On Monday, January 14, 2002, at 11:49 AM, Duncan Frissell wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Jim Dixon wrote:
Conventionally, in order to be a prisoner of war you have to be a soldier. To be considered a soldier, you have to be in uniform and you have to be part of an organized military force, meaning that you have a rank and, unless you are the commander in chief, you have a superior to report to. This is an essential requirement, because PoWs are supposed to be handled through their own chain of command.
In addition, in order to be covered by the parts of the Geneva Convention dealing with POWs, you have to be soldiering for a signatory state. Afghanistan signed the Covention a few decades ago but I don't know if the Taliban would be covered.
Why would it not? It was the regime controlling Afghanistan. Sure, it was not the regime that signed the Geneva Accords of Whichever Type, but neither is the Bush Jr. Administration the same as the Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, or Truman Administrations. Nor is the Putin Administration the same as whatever band of brigands ran Russia 50 years ago. And so on. The Taliban Regime was as much in the line of succession as any of hundreds of other regimes. That the U.S. is choosing to ignore the Geneva Accords of Whichever Type is, hopefully, one more nail in their coffin. --Tim May