This is an Absolute Disgrace

Ruth

The Living Force
And I'm ashamed to say that its Australians who are responsible for it. Feel free to put it on your 'Shame' file! This is an example of how Governments say something is a 'war' only when it suits them, and because of this, they can willfully flout international law when it suits them also.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/afghan-pows-denied-rights-because-its-not-a-war/2006/06/15/1149964675820.html

Afghan POWs denied rights because 'it's not a war'
Cynthia Banham Defence Reporter
June 16, 2006

DETAINEES captured by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan are not being given prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions, because the Federal Government says there has been no declaration of war and it is not an armed conflict between nation states.

This means that prisoners have no right to a fair trial and no right to be released at the end of the hostilities.

The situation, confirmed by Defence this week, has been criticised by an international law expert because it sets a bad precedent and means that in future conflicts, Australian troops who are taken prisoner might lose the protection of the Geneva Conventions.

Devika Hovell, the director of the international law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, said: "The problem with refusing to apply the law in the short term is that you lose its protection in the long term."

In a statement to the Herald, Defence confirmed that the Geneva Conventions relating to the treatment of POWs do not apply "as a matter of law to the current circumstances in Afghanistan because there is no case of declared war or of any other armed conflict arising between two or more" parties to the conventions. But Defence said any prisoners would still be given the rights under Article 3, which prohibits certain conduct against detainees including "violence to life and person and outrages upon personal dignity".

Its statement went on: "When detainees are taken, Defence will also as a matter of policy apply the relevant fundamental humanitarian principles relating to the treatment of detained persons outlined in the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War."

But the very detailed POW provisions which were set out in the Geneva Conventions after World War II, and which Ms Hovell said were designed to inject a "modicum of humanity into warfare", will not be applied.

These provisions include the right of prisoners not to be interrogated, other than to give their name and rank, and the right not to be punished for mere participation in hostilities.

The situation is the same with Canadian troops in Afghanistan, who have been told the Geneva Conventions regarding the rights of POWs do not apply to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters captured on the battlefield.

Ms Hovell questioned the Government's argument that the conflict in Afghanistan was not covered by the Geneva Conventions, referring to a Yugoslav Tribunal finding that an internal conflict may become international where another state intervened through its troops.

"One problem with the Government applying the Geneva Conventions only as a matter of policy, and not law, is that it forms state practice that other states or armed groups may imitate," she said. "In this and future similar conflicts, Australian troops might justifiably be denied the protections of the [conventions]."

The admission by Defence comes as both the Australian and US governments are coming under increasing pressure over the continued detention at Guantanamo Bay of David Hicks and some 400 other prisoners taken into custody during the original war in Afghanistan.

Hicks, who has been there for more than 4 1/2 years, was never given POW status, and is being tried by a widely-condemned military commission.
 
Hello Good People,

WAKE UP!! The problem of Pathocracy is a global one, in no way limited to the U.S. government and political system only. Pathocratic governments and political associations, with objectives of a clearly proto-totalitarian nature, are in place in all of those "developed" and "democratic" nations not now actively engaged in an open and all-inclusive opposition to the U.S. Pathocracy, to its policies, its conduct of its global affairs of State and of its closely allied mulitnational and other corporate interests, including its mainstream media and press.

The problem of numerically insignificant percentages of the public being awake and resisting, the reality of the vast majority of a nation's people being unfocused and utterly ineffectual in making any public resistance to the Pathocratic, proto-totalitarian actions of their own government, is not limited to the U.S. public either. That too is a global problem, clearly displayed by the inactions and incomprehensions of a majority of the general populace of every "developed" and "democratic" nation on this Earth.

Those general populaces not now actively engaged in open opposition to their own nation's budding, domestic Pathocracy, its policies, its conduct of its global affairs of State, and its closely allied multinational and other corporate interests, including its mainstream media and press, at the least in regard to its support of or silence and lack of active opposition to the U.S. Pathocracy, are no better off, no less duped, servile and asleep than the U.S. public is deemed to be.

