A captured Iraqi general has died while being interrogated.
The U-S military in Baghdad says Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush (AH’-bed HAH’-med moh-HOOSH’) died yesterday while being questioned in a town near the Syrian border. The military says he complained he wasn’t feeling well and the lost consciousness. A U-S military doctor pronounced him dead.
Mowhoush was captured in a border raid last month. He was an air defense officer in Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and is believed to have financed attacks on U-S troops after Saddam’s ouster.
as far I know, according to "new rules of enggagment", genva convention doesn't protect the rights of "unlawful militants" so if an army of country is dismentaled by the occupying power,aso there is no regular soldier, there for they all are bloody murderous terrorists!! (as for the occupying power) ... so will not surprised if these warmingers, catch someone and skint them alive just to know whereabouts of their prime target... did n e body botherd to question the authenticity of playing footage of two iragi corpses again and again, where as Aljazeera was baned for showing footage of two allied soldeir's bodies (as it was illegal as per genva convetion)!
Well, I've deliberately avoided mentioning the term "prisoner of war", because it is not known whether or not the General was in his uniform or not at the time of his capture.
The Geneva Convention does allow for a soldier, if caught doing hostile actions whilst pretending to be civilians, to be declared a saboteur rather than a prisoner of war. The USA, the UK, and Germany acted by this rule in World War 2, for example.
The shocking issue here is that man just "happened" to die under interrogation by US forces. That's the kind of thing I read about happening under, say, the Red Army in Afghanistan, or in fact...... under the Saddam Hussein regime.
I am forced to take the official verdict of "death by natural causes" with a heavy pinch of salt, because should the man have been murdered, it would be utterly foolish of the USA to admit so. If the USA admitted that a man in its custody was killed during interrogation, it would remove virtually all incentive for any remaining Ba'athists out there to voluntarily surrender - they would fear being killed during interrogation, just as their party killed people during interrogations too.
Indeed its a confussing condition, coz genva convention do protects the rights of soldeirs engagged in gorrilla warfare.. which is we are witnessing now, but the main issue is that coilation forces are refusing to recognise them as soldeirs, for them they are external elements diffused in the civilian population, thus they all are terrorists .. and ofcourse GEnva convention doesn't protects rights of terrorists.. and regular army is no longer exists.. but ofcourse PATRIOT Act does give them that legal back (Sec220 C3 Ammended Sec 2703(b) "competent jurisdiction..... WITHOUT geographical limitation") (got it?? I'll explain.. that mean N E one in the world can be brought to justice without any geographical limitations... like ...they CAN prosecute Puten under that act, not to mention rest of the world) thats the main beauty of this strategy... no one can be brought to war crime tribunal if the actions taken were against hostile groups... but hey what the hell.. Americans didn't recognised INternation war crime tribunal yet .. or they did!!
Whilst the Geneva Convention does apply to Guerilla warfare, it does so only so long as the guerillas do not attempt to pass themselves off as civilians. For example, the Marxist FARC guerillas in Colombia enage in combat operations whilst wearing uniform (khaki short and trousers), and the Viet Cong in the Vietnam war also had an official uniform (black shirt and trousers), hence clearly affording them protection under the Geneva Convention.
The controversy over the case of Guantanamo POWs not being treated as such is that the majority of the world does not believe that the people captured in Afghanistan were trying to pass themselves off as civilians (despite being dressed as such) - rather, they were fighting wearing the same style of clothes that Afghans have worn during wars for centuries, and followed the same type of traditional military structure (informal bands behind warlords, without any real kind of military heirarchy). The US is felt by most of the world to be penalising the POWs, simply for dressing as Afghan warriors historically have done since the introduction of guns, and fighting with the lack of formal heirarchy that has been the traditional way of waging war in Afghanistan.
In the case of this General, coming back to topic, he is described as playing a leading role in the Resistance. He would only be able to get away with POW status were he not caught passing himself off as a civilians, i.e. if he did not shed his uniform for civilian clothes.
The shocking fact remains, however, that a human being died whilst under interrogation. More to the point, a human being died whilst being interrogated by the comrades-in-arms of men who's deaths he may well have ordered.
This circumstances of his death are deeply suspicious, and, as I mentioned, it would be such a disaster for the Occupation if the US were to announce that the man's death was at the hands of his interrogators that it is highly dubious that any such statement would ever be issued, regardless of the truth.
Admitting the man died at the hands of US interrigators would seriously risk prolonguing the Resistance for several years, and covering up such an incident is the only logical act for the USA.
http://www.americannewsreel.com/artman/publish/article_62.shtml
The Geneva Convention that determines how prisoners of war should be treated followed World War II. Since the rules went into force on October 21, 1950, there have been more than 5,000 complaints filed for violations of the convention – 1,229 of them against the United States..
^^ ... true ... they give a damn about human rights... acording to amnesty international... USA got the worst human rights voilation record!! not only with the POW's or terrorist suspects, but with environmentalists as well!! even some of the former adminstration heads were involved in this practice ... opening a new thread, you guys might find it interesting!!