wtf is an EPW?

[zimv20]

link (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/154111p-135589c.html)


U.S. calls Saddam an 'EPW' not POW

WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein has been designated an EPW, not a POW, the Pentagon clarified yesterday.

The enemy prisoner of war designation, cited by Pentagon spokeswoman Megan Grafton, may be used by the feds to get around the prisoner of war protections the U.S. agreed to when it signed the 1948 Geneva Convention, a legal expert said.

"I've never heard the term EPW used," said Michael Noone, a retired Air Force JAG officer who teaches law at Catholic University. "It's certainly not in the Geneva Conventions."

He said the Defense Department "might be using the EPW designation to justify some sort of interrogation," which is being handled by the CIA.

POW protections would also spare Saddam the death penalty, which the U.S. has indicated it expects Saddam would get if he is tried by an as-yet nonexistent Iraqi court.

POWs also get humanitarian visits by the International Red Cross, whose requests to see Saddam have so far been rebuffed.


fueled by today's supreme court decision to not review bush's policy of denying due process to whomever bush feels doesn't deserve it, now saddam is in legal limbo.

i'm a little ****ing sick of bush's tendency to ignore laws he doesn't like and make up others as he goes along.

[wwworry]

This is so they get to kill him before he spills the beans on Reagan administration support of Hussein.

[2jaded2care]

Thank goodness he's not an Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon.

[Thanatoast]

how indignant does anyone think the administration will get the first time an american gets classified as an epw? reciprocity is a well-recognized international dispute resolution tool. see: brazil fingerprint american tourists (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/international/americas/10BRAZ.html)

[mactastic]

My guess? An EPW is a POW without the right to visits from the ICRC, who can be executed after a secret trial. The guarantees of humanitarian treatment vis-a-vis certain forms of interrogation are probably also not applicable to an EPW.

I'm sure the Bush administration wants nothing like the stage given to good old Slobo. The airing of previous (and current) US administrator's dealings with 'an evil man' would not be prudent, particularly allowing Saddam access to an attorney during an election year.

Frankly I was flabbergasted that the announcement was made that Saddam was to be treated as a POW particularly in light of the administration's efforts to strip 'terrorists' of their rights. The designation as an EPW makes much more sense to me coming from this administration.

[zapp]

EPW Stands for Enemy Prisoner of War.

He is a prisoner of war, just not on our side. If an American Soldier is taken prisoner the Soldier is considered a "Prisoner of War". If our side takes a Prisoner they are considered a "Enemy Prisoner of War" Per the Geneva Convention Sadam has all the rights as a Prisoner of War. He will be treated humanely not tortured, fed, bathed and sheltered. Just like the Iraq regime was supposed to provide to American Soldiers when they were captured. Unlike the Iraqi regime, we didn't rape and torture our prisoners, or beat them or kill them. And not once has President Bush gassed any cities that he didn' t like, or executed rivals that he felt might interfere with him. The world is not perfect, and no man in this world is perfect.


Freedom is not Free......

[mactastic]

Originally posted by zapp
EPW Stands for Enemy Prisoner of War.

He is a prisoner of war, just not on our side. If an American Soldier is taken prisoner the Soldier is considered a "Prisoner of War". If our side takes a Prisoner they are considered a "Enemy Prisoner of War" Per the Geneva Convention Sadam has all the rights as a Prisoner of War. He will be treated humanely not tortured, fed, bathed and sheltered. Just like the Iraq regime was supposed to provide to American Soldiers when they were captured. Unlike the Iraqi regime, we didn't rape and torture our prisoners, or beat them or kill them. And not once has President Bush gassed any cities that he didn' t like, or executed rivals that he felt might interfere with him. The world is not perfect, and no man in this world is perfect.


Freedom is not Free......

Did you even read the original post? The point was there IS a difference between POW status and EPW status, and that it may be an end run around the Geneva Convention the US signed on to in 1948.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by zapp
EPW Stands for Enemy Prisoner of War.


it's a ************ category that allows bush to order saddam's execution, while pretending it's a real thing. i call ************.

[zapp]

First EPW and POW are the same thing.


Second Paragraph, Megan Grafton used the words enemy prisoner of war, that was all that was quoted from her, then in the same paragraph "a legal expert" says "may be used by the feds to get around the prisoner of war protection" who is the legal expert. What validity does " a legal expert" have in anything.

