuring about his interest in finding any common ground on reasonable terms with the United States. His tactic is to answer questions with questions. At one point, someone raised questions about Iran's internal situation, democracy and human rights, and within 30 seconds, he was talking about what he saw as the imperfections of American democracy. His argument was that Iran was more democratic because it had more candidates for president than the United States.
SPIEGEL: The Israeli ambassador criticized you heavily, saying this was worse then inviting Adolf Hitler for talks.
Haass: I disagree. Meeting with somebody like Mr. Ahmadinejad doesn't mean we approve or endorse him. It's nothing else than accepting that he is the President of Iran and in that position, he matters.
SPIEGEL: Bush's comments on North Korea's nuclear tests seem to indicate that it is no longer the possession of nuclear weapons, but the passing along of nuclear technology to terrorists or hostile states that America is opposed to. Is this a new nuclear doctrine?
Haass: Here, at least, the administration has moved from what you might call non-proliferation to managing proliferation. But I would hope that doesn't become the new status quo. I'm not comfortable living in a world in which an aggressive, hostile, poor and potentially desperate North Korea is sitting on a mountain of nuclear material. That does not fill me with anything except extraordinary alarm.
SPIEGEL: And then there are Iraq and the Middle East. You just published an article in the journal Foreign Affairs in which you say that the situation is enough "to make one nostalgic for the old Middle East."
Haass: The old Middle East -- an era which I believe has only recently ended -- was one in which the United States enjoyed tremendous dominance and freedom of maneuver. Oil was available at fairly low prices, the region was largely at peace. I believe largely because of the American decision to go to war in Iraq and how it has been carried out, as well as the emphasis on promoting democracy and a lack of any serious energy policy, the Middle East has considerably grown worse. It's one of history's ironies that the first war in Iraq, a war of necessity, marked the beginning of the American era in the Middle East and the second Iraq war, a war of choice, has precipitated its end.
SPIEGEL: So what will become of the region?
Haass: Visions of a new Middle East that is peaceful, prosperous and democratic will not be realized. Much more likely is the emergence of a new Middle East that will cause great harm to itself and the world. Iran will be a powerful state in the region, a classical imperial power. No viable peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is likely for the foreseeable future. Militias will emerge throughout the region, terrorism will grow in sophistication, tensions between Sunni and Shia will increase, causing problems in countries with divided societies, such as Bahrain, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Islam will fill the political and intellectual vacuum. Iraq at best will remain messy for years to come, with a weak central government, a divided society and sectarian violence. At worst, it will become a failed state racked by all-out civil war that will draw in its neighbors.
SPIEGEL: How long will this dangerous period last?
Haass: I don't know if this will last for five or 50 years, but it's going to be an incredibly difficult era. Together with managing a dynamic Asia it will be the primary challenge for US foreign policy.
SPIEGEL: But the Bush administration still seems hopeful, seeing in all this violence only the "birth pangs" of this wonderful New Middle East.
Haass: I hope that they are right. I would love to see them right and me wrong. But I'm afraid they are not.
SPIEGEL: Is Iraq still winnable for the United States?
Haass: We've reached a point in Iraq where we've got to get real. And this is not going to be a near-term success for American foreign policy. The Iraq situation is not winnable in any meaningful sense of the word "winnable." So what we need to do now is look for a way to limit the losses and costs, try to advance on other fronts in the region and try to limit the fallout of Iraq. That's what you have to do sometimes when you're a global power.
SPIEGEL: A special commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker will soon present a study on how to go forward in Iraq. Will this be the excuse for Bush to withdraw the troops?
Haass: The commission gives him something of an opportunity to change course. Historically, commissions have often played an important role when the traditional body politic was unable or unwilling to come up with politically controversial but necessary proposals. We see a tipping point not only on the ground in Iraq but also in the political debate in the United States. I believe more and more people in and around the administration are coming to the conclusion that six or nine more months of the same will not bring us anywhere.
SPIEGEL: The disaster of the last years leads many Americans to doubt the military strength and moral superiority of the nation. Is this country on the verge of a new isolationist phase?
