US charges Guantanamo Bay prisoner with war crimes

[DonViejo]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI (AP) — A Guantanamo Bay prisoner accused of plotting roadside bombing attacks in Afghanistan as a commander of al-Qaida is facing a trial by military commission on war crimes charges that could put him in prison for life, officials said Tuesday.

Pentagon legal authorities have approved five war crimes charges against Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi. He is to be arraigned at the U.S. base in Cuba within 30 days under military rules.

The charges include denying quarter, which involves refusing to allow the enemy to surrender, and treachery, defined under international law as pretending to be a civilian to carry out attacks.

He is also charged with attacking protected property for orchestrating attacks on a military medical helicopter, attempted treachery and conspiracy.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/us_charges_guantanamo_bay_prisoner_with_war_crimes/

[Mnemosyne]

1. Hypocrites. nt

[hobbit709]

2. Exactly.

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. "The charges include denying quarter, which involves refusing to allow the enemy to surrender."

Unlike our drone program, which, as we all know, politely asks targets to surrender first before blowing them (and any unfortunates near them) to bits.

[xocet]

5. Surreal...That is exactly the sentence that I noticed. n/t

[rafeh1]

9. terror bombing is terror bombing

whether done by car bombs or smart bombs or drones.
In fact drones kill signicficant numbers of civillians so drone terror bombing realy qualifies as a war crime.
In the words attributed to Dr. K (Henry Kissinger)
1. War crimes are for losers.
2. Only losers commit war crimes.
3. ergo Losing is a war crime..

[gratuitous]

10. Or during the first Iraq war

When the U.S. empire so blithely ignored the rules of war to slaughter retreating and surrendering Iraqi soldiers by the thousands.

[joshcryer]

15. Belligerents are not protected by the Geneva Conventions.

As yet no countries have filed war crimes charges over the drone war (because every country they fly in is complicit).

I wholeheartedly welcome that (though they would also have to acquire the belligerents as their own).

[xocet]

4. "The charges include denying quarter, which involves refusing to allow the enemy to surrender,...."

That is like what happens in a drone strike, right? After all, how would one surrender to a drone?


Here is a similar question that was put forth during an episode of C-SPAN's Book TV:

January 16, 2007
Book Discussion on The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945

Jorg Friedrich talked about his book, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945, published by Columbia University Press.?The Allied bombing of Germany during World War II resulted in 600,000 casualties and devastated the landscape of historic cities such as Dresden.?German historian Friedrich said the book combines narrative and first-hand testimony to depict the air raids as they were experienced by German civilians.?He also considered Allied rationale for the bombing and whether or not the campaign influenced the war’s outcome.?Since its initial publication in German in 2002, the book has been translated into ten languages.?After his presentation the author responded to audience members' questions.

Transcript:

( This starts at about 22:27 in the video: )

Jorg Friedrich: "... A military person who surrenders will cross the front, ask for pardon or flee backwards. In short, he has a place to go. How do you surrender to an air force? In which direction should 30 millions of city population go? By which transports? To which housing? With which nutrition? ...."

http://www.c-span.org/video/?196223-1/book-discussion-fire-bombing-germany-19401945

So, is a drone strike a denial of quarter and, therefore, a war crime?

[geek tragedy]

8. No. The use of bombs dropped by airplanes

is not a war crime.

Shooting people who are attempting to surrender to you is.

[arcane1]

6. It must be a typo, because the phrase "without a hint of irony" is missing from the article

[geek tragedy]

7. Facepalm at the comparisons of drones

vs Nuremberg crime of "no quarter."

Hint: bombers weren't illegal per Nuremberg. Shooting prisoners and those attempting to surrender under a white flag was.

[xocet]

11. Apparently, the Obama Administration thought that the comparison was worthy of a closer examination.

You can read about it here if you can suspend your derision long enough to remove your hand from your face:

Double-Tap Drone Strikes and the Denial of Quarter in IHL
Posted by Ofilio Mayorga on May 08, 2013

The denial of quarter is prohibited under the customary rules of armed conflict and is considered a war crime under the Rome Statute (see article 8(b)(xii) and article 8(e)(x)). In his book, Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency, Daniel Klaidman explains that the Obama administration struggled for some time with the question of whether the administration’s targeted killing policy amounts to a denial of quarter. In the same vein, Jeh Johnson, former General Counsel of the Department of Defense, once warned, “We have to be vigilant to avoid a no-quarter, or take-no-prisoner policy.” Despite such calls for restraint, and though the pace of drone strikes has slowed down this year compared to that of 2012, the policy of targeted killing remains intact.

Like most norms of international humanitarian law (IHL), the obligation to give quarter purports to strike a balance between military necessity and humanitarian considerations. First, this obligation protects combatants actively engaged in hostilities from threats of extermination. Conversely, an order to deny quarter communicated in advance of fighting renders a potential offer to surrender void ab initio. Second, the obligation to give quarter shields from attack fighters who are out of combat, either due to sickness, wounds, or shipwreck, or because the fighters have expressed an intention to surrender. The rationale behind this aspect of the rule is that attacks against hors de combat are inhumane and confer little military advantage.

...

http://www.hpcrresearch.org/blog/ofilio-mayorga/2013-05-08/double-tap-drone-strikes-and-denial-quarter-ihl

[geek tragedy]

12. you forgot the punchline:

To be sure, the no quarter rule should not be read to include a requirement to offer the enemy an opportunity to surrender or a duty to capture prior to using lethal force. Air missile operations would be impossible to justify under the laws of war if that were the case. Take as an example NATO’s air bombing campaign over Kosovo in 1999, which involved 10,500 strikes launched from approximately 15,000 feet. Very few would suggest that the absence of ground forces rendered operation Allied Force per se illegal because NATO did not capture a single Serbian soldier. ... But both the Tablada and the Persian Gulf War cases are inapposite to the determination of whether or not the U.S. drone program violates the rule on no quarter for two reasons: 1) drones cannot capture their targets, and 2) drone operations, at least in non-declared war zones, are not supported by boots on the ground, except for intelligence gathering. Coupled with the fact that IHL does not impose an obligation to employ ground forces, the Obama administration’s preference for killing rather than capturing suspected terrorists does not make the drone program per se illegal under the laws of war.

As the author notes, double-tap strikes are a different story entirely, and very well may constitute illegal conduct.

Edited to add: a policy of "take no AQ/Taliban prisoners, period" would of course be illegal. Note that what's being considered here is not the instrumentality, but a possible decision to rely exclusively on that instrumentality because it offered the opportunity to avoid taking prisoners.

[xocet]

14. Thanks for suspending derision long enough to have a discussion. n/t

[Kelvin Mace]

13. Goddamn that takes balls!

Massive brass ones.