“The U.S. administration wants to do what it likes and expects others to do what it likes, too,” Mirror

LONDON, March 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The British press Tuesday, March 25, lashed out at “the double standards” of the U.S. administration over the display of their prisoners on Iraqi TV, reminding them of their own “previous favors” in Guantanamo and Iraq itself.

“The outrage and anger over the treatment of U.S. prisoners of war by Iraq is very real. But not everyone is entitled to be outraged. The warmongers in the White House are not,” British Mirror said.

Little more than a year ago, there were other prisoners of war. As United States forces swept victoriously through Afghanistan, they seized hundreds of men.

These prisoners were transported to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They were blindfolded and shackled. And their plight was gloatingly recorded by official U.S. photographers to be circulated around the world.

The treatment of American prisoners of war in Iraq is in flagrant breach of the Geneva Convention. But so is the treatment of Afghani prisoners in Camp X-Ray.

The U.S. did not stop there in defying the rules of war. It has admitted that almost all the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were tortured.

There is no difference between breaches of the Geneva Convention committed by America and Iraq. But the White House thinks there is, the paper charged.

Rumsfeld says it's "illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners".

And a White House spokesman said Monday there is a difference between the war on terrorism and "this additional conflict" in Iraq.

In other words, this U.S. administration doesn't consider it is bound by other people's laws. It can do what it likes and expects others to do what it likes, too, according to the Mirror.

Only Monday, March 24, 19 Camp X-Ray prisoners were released. They had been incarcerated, humiliated and abused for more than a year. Yet, now the U.S. admits they are innocent.

Casting deep doubts over the declared U.S. objectives behind invading Iraq, the paper said; “What this White House did at Guantanamo Bay was an indication of how it would behave over Iraq.

“It ignored the wishes of the United Nations. It defied international law. It invaded a sovereign state simply because it wanted to and had the military might.

“Remember, we were told by President Bush and Tony Blair that this was a moral war. A crusade to rid the world of a tyrannical, bloodthirsty despot. Yet, just about every rule and law that could be broken by the U.S. has been.

“Blair cannot be happy. He has allied himself with a White House administration that steamrollers over all opposition, defying the rules and ignoring the relationships that could make this a better world.

“War is at times a necessary evil, though this is not one of them. And some of its worst excesses can be eased by applying rules of decency and civilization.”

Concluding, The Mirror wrote, “The world should condemn every nation and every leader who flagrantly breaches those rules. Whether it is Iraq or the USA, Saddam Hussein or George W. Bush.

“There cannot be one rule for America and another for the rest of the world. That way lies anarchy and the collapse of civilization.”

“Laws Sought Now?”

Another article by another British paper was even harsher in stressing the same message.

“Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi television cameras Sunday, Rumsfeld immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them,” according to The Guardian.

“He is, of course, quite right. Article 13 of the third convention, concerning the treatment of prisoners, insists that they "must at all times be protected... against insults and public curiosity". This may number among the less heinous of the possible infringements of the laws of war, but the conventions, ratified by Iraq in 1956, are non-negotiable. If you break them, you should expect to be prosecuted for war crimes.

“U.S. POWs should thank their lucky stars that they are not prisoners of the American forces fighting for civilization”, Guardian

“This being so, Rumsfeld had better watch his back. For this enthusiastic convert to the cause of legal warfare is, as head of the defense department, responsible for a series of crimes sufficient, were he ever to be tried, to put him away for the rest of his natural life.

“His prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where 641 men (nine of whom are British citizens) are held, breaches no fewer than 15 articles of the third convention. The U.S. government broke the first of these (article 13) as soon as the prisoners arrived, by displaying them, just as the Iraqis have done, on television.

“In this case, however, they were not encouraged to address the cameras. They were kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind their backs, wearing blacked-out goggles and earphones. In breach of article 18, they had been stripped of their own clothes and deprived of their possessions.

“They were then interned in a penitentiary (against article 22), where they were denied proper mess facilities (26), canteens (28), religious premises (34), opportunities for physical exercise (38), access to the text of the convention (41), freedom to write to their families (70 and 71) and parcels of food and books (72).

“They were not "released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities" (118), because, the U.S. authorities say, their interrogation might, one day, reveal interesting information about al-Qaeda. Article 17 rules that captives are obliged to give only their name, rank, number and date of birth.

“No "coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever". In the hope of breaking them, however, the authorities have confined them to solitary cells and subjected them to what is now known as "torture lite": sleep deprivation and constant exposure to bright light. Unsurprisingly, several of the prisoners have sought to kill themselves, by smashing their heads against the walls or trying to slash their wrists with plastic cutlery.”

“The U.S. government claims that these men are not subject to the Geneva conventions, as they are not "prisoners of war", but "unlawful combatants". The same claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis holding the US soldiers who illegally invaded their country.

“But this redefinition is itself a breach of article 4 of the third convention, under which people detained as suspected members of a militia (the Taliban) or a volunteer corps (al-Qaeda) must be regarded as prisoners of war.

“As Jamie Doran's film Afghan Massacre: Convoy of Death records, some hundreds, possibly thousands, of them were loaded into container lorries at Qala-i-Zeini, near the town of Mazar-i-Sharif, on November 26 and 27. The doors were sealed and the lorries were left to stand in the sun for several days.

Iraqi POWS

“At length, they departed for Sheberghan prison, 80 miles away. The prisoners, many of whom were dying of thirst and asphyxiation, started banging on the sides of the trucks. Dostum's men stopped the convoy and machine-gunned the containers. When they arrived at Sheberghan, most of the captives were dead.

“The U.S. special forces running the prison watched the bodies being unloaded. They instructed Dostum's men to "get rid of them before satellite pictures can be taken". Doran interviewed a Northern Alliance soldier guarding the prison. "I was a witness when an American soldier broke one prisoner's neck.

“The Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them." Another soldier alleged: "They took the prisoners outside and beat them up, and then returned them to the prison. But sometimes they were never returned, and they disappeared."

“Many of the survivors were loaded back in the containers with the corpses, then driven to a place in the desert called Dasht-i-Leili. In the presence of up to 40 US special forces, the living and the dead were dumped into ditches. Anyone who moved was shot.

“The German newspaper Die Zeit investigated the claims and concluded that: "No one doubted that the Americans had taken part. Even at higher levels there are no doubts on this issue." The U.S. group Physicians for Human Rights visited the places identified by Doran's witnesses and found they "all... contained human remains consistent with their designation as possible grave sites".

“It is not hard, therefore, to see why the U.S. government fought first to prevent the establishment of the international criminal court, and then to ensure that its own citizens are not subject to its jurisdiction.

“The five soldiers dragged in front of the cameras yesterday should thank their lucky stars that they are prisoners not of the American forces fighting for civilization, but of the "barbaric and inhuman" Iraqis.