Puzzled-What Changed RE: Geneva Convention for Guantanemo?

[liveoaktx]

It's always been that the people in that no-man's land in Git Bay were not under the Geneva Convention and yet I heard Rummy say today that they are.. now. Uh, when did that change? Is there a link to some type of official announcement?

"Back in February 2002, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay were not even entitled to a hearing establishing whether the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war applied to them. Perhaps it didn't, but Rumsfeld wasn't willing to prove the case in a court: "The set of facts that exist today with the al-Qaeda and the Taliban were not necessarily the set of facts that were considered when the Geneva Convention was fashioned," he claimed." http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/06/1083635277382.html

[lastknowngood]

1. You misheard him he said they were being treated like the

Geneva Convention requires but remember he is lieing out his ass. They already know the red cross is unable to see many of those held their as well as in Iraq and Afganistan

[Gothmog]

2. Two different concepts

There is 1954 US Supreme Court Case that is authority that the US Federal and state courts have no jurisdiction over the persons held in Cuba. That issue is before the US Supreme Court in the current session in a case that was argued last month.

The other issue is that Rummy and Bush have decided that the detainees in Cuba do not meet the criteria for POW treatment and therefore the Geneva Convention does not apply to them. The problem is that only a competent tribunal (i.e. a court) can make the determination that a detainee is not entitled to POW treatment or status and Bush/Rummy do not have that authority. The Geneva Convention is clear that one must treat a battlefield detainee as a POW until and unless a competent tribunal rules that the detainee is not a POW. This has not happen and the US has wrongfully denied POW status to the detainees in Cuba. The US is in violation of the Geneva Convention. The UN Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Red Cross, the OAS and numerous legal groups have all concluded that the US is violating the Geneva Convention.

[SoCalDem]

3. Two words....George Bush

:(

They knew that since they had their PNAC plan ready to roll out, they would have trouble with that pesky little thing, so they decided we did not need to adhere to it anymore.. also the reason they backed out of the ICC..

This was all carefully orchestrated..

I figured it out..and I am no genius.. The media and congress (ha) seem genuinely "surprised"

[quinnox]

4. My take

It's because they are so-called terrorists, so they have a different standard applied to them. Also, it may be necessary to extract information from them quickly in an emergency situation where there might be an imminent terrorist attack, so they would have to use other means that may not necessarily be legal under the Genneva convention.

[liveoaktx]

5. Maybe I did mishear, have to wait till I finish recording this

but I think it was during Hillary Clinton's questioning at the Senate, and I thought I heard Rummy say that yes, Git Bay is now under Geneva Convention, that Bush had changed it. I already understand the OTHER situation, but it sounded like he was contradicting what he has said before about Git Bay and Geneva Convention. Will go back and look when I get down gawking and screaming at the tv, unless someone else has that particular section to quote of the testimony.