This note argues that the proper legal framework which the Blackwater legal counsel should have made clear to the employees was: Since we are in Iraq and not subject to US laws, then we are not entitled to any protections; if you are promised anything under US laws to induce you to provide information, that promise -- because we are operating outside US laws -- is not a promise that is enforceable.
The specifics of Blackwater employees Combatant status
Under the laws of war, one requirement for a combatant to be a "lawful combatant" is that they are under the command of an organization leader, and subjected to various other standards including a system of discipline. That'ts the theory.
In practice, Blackwater is a special case:It's a contractor, but it is arguing -- and the US has implicitly accepted -- that Blackwater employees are "not under any US laws" while in Iraq.
Fine, let's accept that assertion: That, contrary to Geneva requirements in re "lawful combatants," Blackwter employees -- because they were acting utside US laws; and the US laws are asserted to be not applicable to their conduct -- should be classified as unlawful combatants: They were not acting under lawful authority responsible to a system of laws. Blackwater would argue that "no law" applies to them: Neither the laws of War in Geneva; nor US laws.
The problem with this assertion: _some_ laws must apply, otherwise we have barbarism. The issue is subtle: Just because "Blackwater and the US government agree that there are problems regulating Blackwater under US laws" it doesn't mean that Blackwater cannot be held accountable. The question becomes: Which standards would or should guide blackwater? The answer: Geneva and the Nuremberg precedents. Said another way: Even if the DOJ briefed Congress in December 2007 that they would have problems prosecuting Blackwater because of the immunity agreement, Geneva would be a source of law to guide the discipline process.
This note argues that a grant of immunity to a contractor deemed to be an unlawful combatant in this legal nexus -- is not one Blackwater should have relied on. Rather, when a contractor knows, asserts, and acts as if it is outside the law, for the purposes of privileges: It is outside the protections of those privildge. However, Blackwater appears to want it both ways: To be both "not subject to" either US law or Geneva as a standard of conduct; but entitled to protections of Geneva and US law respecting the promise of immunity.
This note argues the opposite: Once Blackwater acted outside the law, and agreed to engage in combat that was "not" subject to any law; and understood to be "not regulated" by Geneva, then BLackwater was stripped of any reasonable expectation that it could rely on any promise, agreement, or grant of immunity through US law.
Comparing Interrogations of POWs at Guantanamo to the INterrogation of Blackwater Employees
Let's revisit the US precedent of how the US treated POWs at Gurantanamo. Rightly or wrongly, the US DOJ said in Federal Court that the prisoners' evidence -- gleaned from alleged torture or waterboarding -- was "foreseeable"; and this was within the rules which the US was "allowed" to operate when interacting with the prisoners. They were deemed unlawful combatants while in custody, and were asserted to not enjoy any Geneva protections.
Let's take the above argument -- rightly or wrongly -- as the legal foundation or precedent the US government set. Whether that precedent was legal is secondary to the larger principle of Geneva: That similarly situated prisoners should be treated the same. Under Geneva, this principle was intended to mean that any protection provided to US troops under the UCMJ should be provided to prisoners held at Guantanamo; in practice this has been turned on its head. We leave that for another day.
Let's focus not on what Geneva intended, but what the US first did. Geneva creates a checking mechanism: If an army or military refuses to enforce, abide by, follow, respect or adhere to Geneva Convention requirements, constraints, or protections, then other nations on the principles of retaliation and reciprocity can commit like abuses.
Despite this principle of reciprocity, the US continued to mistreat Prisoners at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Eastern Europe. Putting that aside, the issue with respect to Blackwater is: Should a "similarly situated" combatants be Blackwater employees and POWs at Guantanamo?
This note argues with a resounding, "Yes." Similarly situated means: Do the prisoners substantially enjoy the same conditions; have they engaged in the same kinds of conduct; and are they being subject to the same system of justice. If what was imposed on the Guantanamo POWs was "good enough" -- rightly or wrongly -- then those conditions should also be imposed on Blackwater.
Review
Blackwater's reliance on the promise of immunity is not reasonble. Legal counsel knew, or should have known, that Blackwater was acting outside US law and Geneva; and in doing so, could not reasonably rely on any promise only enforceable by US law. Once Blackwater agreed to allegedly violate Geneva, it lost all reasonable expectation that it could enjoy protections of US law; or that any promise made to any Blackwater employee was enforceable, or would be honored.
