Thanas wrote:Simon_Jester wrote:In which case it is totally correct as a matter of basic English usage to call him a hostage. Insofar as he is in any sense a "prisoner of war" it is in the medieval sense, in which prisoners were hostages, who were routinely ransomed back to their loved ones, or held imprisoned as leverage in a political dispute, or summarily killed if keeping them was inconvenient (e.g. Agincourt).
Actually, Agincourt is often regarded as the greatest warcrime in the middle ages because those captured had surrendered on their word of honour.
It is, and I know it is, but unless I am badly wrong (which I concede I might be), it wasn't the
only time prisoners were killed. It was a massive breach of customary surrender rules, on a scale unprecedented in the history
And since the medieval sense of a "prisoner of war" bears almost no resemblance to the formalized and legalized sense in which we use the word today, it is entirely fitting to say that this pilot is going to be treated as a hostage, not a POW, based on the past behavior of ISIL's own decision-makers.
No, unless a demand is met he is a prisoner. Even when a ransom demand is made he is still not a hostage, as prisoner exchanges often include some sort of payment.
I accept that in modern times 'hostage' carries an overtone of criminality, enough so that one may argue it is incorrect.
It is debateable whether ISIL is a large criminal organization or a legitimate quasi-state organization; they act in many ways criminal but still meet many of the qualifications for a state.
Unlike a partisan group, ISIL has secure control of a large swath of territory, with plenty of personnel who openly under arms to guard prisoners. And unlike, say, Hamas in Palestine, their territory is not subject to being penetrated at will by heavily armed enemy flying columns.
So...they are like the Yugoslav Partisans in 1944 and 1945? Or the Warsaw Uprising?
Like the Yugoslav Partisans in 1945? Probably. I think it would actually be justified to start expecting the Partisans to take prisoners more or less properly in 1945.
Like the Warsaw Uprising? Not so much, because they were hemmed in inside an urban area by overwhelmingly powerful enemy forces.
Note that for much the same reason I do not expect Hamas to abide by the POW rules for nation-states or anything close to them. They control a territory, but cannot secure it against armed intrusion and have no realistic prospect of defending themselves for long in the event of actual war.
I don't think Nuremberg decisions applying to partisans and guerillas should apply here.
Why not? Both are irregular powers, financed by outsiders and using whatever weapon they have at hand. They also specialize in terror tactics (don't think that wasn't a mainstay of WWII resistances everywhere).
You only can differentiate them if you go down the bad road of "well, they are bad people, so the law doesn't apply to them".
No. It is about territorial security. If you have a secure rear area in which prisoners can realistically be fed and guarded indefinitely,
you should take prisoners, and keep them there, in conditions as humane as the exigencies of economics and war permit. That is the basic idea that underlies all modern conventions on POW treatment.
The Nuremberg decision applies very clearly to partisans with no fixed, secure base. Such as the Maquis, or the Iraqi guerillas fighting the US occupation. Even though I consider that one of these organizations was right to fight as they fought, and the other was wrong,
it does not matter. Both are in my eyes exempt from being expected to guard POWs, because in practice it would be impossible for them to do so.
I question whether the Nuremberg decision applies to partisans with a solid fixed, secure base and the ability to hold their perimeter for a long if not indefinite span of time. The Yugoslav partisans of 1945 probably had at least as much territorial security and a better long-term prospect of holding the land they occupied than, say, 1914-15 era Serbia during World War One. Accordingly, it is not unreasonable to expect said Yugoslav partisans to take prisoners and at least
try to treat them properly, much as the Serbian Army did.
I would likewise argue that ISIL can reasonably be expected to guard POWs, just like the Yugoslav partisans could. Even though I think the Yugoslav partisans were right to be fighting Nazis, while ISIL is wrong to be fighting at all,
that does not matter. Both are in my eyes expected to treat prisoners humanely, and not to behead them on international TV for propaganda footage.
So please do not accuse me of hypocrisy here.
If I thought ISIL had as little time to live as the Warsaw Uprising, or was as vulnerable to enemy flying columns penetrating its territory to take POW camps, as Hamas or the Maquis... I would see the matter quite differently.
Thanas wrote:I would suggest that he is a POW just like any other prisoner of a military raid. After all, if you send a commando team behind enemy lines and they capture a supply depot with soldiers, those captured soldiers are still afforded the same protection (it is just that special forces frequently ignore them due to practicability). But if they get a pass, why shouldn't ISIS?
If ISIL sends commandos to strike the sort of target my country usually sends commandos after, and they capture some of our soldiers in the process, I do not think they should be punished in any way our own commandos wouldn't be punished.
Although I must note
all commando units, especially those who do not take prisoners, are taking considerably higher risks of being treated as spies or war criminals than an ordinary soldier. This has been a constant reality of special operations warfare since at least the 19th century (see Andrews' Raid during the American Civil War, an example of American commandos being tried as spies and executed
by other (rebel) Americans).
Thing is that IMO the difference between state and non-state actors has never been considered and seeing how most of the drafting nations were colonial powers with lots of unrest, it is easy to see why. Sadly, there is not an impartal tribunal considering that (thanks, Clinton)...
Ideally a military tribunal would decide in cases of doubt. Note however that civilians are protected under the Hague conventions as well. So there would still be protection against execution and torture. However, nobody is there to enforce these protections, so....
