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[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

Toni Hawryluk wrote:

> Ole man o' the mountain, give us your view :
>
>
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6315313/<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6315313/>
>
>
> Detainees secretly taken out of Iraq
>
> Practice called breach of Geneva Conventions
>
>
>
> By Dana Priest
>
> washingtonpost.com
>
> Updated: 12:40 a.m. ET Oct. 24, 2004
>
> At the request of the CIA, the Justice Department drafted a confidential memo 
> that authorizes the agency to transfer detainees out of Iraq for 
> interrogation - a practice that international legal specialists say 
> contravenes the Geneva Conventions.
>
> One intelligence official familiar with the operation said the CIA has used 
> the March draft memo as legal support for secretly transporting as many as a 
> dozen detainees out of Iraq in the last six months. The agency has concealed 
> the detainees from the International Red Cross and other authorities, the 
> official said.
>
> The draft opinion, written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and dated March 19, 2004, refers to both Iraqi citizens and foreigners in Iraq, who the memo says are protected by the treaty. It permits the CIA to take Iraqis out of the country to be interrogated for a "brief but not indefinite period." It also says the CIA can permanently remove persons deemed to be "illegal aliens" under "local immigration law." 
>
> Some specialists in international law say the opinion amounts to a reinterpretation of one of the most basic rights of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects civilians during wartime and occupation, including insurgents who were not part of Iraq's military. 
>
> The treaty prohibits the "[i]ndividual or mass forcible transfers, as well as 
> deportations of protected persons from occupied territory . . . regardless of their 
> motive."
>  
tvoivozhd---can't sit at a computer at this time---so can't keep up with 
e-mail.  Read as much world news as possible on a laptop, with legs 
elevated in the air, but hate a small laptop screen, so that isn't 
working well either..

On the topic of  moving detainees out of Iraq for interrogation, I am 
less exercised than most---too many other things going badly that are 
higher on my scale of importance---for instance yesterday the report of 
four Americans injured in a Humvee with without armor that was hit by 
shrapnel  The Swine in the White House will unecessarily kill the grunts 
without a twinge of conscience.  I want that bastard gone in two weeks 
where he can't do any more damage with his military incompetence---or 
for that matter to the environment or U.S. energy security---not to 
mention the collapse of the healthcare system and the collapse of Social 
Security concurrent with the greatest demand placed upon it. 

I am truly tired of mindless platitudes as a subsititute for thought by 
Bush---of course if you are incapable of serious thought, platitudes are 
are all you can offer.