Virginia Simson is a spiritual journalista/activist who runs a visionary planetary tutorial blogspot, www.ladybroadoak.blogspot.com as well as a blog on the uranium industry and depleted uranium at www.lowlevelradiation.blogspot.com. She feels that we must educate the young as to the real issues of the day - economics, clean energy, a drug free lifestyle, friendship and concern for the environment. We must plan for seven generations in the future. She unconditionally supports impeachment and a war crimes tribunal of the current DC administration - including CONgress.
I post again some real legal scholarship and no one comments. Not you either, Rob - or anyone in the "antiwar community". IS everyone merely codependent on a sick, corrupt system that they cannot see the handwriting on the wall? Blackwater will be OUR cities soon, shooting to kill with legal impunity.
Trust me on this. The natural disasters are about to hit, FEMA will be in the control seat saying to Blackwater - same as it did in NOLA - saying "Bring it on! Disarm the angry!"
We must return to the RULE OF LAW. This idea should interest you all IF you are true progressives - But shake me, bake me if I am wrong about that.
No one hits the digg or reddit button. At least this item is now in my "author's page and a very few access it.
Are people so afraid to look TRUTH in the eye and accept that the US is a torturing nation, has hired killers accountable to NO ONE and continues to run black sites and detentnion facilities covering a vast archipelago?
I posted this is respone to the UN report on Detainee Abuse in Gunatanamo.
Because obviously MURKANS and CANADIANS need a good wakeup call when it comes to international law. People seem to forget that it even exists while the phoney elecition news drones on and on and the antiwar movement continues to tolerate NANCY PELOSI and JOHN CONYERS who vote tax dollars to continue these abhorrant realities.
If you are paying attention, you know that a new contract has been drawn up for Blackwater - extending their services for another year !
No, I obviously did NOT write this piece, but it was written to give you information so that you can go out and confront OBAMA, HiLIARY and John McInsane with these troublesome questions having some law knowledge under your belt.
Two of these so-called candidates are supposedly lawyers on the side of We the People! They know the drill? Why are they paying to fund a rogue entity already known for murder and rape? Have you, the reader, read some of the Other Awful Things that Blackwater gets up to?
Have you called for the resignation of Condeleeeeeeeeeeza Rice now that her rold in TORTURE is known?
Did you demand her resignation when she looked the other way when Blackwater murdered?
Do you sometimes realize that when we post about war atrocities these are not nouns but VERBS ?? People are being brutally murdered in YOUR name.
The US prestige has never been these low around the world.
The plan, my dear friends, is to get out of Irak, move all detention facilites to Afghanistan, replace troops needed at home with expensive mercenaries under State Department controls .. outside the watchful eyes of OVERSIGHT.
Nothing is going to CHANGE. Those who know international law and care about human rights, will still be shaking their heads in disbelief at what is transpiring.
Do you really have to wait until it happens to YOU to actually speak out?
That seems to be the soul sickness afflicting America and Canada.
And although no one pays or gives me one red cent and certainly no one is clamoring to my door asking me to speak out against these outrages, I will bang awy, bang away, day after day. Some months I am so poor I cannot afford coffee for the entirety of a month; yet BLACKWATER murderers make enough money and have legal immunity and drink Coffee on the Via Veneto any time they like. They so enjoy visiting the pictures in the Cistine Chapel.
I can only walk in my own truth and hope others walk in theirs.
Today, I am right sick thinking about the widows and orphans that Blackwater has created. I am sick of thinking about what they have done to their own women employess (and in the name of Christ! while they wre at it.) I don't fear what Blackwater might do to the citizens of PERSIA, as many of you do . I worry about the innocent Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the US and Canada though - places that Blackwater is going to be send to NEXT to stabilize populations.
TRUST ME, the THEOCRATS at Blackwater are not your friends. Your churches and synagogues should be speaking out against them until they are drummed out of existence. Ah, but perhaps your minister tooka $2,000 check (was supposed to be $1600 - but the mistake was used to net your ethical minister another $400) but has signed on to report you if you should get angry when Blackwater comes to town. Who is compromised? Who actuallly siits down and comes up with these diabolic plans on your dime anyways>
ERic Prince got a million dollar deal to write a book; I don't get five cents from anyone. What does that tell you about American VALUES?
Seen any rich Blackwater retirees with Porsches parked in your neighborhood? Have you asked him what his children think about what he did during the war, daddy?
Want to see Guantanomo Bay close due to public pressure rather than having Blackwater guards see them get transferred on airplanes to Afghanistan? Want them held accountable in YOUR neighborhood?
The time to think on these things is NOW.
The great Beast, the US global military/industrial comlex is sick, sick, sick and Blackwater the sore throat of a diseased system that is slowly causing all to die of a form of social pnuemonia.