Third paragraph, a retired airforce JAG officer, doesn't mention his rank or experience. For all the reader knows he could have had duty at a stateside post his entire career, and since when do airforce take POW, they don't in normal situations.

4th paragraph, the word "He" is ambiguos, if ti was the Retired air force jag officer it would have been a contiuation of the last paragraph, or if it was " a legal expert" from the previous paragraph either way, it is speculation, if I said the sky was falling, would you run.

And POW status would not spare saddam the death penalty, a quick search of the geneva convention will tell you that if evidence of war crimes is uncovered, he can be tried for crimes against humanity.

Last paragraph, where is the source for him getting no visits from the red cross, if he back this up with a quote from the red cross stating they were not allowed to see saddam, then he can justify the statment.

And in fact I did read the news article, but I don't put much faith in a poorly worded work, that isn't backed up by good sources.

Sorry for the wrong post

[zimv20]

Originally posted by zapp
First EPW and POW are the same thing.

your poo-pooing of sources and ambiguous pronouns doesn't mean saddam hasn't been reclassified.

so either the story was completely invented or there's some truth to it. are you saying there's no truth to it all?

[mactastic]

Originally posted by zapp
First EPW and POW are the same thing.

So is it your impression that Saddam is being treated according the the Geneva Convention with regard to POWs?

[zapp]

Originally posted by zimv20
your poo-pooing of sources and ambiguous pronouns doesn't mean saddam hasn't been reclassified.

so either the story was completely invented or there's some truth to it. are you saying there's no truth to it all?

Yes the story was invented.

I don't know if saddam is being treated in accordance with the geneva convention I am not there. But I don't really care if he is or not. I do know that the American Soldiers that were captured were not treated in accordance with the geneva convention.

And to back all of this up, I am an American Soldier, and I am trained on the geneva convention and the treatment of prisoners of war, and we do call them EPW's, and the only distiction made between POW and EPW is a POW is an American that was taken prisoner, and an EPW is a enemy that we have taken prisoner, that is fact, not some out of context crap that someone printed and other people take as ironclad truth.

out

[zimv20]

Originally posted by zapp
Yes the story was invented.


thank you for taking a non-wishy-washy stand.

[Desertrat]

Lordy, the nit-picking! And what's the reason for the automatic assumption of ill-treatment? If there is anybody in Iraq who will be treated with kid gloves, it's Hussein! The politics of the deal are keep everybody who's involved as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.

Last I heard, he's supposed to be given over to the new Iraqi government for trial...

'Rat

[mactastic]

The only nits I'm interested in involve whether or not we will be hypocrites the next time we ask another country to treat our soldiers by a treaty we won't abide by ourselves.

Somehow I doubt you would call it 'nit picking' if it had been a month since an American soldier had been taken captive and no one from the ICRC had been allowed to visit them, make sure they were being treated humanely etc.

[Taft]

Originally posted by Desertrat
And what's the reason for the automatic assumption of ill-treatment?

Its not an assumption of ill-treatment, its an assumption of the possibility of ill treatment.

Just like the rest of the population, I'm sure the people in the armed forces are, on the whole, good and decent people. But, like the rest of the population, they are only human. The reason I resist giving more control to the armed forces in how they deal with alleged war criminals and prisoners is the same as why I resist giving the police more control over persons in their custody: I don't trust the police/armed forces implicitly.

Expansion of police powers scare me because I don't trust that the police will always act in accordance with the law. They want to solve crimes and bring criminals to justice. But how far would an officer go to do that? That isn't something I'm interested in finding out. We must hold our protectors to the law and make them follow rules which give a balance between the rights of every individual and law enforcements' interests in bringing criminals to justice.

For example, recording every phone conversation every person makes just in case law enforcement needs those tapes to solve a crime would be going to far. They would be casting too wide a net. But by presenting evidence of potential wrong doing to a judge in order to get a warrant for search or the recording of phone conversations is far more acceptable. We are targetting people who we have reasonable assurances that they are commiting a crime.

I see all of this as being applicable to the case of POWs (or EPWs or whatever the hell you want to call them). I understand that these people are enemies. I understand that many of them are still very dangerous. But I don't see that as precluding a process where the international community and the people of America could be reasonably assured that these prisoners are being cared for adequately and with respect to their rights as human beings.