Haass: The danger is an Iraq syndrome. The war is one the American people weren't quite prepared for: They had not been told it was going to be that difficult and expensive. After the military battlefield phase, they thought it was going to be easy. So this has proven shocking. Nearly 3,000 Americans have lost their lives. Maybe 15,000 - 20,000 Americans have been wounded. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent. It has been disruptive on many levels. The danger is that the United States now will be weary of intervening elsewhere, like the cat that once sat on a hot stove and will never sit on any stove again.
SPIEGEL: How long could such a period last?
Haass: It is quite possible that this generation of Americans will be as affected by Iraq as the previous generation was by Vietnam.
SPIEGEL: The world doesn't need the "little sheriff," but it needs a strong America.
Haass: Exactly right. There is no doubt that the world needs the United States. We need to stay active in the world, not as a favor to others, but as a favor to ourselves. We cannot turn inward in an age of globalization. Bad things will happen in the world if we are not trying to manage them. The balance of power in Asia, human issues like Darfur, global climate change -- these are problems that are not going to get solved if the United States doesn't participate actively.
SPIEGEL: Isolationism would be quite a legacy for someone like Bush.
Haass: It would be somewhere between ironic and tragic because this administration has in some ways, like Iraq, been extraordinarily interventionist.
SPIEGEL: What could Europe do?
Haass: The one-word answer is: More. One wants Europe to have more capacity, so it could do more in Afghanistan, or maybe in places like Darfur. One wants Europe to be more internationally oriented. If you could make a criticism that the United States has under-used the diplomatic tool, Europeans often under-use other tools. In many cases, even if anti-Americanism were to fade, there is still a certain lack of preparedness and capability to act. What Europeans have control over is not American foreign policy. What they have control over is their own capacity and willingness to act -- and that is what they ought to focus on.
SPIEGEL: Will Bush leave the world with more problems than he found when he came into office?
Haass: Most likely. That said, the administration still has two years to go, so it is too early to judge. All you can say is that it's sobering where we are. As of now, you would have to say the world is not a safer place.
Interview conducted by Georg Mascolo
Foxfyre wrote:Well good then. So there is hope that better rules will be devised for conduct of a war against terrorists who play by nobody's rules but their own and who consider any talk of peace, compromise, or rules of war to be a weakness they can exploit. Any law is only as good as its reasonableness in a given situation. Walter's post was dead on accurate I think. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do and then be at the mercy of the criticis and judges in the aftermath.
You really can't leave the UN out of this discussion, however, as how many of us give credibility to judges who regularly condemn choices we consider to be what we have to do while giving our opponents a pass in comparison?
As I have said before, the Geneva Conventions address the issue of un-uniformed combatants, they address the issue of using innocent civilians as shields, and they address the issue of targeting innocent civilians.
You're saying that the GC are not good enough in a "war against terrorists". Why do you think so? How, exactly, does following the GC harm a nation's ability to defend itself?
Prisoners of War
The 1949 Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war defines PoWs as members of the armed forces captured during a conflict, or: Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, provided that such militias or volunteer corps fulfil the following conditions:
That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
That of carrying arms openly;
That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
Well every time Israel goes after the terrorists who are shelling them in a civilian neighborhood in Gaza or Lebanon etc., the UN Security Council meets to discuss or draw up a resolution condemning Israel. Presumably the condemnation is based on violations of the GC. Yet the UN does little or nothing to stop the terrorists until world opinion forces them to do so to get Israel to stand down.
Seems to me the current interpretations of GC rules aren't too useful in this case and generate quite a bit of contempt for the UN's judging ability at least on the side of those who think Israel's right to defend innocent men, women, and children trumps following rules that won't work toward that end.
Quote:Prisoners of War
The 1949 Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war defines PoWs as members of the armed forces captured during a conflict, or: Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, provided that such militias or volunteer corps fulfil the following conditions:
That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
That of carrying arms openly;
That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/genevaconventions.html
How many of this criteria requiring application of the GC do you think the terrorists fit re priisoners of war? So they rewrite the rules so that terrorists can be prisoners of war. It's just nuts.
Art. 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
(1) 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.
(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[ (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
(3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
(4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization, from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.
(5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention: (1) Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.
(2) The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.
Art. 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.
I frankly don't understand your problem with that, Foxy.
Most of the members of the UN do not seem to understand that about terrorists.