Many forums that I go to and post on threads - they are not even going to touch this item with a barge pole, same as bloody usual. Someone must keep speaking up for the innocent though, at all times.
I nver forget . never should you.
by
ladybroadoak (38 articles, 20 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 390 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 2:47:26 AM
Father: Finish up your cereal honey, it's time for school soon, and don't forget your book report honey.
Girl: Daddy, my friend Linda says her dad works as a truck driver, and he spends all day bringing things to other people with his truck. What do you do for a living Daddy?
Father: Daddy works for Blackwater honey - I get paid by taxpayers money to murder people, now finish up your breakfast dear - Daddy's got to get to work.
_________________________________
Dear ladybroadoak,
I feel such revulsion at the mere mention of "Blackwater", or "DHS", or any other construction of this sick, twisted society. To think that we all sit around and listen as they move in and train law enforcement agencies and set up shop in our own backyards. All the legal equivocations in the world do not ameliorate the truth of our situation in that murderers and torturers are steering the ship.
I am absolutely outraged at what we have permitted our society to become. Anybody else care even a little bit?
by
CasaZaza (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 148 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 11:36:34 AM
I not only posted this on OpEd News, it headlines AMD NOT EVEN ROB who glibly posts away on the election/impeachment will come and make comment! Does anyone reading this have a clue how that FEELS?
I watch what people DO, not what they say.
I posted this to over two dozen digg people - you can see for yourselves how many people bothered to digg it.
Not EVEN THE LAWYERS of the ABA who read OpEd News pay any attention - yet the even ABA called for a special torture prosector.
The COMMODIFIED THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT ENTIRELY.
Lots attack the Orwellian logic of BuZh (not looking at the same emitting from the lips of OBAMA and HiLIARy) - and do not look at the ORWELLIAN logic in themelves.
Today - another day of DESPAIR. Unfortunately, I do not take drugs or drink and thus must FEEL my feelings every day. These are not comfortable feelings to have. Grieving is a horrible thing. Grieving alone is far worse.
I am NOT politically correct, never was, never will be. But I have stood up for human rights for well over 40 years and know the drill by now.
What I see has happened to my generation is excrutiatingly painful to behold. Boomers - what a laugh! They were furious at their parents as their folks got GI loans for their houses, free educations - and all throughout the Vietnam war these products of the Depression shared NOTHING with their children who they allowed to be thoroughly indoctorinated with Cold war BS - and sold the VICTORY CULTURE.
Guess what? The outcome is a generation of materialistic scientists, engineers, health care workers and military/industrial complex profiteers who don't give a rat's ass what happens to anyone but THEM. I pay attention to their despair on threads as they can't hang onto to their retirement packages as the US economy totally tanks due to the military overspending and the market manipulations of Hankie Poo Paulson and his ilk.
I posted about the truth behind August stock meltdown. Nobody read it, alhtough I got a comment that I didn't write like a PROFESSIONAL and that I was too "snarky". Yet the same person will go over to the Salon, ICH, commondreams and let the pundits LIE TO THEIR FACES and clap loudly. Thousands will join them in applauding a host of financial writers who are STILL FRIGGIN LIEING TO THEM. I was warned that the powers that be would create a Second Great Depression - and by stealth take everything one cent on the dollar!! So I have watched, I know the entire drill. The Second Great Depression is upon us, full tilt. Do a google and see how many have "called it". How did they REALLY do it? By supergigantic WAR SPENDING and the creation of electronic transfers - backed up by bad mortgages.
The resulting spiderweb of deceit has NO CHANCE Of being unravelled. The complications in the contracts precludes that. The ruling elite has ensured that the kind of people it would take to do it NEVER GOT EDUCATED TO DO THE JOB !!
Why do I bring this up? Because to pay for American greed, no one seems to think that these 2000+ detainees, who are tortured every day, is a small price to pay for American "prosperity". So what if the rest of the world is enmired in a SEA OF HATRED for the US of A. Hey, we're alright Jack.
No one stops to consider that The Good Lord gave them hands, fingers, mouths, eyes, ears and brains for a reason. The reason does not include watching propagandist TV day and night, driving in their cars to buy genetically modified foods at an oil-companiy owned "convenience store", slap expenisive (and useless ) cosmetics on their faces while not buying their kids decent reading material as that would "cost" too much, barking at their neighbors cuz their grass is too long, usimg their digits to write checks to the IRS to pay fo the most expensive army in human history!!
Yeah, I know - everyone is SO afraid. SO AFRAID. Indoctirinated to never step out of line, to never breathe the TRUTH for fear of retalliation.