If such a tribunal existed, would it have the power to enforce its own rulings? Who would enforce upon ISIL the necessity to honor proper rules for treatment of civilians and POWs?
Irbis wrote:Simon_Jester wrote:Er, to clarify, we cannot reasonably class prisoners in the hands of ISIL as "prisoners of war" when we know they will not be treated as such.
So were US/British/ANZAC troopers not prisoners of war because Japan sent them on death marches (far more brutal than anything ISIS did so far)?
Honestly, since Japan appears to have had no meaningful concept of "prisoner of war" distinct from "slaves to be worked to death for our amusement," I think I might reasonably answer "yes."
In the literal sense, they had taken prisoners during a war: "prisoners of war."
However, they were not remotely likely to honor the legal obligations that come with POW status in the modern civilized world.
Therefore, it would not be unjust to classify the Allied captives in Japanese hands by other terms.
Certainly we should not use the term "POW" to in any way dignify how the Japanese treated their captives. It's a smaller scale version of the problem with calling concentration camps "detainment facilities" instead of, say, "extermination camps." It's intellectually dishonest because it effectively tries to whitewash a human rights violation.
Thanas, Stas, you know as well as I do that ISIL is predictably going to threaten to kill the Jordanian pilot unless some demand is met, or unless some ransom is paid, and then if they're not satisfied they will predictably kill him publicly for propaganda purposes. We know this because they have done so in the past under similar circumstances.
No, they did not. Their threats so far applied only to
civilian prisoners. Yes, ISIS killed captured combatants fighting against them before but as far as I know without any demands, simply to send message to enemy.
Ah. Then I was mistaken.
In that case, 'hostage' would be inaccurate, because I'm not a hostage if you're planning to murder me out of hand anyway no matter what I do.
What would be an appropriate term for a person who is alive, but in the hands of an organization that plans to kill them "simply to send a message?"
I don't know...
victim?
Unlike a partisan group, ISIL has secure control of a large swath of territory, with plenty of personnel who openly under arms to guard prisoners. And unlike, say, Hamas in Palestine, their territory is not subject to being penetrated at will by heavily armed enemy flying columns.
ISIL has NO meaningful excuse not to keep prisoners and abide by the laws of war in this matter, at least in broad. I don't think Nuremberg decisions applying to partisans and guerillas should apply here.
Only less that 1/3 of actual countries signed all of Geneva Conventions with all protocols, what excuse they have? Alas, no one claims that combatants captured in wars waged by other 2/3 of states don't gain PoW status. That's why Geneva Conventions recognize bad treatment of prisoners as war crime - if you could claim they were not PoWs because you don't recognize them as such, it would be pointless, don't you think?
A nation that has not signed the extra protocols to the Geneva Conventions has still (as a rule) signed the core part of the Conventions and can be held accountable for following those rules.
Among which rules are "you don't kill prisoners out of hand to 'send a message' to your enemies. Or if you do so, expect them to receive the message and reply violently." This is basic common sense.
No, the only reason for press to claim he is a "hostage" and not PoW is the same motive USA had when they refused to give the people they captured PoW status inventing various funny terms. To make the enemy in the eyes of public opinion just some irrelevant terrorist band in third world country, because a lot more people would start asking questions if you declared them underground state or liberation revolt, and their fighters prisoners, not 'illegally combative individuals'.
To hell with you.
I have made my
OWN purposes in saying this quite clear.
I supported calling him a hostage because I believed that ISIL was going to treat him the way a gang of criminals treats a hostage- brutally, with a messy death in his future if Jordan failed to comply with some list of demands.
If I'm wrong and he's simply going to be shot out of hand, it is not accurate to call him a hostage. He's a
victim, in much the same sense that Jews rounded up by
Einsatzgruppen were. The fact that he was captured in arms against ISIL is irrelevant; you don't kill POWs out of hand like that.
Calling him a POW is misleading because it implies that he will be treated the way the law says POWs are supposed to be treated.
They would also have a lot more internationally recognized rights, making freedomizing them by liberal, unrestrained bombing much more problematic and forcing you to actually apply some effort in target picking lest you end up like these poor chaps from the CIA report 2 weeks ago,
slanderously blamed for just doing your work
Do you have the faintest idea what "liberal, unrestrained bombing" of the territory ISIL occupies would look like?
I mean for fuck's sake, you seem to be just shrugging off the fact that ISIL kills prisoners out of hand to
send a message. But you dwell at some length on the fact that the CIA tortures prisoners.
How is this not hypocrisy on your part? Of course the CIA should be investigated, probed, and probably taken apart and put back together after microscopic vetting of its component parts with widespread purges of the responsible parties! But ISIL does things
even worse than the CIA, routinely, regularly, and you just shrug and say it in a matter of fact tone and move on.
Because criticizing ISIL is too easy, and criticizing the CIA is fun.
Not that I claim ISIS shouldn't be fought, but please, let's do it without Bush/Cheney era newspeak demonising and belittling the enemy. No one claimed "mission accomplished" over ISIS yet, there is really no reason to try to whitewash all stains on pretty re-election photo-op anymore.
This is not doublespeak, it is a blunt recognition of the fact that ISIL has neither the inclination nor, apparently, the infrastructure to handle POWs in a meaningful sense. They just kill them. If that results in them being demonized, perhaps they should stop behaving demonically.