Wake up!! Smell the stench of PATHOCRACY, and understand that it is A GLOBAL PROBLEM. It demands a total commitment to the opposition and resistance of it, personally, from each and every one of us on this Earth with the capacity to understand its Pathological Nature and to "get it." We are the only hope Humanity has got. Looking to the American people to wake up and stop it, over there, nicely far away from those of us who live in other, less obviously Pathocratic nations, is a large bit of wishful thinking, and a big waste of precious time to boot, IMO.

Those Americans who can awaken to the Reality of Pathocracy at home have already done so and have already gotten active. The rest have no capacity, literally not enough presence of reason and mind left to them, with which to ever awaken sufficiently to get it. The efforts that are currently being directed to awakening THEM, the majority of the American public, might far more productively and effectively be directed to awakening the populaces of those currently collusive nations in the rest of the world, wherein the destruction of the minds of most of the general populace has not already long since been achieved.

Nearly all of the world's other nations, especially the European and other "Western" ones, who have by far the most international "clout", are aiding and abetting the U.S. Pathocracy. Either through their active support of it or through their lack of strong and official opposition to it as matter of stated and forceful international and domestic policy, they are directly responsible for enabling its successes thus far. Without their collaboration, for many years already, it could not and would not have happened.

Those outside of the U.S. desiring to awaken any nation's general public to the reality of Global Pathocracy would do well to heed some words of old: "Charity begins at home." They'd best serve Humanity's needs to start awakening their fellow Brits, Aussies, Canadians, Norwegians, Swedes, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, Germans, French, Japanese, and so on, the world around, in their own nations, to the stench of Pathocracy wafting on the breezes of their own home's political, governing and corporate "winds." Any stopping of the now entrenched U.S. Lords of Pathocracy will ultimately have to come from outside of the U.S., not the least reason for that being the destruction of the minds of the vast majority of the American people.

The closely underlying secondary reason being the utterly ponerogenic nature of the foundational mythos of the U.S.'s Euro-American white majority and of the dominant U.S. cultural imperatives. Until the U.S. public has been cured of both those afflictions, the capacity of the majority of U.S. Americans to ever comprehend and resist their own Pathocracy is nil. Those who can do so have done so, and the vast majority cannot and will not. That just is the U.S. demographic and political, societal Reality. Continuing to butt our heads against it, devoting our efforts to THEIR public's awakening, until, lo and behold, equally Pathocratic regimes have suddenly descended upon us in our own nations, does not seem a wise course of action for us to continue.

But our energies and time are among those things we can and often do choose not to use wisely or to best advantage. If we find the current "rut" of our patterns in thought and action too comfortable to resist, we are very likely to continue them, however self-defeating they may be in the long run. It is so much less distressing to confront full fledged Pathocracy abroad than to admit to its nascent Reality at home, and by doing so consciously then have to accept the burdens of personal actions and personal risks that will come with that admission.

"Political Ponerology" and the growing Awareness we have received from its most lucid and informing pages, forever remove from us the luxury of pretending not to See the Signs of Pathocracy, no matter in what early stage it lies, and Ponerogenesis likewise, wherever it is found, no matter how close to home. One can only suggest, having viewed the price that all Americans are now paying for their beliefs in their false national myths and histories, their false concepts of who and what their government is and always was set up to promote and empower, that we'd be well advised to closely and objectively examine all of our own nations' myths and assumptions. How much of our own assumptions as to the character and goals of our own nations and systems of government, are equally false?

In light of all we have learned thus far about the Ponerogenic Processes that have resulted in the current American National Gulag and Global Threat, we'd be very foolish indeed to remain deceived and inactive regarding the truly imminent descent of Pathocracy upon nearly all the rest of us. After all, if they've let it get so obvious as to engage in today's Global War Against Humanity, the Global Pathocrats must feel very sure that all the rest of the "developed" nations, at the least, are already as equally "in the bag" as the U.S. Perhaps it is our subconscious fear of exactly that Reality that keeps us so dedicatedly ignoring the manifest and multiple symptoms of barely latent Pathocracy at home, and so intent on awakening the American public, instead of turning our attentions and efforts to achieving our own public's mass awakening instead?

Sometimes, mes amis et amies, we will continue beating the dead horse, vainly attempting to make it rise and pull the wagon again, because we are simply and totally desperate to avoid accepting the reality confronting us, that of having to unhitch the dead horse, pick up the wagon's tongue, and begin pulling that heavy load home all by and for ourselves.

M
 
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