But the US of A - the nice white people in it better wake up because the agenda is to TORTURE THEM NEXT in facilites every bit as defiling and bararic as what is going on Guantanamo Bay, Bagran, Diego Garcia, and a host of other black sites all way past the planning stages. Who do people think OWN THE PRISIONS these days? Mahatma Ghandi? Their state governments? Who do they think the guards are? Certified college graduates who take tests to see if they are mentally balanced or punishers? the powers that be already know how to set people up to cover their tracks. It's all designed to look quit innocent and bias free. RIGHT. Excuse me while I choke .. They will pit neighbor against neighbor to LIE out of jealousy to feed their drug habits with the ca$h provided to them by the POLICE STATE.
I raised two genius sons, both remarkable in their native, god given talents. And you know what? They are both too maimed to have a life - totally lost to me, and not because I didn't "do" the work either. This just indicates how deeply the systemic torture culture is endemic, it is tortuous, it is an affront to all of mankind. No one on OpEd News takes seroiusly my comments on the THEOCRAT NEOCONS, but one would hope that they would wake up soon. I know precisely what is occuring in "Gordan Brown's" orwellian police state. I think about the mothers over there (some of whom I might have known) who now stuggle with the same issues I do - just thrown in a junk heap of a moral morass created by MAN.
I could rant for another half hour, but I go to check out the latest GLOBAL news and figure out how angry the US/Canadian populace are and how completely apathetic they remain. They are still "scapegoating" BuZh when reallly, they have no one but THEMSELVES to blame. The magazine covers warned them of the impending doom way back before 2006. And these were POPULAR magazines!!
Brutally frank - I work my tail off 16 hour days, seven days a week in SERVICE, but it appears to me that only the 15 to maybe 24 years olds listen to what I have to say! The new activists are not beginning support any more than I am. When those activists got arrested in Chicago for intererupting the mass while BuZh was speaking his tortuorous baloney, again no one at OpEd News came rushing out to support them. And these were very young kids with MORE BALLS AND BRAINS then their parents. Someone was charged with a FELONY!! Yet no one spoke out on their behalf really.
The role modelling we are seeing for the young is absolutely pathetic, so says me.
And the indifference to this post shows me that my "take" is totally, thoroughly correct.
I think it would be WISE for mr to transform my current state of anger into something constructive -- so I'll write a letter to a Guantanamo Bay detainee and tell him I have not forgotten about him .. and CAN'T ... and will just keep on working on their behalf .. not becauise I was born an honest American, but because I am a human being. I haven't written a diatribe against the cabal and sent it off - I need to do that to show my contempt of the CABAL and all those that support it.
I get so disgusted writing and posting here that sometimes I just give up and stay away. Ditto on ICH, common dreams, and other sites. My material is always morally challenging and THAT'S what people don't like. Why would they support a presidential candidate who refuses to recognize the UN special rapporteurs and the International Criminal Court? I ask you.
Shove some more facts and figures at them, man they just JUMP, eh? PUt it on an excel spreedsheet or on power point and then it gains LIFE !!
The perversion is not lost on me.
Prophets like Archbishop Spong and Carolyn Myss are warning of the very same dangers that I am. Rabbi Lerner speaks about it. I say it and have "no credential" but I am a "prophet" - I had a letter signed by the catholic church written in 1987 saying it, too. But people don't want to hear my warnings even today.
If you don't work for human rights first, don't expect them for yourself when the "time" comes, the support will not be there. THEY (as I write about THEM) have ensured that everyone will stay divided. Just wait til you see the fracas that occurs when the NATURAL DISASTER hits ! The new Katrina Mach II, slated for SOON.
These men, innocent men, they are your BROTHERS. They stay alive with a mantra passed among them "SALEEM" which they say in front of their tormetors.
And we, We the People, should all be highly aware of the anguish of their wives, children, parents, associates ..
Don't buy a copy of Eric Prince's book out of curiousity, send a donation to www.freedetainees. org instead. Linda has yet to receive ONE RED CENT from anyone. DISGUSTING. I can't even afford printer ink cartridges, for heaven's sake. Yet we crank out info all day long despite our circumstances.
The least people could do is READ THE INFORMATION we consistently provide, eh?
Guess not. The torture culture is winning as yet. Maybe that will change when it starts happening to white people that neoliberals know about personally. I was tortured, my husband was rendered I faced a kangaroo court up here in Canada. I am disappeared for all intents and purposes. And still - no one is LISTENING. I am damaged for life, can't socially interact anymore, just like any detainee. Alot of people are still supporting those with POWER as they don't want to look at Israeli's torturous genocidal policies YET. When the Palestinians show up for Israeli's 60th birthday part with UN flags on their suitcases insisting on their RIGHT OF RETURN, maybe things will CHANGE. Maybe some will come to question the US/CANADA/UK/Australian/Isreali dominance of the world and its resources.
