Someone pinch me. Read this editorial from the National Review

[hangloose]

where they malign the International Committee of the Red Cross for criticism of US indefinite containment and mistreatment of prisoners.

Yet another International Committee of the Red Cross report blasting the Bush administration's treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban detainees in Guantanamo was splashed — where else? — across the front page of the New York Times on Tuesday. The report, dating back to last July, demonstrates how the old ICRC — respected, scrupulously neutral, and concerned with applying the traditional laws of war — is finally dead. It has instead become another typical "humanitarian" NGO, a cross between Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. It has a clear policy agenda to transform the traditional laws of war into something akin to the rules of domestic law enforcement, and is intensely anti-American and anti-Israel to boot.

<snip>

The first is the argument that the indeterminate length of detention to which Guantanamo-held al Qaeda and Taliban personnel are being subjected has been causing them such psychological and mental anguish that it qualifies as a form of torture. It is understandable that Guantanamo detainees would be unhappy about having been caught. But the notion that captured enemy fighters, both POWs and unlawful combatants, can be held for the entire duration of hostilities is at the very foundation of the modern laws of war — regardless of its effect on their psyche. Indeed, the right to detain captured combatants in this fashion arose at the same time — in the 1500s — that the obligation to accord them "quarter" emerged as the most important humanitarian breakthrough. Prior to that, most captured enemy fighters were put to the sword, while the few wealthy noblemen were held for ransom.

<snip>

The second ICRC criticism is that the use of any psychologically coercive methods of interrogation at Guantanamo — designed to elicit intelligence information from captured al Qaeda and Taliban personnel — is also a form of torture. This view is not based upon any sound construction of the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, or any other applicable international treaty or convention. Unlike POWs, unlawful combatants can and should be aggressively interrogated, and are entitled only to humane treatment. As any aficionado of detective novels or TV series knows, the good-cop-bad-cop routine and psychological pressure permeate the questioning of even criminal suspects and passes muster under the world's most liberal constitutions. To accord more protections and sensitive treatment than this to unlawful combatants is foolish on its face.

<snip>

http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/editors200412020949.asp

[teryang]

1. Only one problem - their status hasn't been determined

Is it legal to punish, threaten, coerce, and torture detainees? That is all they are legally. They have not been determined to be combatants, unlawful or otherwise in any final legal proceeding. Of course, torture isn't legally permited regardless of legal status, detainee, POW nor unlawful combantant.

The process accorded the detainees, who are as yet, nothing more than foreign nationals caught up in wartime sweep, is a joke by any legal standard, even the most rudimentary.