"Al Qaeda is a multi-national organisation, with members from numerous countries and with a worldwide presence. It was set up to establish a Muslim Caliphate and has a military wing, economic wing, social wing, and hierachy. It is not a mercenary unit?"
You may well be describing exactly what the Geneva Conventions would describe as a mercenary organization, as follows:2. A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.
The only item which could be debated is item c). , however pay records from Afghanistan show that frequently the Afghan fighters were not paid at all, while OBL paid and housed the Al Qaeda fighters directly. Pakistani's, Arabs, Chechans and others who sign up to fight without their Govenments endorsement, and who are paid for their efforts are indeed mercenaries. Mercenaries are not entitled to POW treatment. You can dance around this all you like, but going to another country to fight without the endorsement of your government means that you waive protections as a POW.
Second, the sole arbiter of the treatment of detainees is the Red Cross. The way this process works is that the Red Cross conducts inpections and takes complaints regarding the treatement of detainees. They investigate. If they find the allegations true, then they confront the Detaining power and have them correct the behavior. If an issue goes uncorrected, then the Red Cross will go public with their complaint. To date the only comments from the Red Cross were the release of photographs of prisoners which has ceased, and questions arising as to whether detainees will be tried for battlefield crimes. They are not in anyway critical of the treatment of the prisoners, ergo we can assume that either there are no problems, or problems have been corrected to the satifaction of the Red Cross. Despite your sloppy cut and paste of rights of POWs, you have not noted one right that a prisoner of War would have that the detainees do not currently have.
Zakk,
There have also been a lot of people quietly repatriated to their countries after their detention. The detaining power absolutely has the right to interrogate detainees, and I am not swayed that they are being tortured. As long as they are not shoving cattle prods up their arse it is fine with me. Having worked in the Government, they have a lawyer for everything. If some lawyer believes that our interrogations are allowable, even though they may include deception, and "stress and duress", I have no problem with it. Hand an American trooper over to the Al Qaeda and see what happens. You are barking up the wrong tree.
Frankly at this point the information any of them might have is probably so old and stale that it is worthless anyhow. But they should remain in detention so long as there is a conflict going on. Nothing says that the detaining power must repatriate them if there is any doubt that they will return to the battlefield.
The US is playing tough and hard by the letter of the law. You may not like it, but given our history of porous borders, lax immigration, and history of ignoring terrorists other than lobbing the occasional tomahawk missle, I am not convinced that any moral boundry has been crossed. The fact remains that the detainees were picked up on the battlefield, and may or may not be "terrorists". Even if they were just foot soldiers we could still keep them until the conflict was over. Is it over? I am sure that we would turn back any Afghans to Karzai, and we have returned lots of (mercenary) Pakistani's to Mushy. Would you rather be held by the US, or by the Afghans or the Pakistani's?
Lastly, I am not using the Red Cross as an excuse. I trust them. If an onsite inspector from the Red Cross went public that the US was out of bounds with it's interrogations, then I would be right there with you. But the article posted on this thread is instigated by a lawyer trying to gain the release of his client by whipping up a public frenzy. He has no personal knowledge of anything, and has every motivation in the world to exaggerate or lie.