Maybe.
These men at Guantanamo are my BROTHERS.
John Conyers, Henry Waxman, Stephen Harper, Mark Mansfield, John Yoo, Douglas Feith, and a whole host of others are NOT. They need serious international law inteventions for their addiction to the torture culture.
Time to write one of my real brothers. I know that Nancy Pelosi and Condoleeeeeeeeza Rice and HiLAIRy Clinton are not gonna take my calls or letters .. The only female who listens to me in the US POWER structure is Barbara Lee's office now. She, I consider a SISTER.
I sure wish we could put a legal leash on the adminstrators of the torture culture and I could walk in the sun with Omar Khadr ..
by
ladybroadoak (38 articles, 20 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 390 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 12:54:39 PM
I was born in, and have lived in this country for almost seventy years, now, and it has changed substantialy from what I was first taught that it was. I am currently OUTRAGED and looking for somewhere else to go.
I received an e-mail yesterday, asking me to sign a petition requesting the resignation by C. Rice for her part in the torture discussions/meetings. My reply was not kind.
I am not interested in seeing her resign. Are they kidding? What I am interested in seeing is for her to be ARRESTED, CHARGED, CONVICTED and JAILED for CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY! At the very least, for conspiracy! Here is a being who, along with others, has been said to have been sitting around a table discussing whether they should poke a human being's eye out and/or causing excruciating pain/torture by other means. WHAT KIND OF FACIST STATE HAS THIS COUNTRY BECOME? And nobody cares??????
Why isn't EVERY citizen of this country as OUTRAGED as I am? I no longer believe that what has been done to this country , particulary over the last seven years, can ever be "righted" from within. In my opinion it can only be started from the outside with the "World Court" charging this whole "cabal" with Crimes Against Humanity. I just hope they start soon.
by
Robert P. Philipps (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 9 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 7:12:28 PM
the heat got cranked up just slowly enough that no one cried out.
The internet has been strictly controlled by the mlitary industrial complex since its inception. Such a great pysops tool, eh?
The media consolidation has played a wicked part in keeping TRUTH from everyone.
Throw in a bit Operation Mockingbird.
Plenty of the internet is controlled by scientologists! Elitists to the core at the top.
People are just now adrenilin junkies (much like gamblers) and don't want to step back and look at the Big Picture.
At the same time, the earthchanges are happening rapdily, consciousness IS rising ..
But until people wake up to all the ways that they are manipulated (gaian relgion, certain types of Xian fundamentalISM, racist organiztions, just a whole slew of stuff) - then we just sit and wait and continue to pray like the rest of the world does each day.
I made a Big Mistake coming to Canada in 1994 thinking I could find justice here. I have come to see the error of my ways but now really it is all too late.
I can only keep my higher brain functions working now, which I do. I keep my integrity intact.
But the msilead morality of of AMERICANS has been the greatest disappointment of my life.
When the civil liberties began to be stripped away big time under Bill Clinton, everyone caved. the DemocRATS sold out America way back then.
Iran Contra which didn't finish the job ..
Executive 12919.
the War on Drugs (which was really a war on drug addicts, not the dealers)
It positively sickens me to see pics of Bill Clinton with George HW BuZh!!
that's enough of a rant tonight.
The American people need to PUT A LEASH on thier abusers - and they really must do it now before the BIG FAT MELEE leading up to 2012 takes over and lots more people die.
Gotta open up their hearts and care about EVERYBODY, get planetized.
I get up each day and watch supposed human rights activists trot off to their respective koolaid troughs and sigh ..
by
ladybroadoak (38 articles, 20 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 390 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 8:28:58 PM
A State Department Blackwater employee costs five times as much as a volunteer. So now the US treasury is completely broke, our children enter debt peonage to live with. Some great blessing.
Are you a great proponet of Guantanamo Bay or something?
What do YOU propose as a SOLUTION.
Remember when the terror hits America as blowback that you said what you did. Many people are furious with the lawlessness of Blackwater.
The ruling class is BEST served by an army of mercenaries who are ABOVE THE LAW.
Just great, wonderful reasoning. How positively America at its WORST.
"Hey! Ain't affecting me Jack!" is the great American battlecry and THAT is precisely why it's time for people to grow up and become world citizens.
by
ladybroadoak (38 articles, 20 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 390 comments)
on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 8:17:26 PM
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