This is why I find the situation at Guantanamo so appalling. Its not that I assume something bad is happening. Its that I can't be assured that nothing bad is happening because there are absolutely no checks and balances being adhered to.

That being said, I see no reason to believe this to be the case with Saddam Hussein's capture. Given the "high profile" status of this particular POW, I find it highly unlikely that the US would push too far into legally murky behavior. The international community would flip.

Then again, Bush has surprised me in the past...

Taft

[mactastic]

Originally posted by zapp
I don't know if saddam is being treated in accordance with the geneva convention I am not there. But I don't really care if he is or not. I do know that the American Soldiers that were captured were not treated in accordance with the geneva convention.

But see, we're supposed to be better than them. We have (or rather, used to have IMHO) the moral high ground here. But what with the Gitmo situation, the attempts to label even American citizens as 'enemy combatants' and the stripping of our civil rights here at home I fear we will not be taken very seriously the next time it's our guys detained under some murky status that allows the skirting of Geneva Convention protocol.

[Desertrat]

Hey, look. If nothing more than from my age, I'm fully aware of the potential for abuse of police powers. Heck, I've seen it--albeit in small-scale misbehaviors. The police-state trend in this country really headed out at high speed with the War on Drugs, and the post-9/11 stuff accelerated it further.

SFAIK, other than the issue of access to attorneys, there has been no physical abuse of any EPW or "enemy combatant". That said, I know of no reason to prohibit visits from the IRC so that the actual living conditions can be known to the world at large. I also believe that there need not be "improvements" in the daily treatment or the quarters or diet, etc.

Insofar as enemy POWs/EPWs, whatever label: Why should they have access to an attorney? At some point the war is truly over, and in 1945 we sent a bunch of guys home...(To me, they are a different category from a US citizen labelled an enemy combatant.)

A comment about the viewpoint and judgement of the Red Cross: At Fort Bliss, Texas, during WW II, some of the POW quarters were considered unfit. In 1954, I and many, many other GIs in training lived in those same five-man "huts"--as had many groups before us. They were good enough for US GIs, so I'm of the opinion they were good enough for POWs. Lastly, the construction was no worse than many houses I've seen in rural areas--as in my grandmother's "clapboard" house (granted, she had indoor plumbing).

:), 'Rat

[mactastic]

Originally posted by Desertrat
Insofar as enemy POWs/EPWs, whatever label: Why should they have access to an attorney? At some point the war is truly over, and in 1945 we sent a bunch of guys home...(To me, they are a different category from a US citizen labelled an enemy combatant.)

For those who face execution I think a lawyer is something we should allow them. If all they face is a trip home, then no I agree with you.

[Taft]

Originally posted by Desertrat

Insofar as enemy POWs/EPWs, whatever label: Why should they have access to an attorney? At some point the war is truly over, and in 1945 we sent a bunch of guys home...(To me, they are a different category from a US citizen labelled an enemy combatant.)


Insofar as POWs/EPWs are concerned, you are right. But when is the "War on Terror" over with? Who are we fighting? How do we know when the terrorists surrender? Etc. Etc.

I believe that those at Gitmo are probably being treated well and in accordance with the Geneva Convention's standards for living conditions. However, they are being pumped for information. And they are being held without POW status and without access to lawyers. The problems I have with that situation is that the US seems to have expanded/changed the rules of how to handle enemies captured during a conflict in the wake of Sept. 11th.

I liken that change to the aforementioned case of police power expansion. From what I've read, many there are being held in case they have info related to terrorism or are terrorists. Then, in secret, our government gets to decide when they are no longer a danger or no longer have information pertinent to the war on terror. They are casting a larger net in order to try to take out a few more bad guys. I have a problem with that as it, at least to me, infringes on the rights of those who are being held at Gitmo.

One last thought...is a person who fought for the Taliban the same as a person who fought for al Queda? One was a terror group, the other was a national government. Our war with the Taliban is over. The war on terror continues. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, we are detaining fighters from both groups. I understand that the groups were related in many ways, but I do find that fact disturbing.

For me its an issue of transparency. If I can't see the process, or at least be shown evidence of that process working correctly, I assume that something bad could be going on. The issue of secrecy as a necessity is certainly valid, but our government could provide us, and the rest of the world, with proof without comprimising the war on terror.

Taft