But there is a lot of verbosity, because the signatories wanted to make sure that everyone was singing from the same hymn book (so to speak).

They spelled out exactly what a combatant was and how to identify one. They spelled out which classes of person were to be protected (diplomats, Red Cross, medical personnel, clergy, etc.). They spelled out exactly what kind of treatment any prisoners were to receive, including receiving mail and packages from home, necessary medical care, religious opportunities, diet, and specific working conditions for the enlisted ranks.

They were quite thorough.

You can read Convention One (for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field), Convention Two (the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea), Convention Three (relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War), or Convention Four (relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War), or any of the Three Additional Protocols (links to all three of them are there).

But let’s take a look at the First Convention for a minute. A couple of things need to be made clear at the outset - primarily a few definitions that we will be using.

Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

No matter whether or not the terrorist forces qualify as “soldiers” (a matter we will come to in a moment), they qualify as a “Party to the conflict”. How many times have they deliberately carried out any of those acts “prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons”? It’s almost a “gimme” that any hostages taken by the terrorists are executed in the most horrific manner their eleventh century minds can conceive.

But let’s see what else the Geneva Conventions say about what a soldier is defined as (so as to distinguish between a soldier and a civilian noncombatant), shall we?

Art. 13. The present Convention shall apply to the wounded and sick belonging to the following categories:

(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
(3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a Government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
(4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civil members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany.
(5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions in international law.
(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

Did you catch that? It explicitly spells out specifically which persons are protected as Prisoners of War under these Conventions, and how they were to be identified.

Why take the time to spell out what a soldier is? Two things. One of them was spelled out in Bill Whittle’s masterpiece Sanctuary (Part 2):

Let’s speak to the Perennially Outraged as if they were the fully grown, post-pubescent children they pride themselves on being.

What is the obvious difference between an enemy Prisoner of War, and an Unlawful Combatant? Suppose two of them were standing in a line-up. What one glaringly obvious thing sets them apart?

That’s right! One is wearing a uniform, and the other isn’t.

And why do soldiers wear uniforms?

It certainly is not to protect the soldier. As a matter of fact, a soldier’s uniform is actually a big flashing neon arrow pointing to some kid that says to the enemy, SHOOT ME!

And that’s exactly what a uniform is for. It makes the soldier into a target to be killed.

Now if that’s all there was to it, you might say that the whole uniform thing is not such a groovy idea. BUT! What a uniform also does—the corollary to the whole idea of a uniformed person – is to say that if the individual wearing a uniform is a legitimate target, then the person standing next to him in civilian clothes is not.

By wearing uniforms, soldiers differentiate themselves to the enemy. They assume additional risk in order to protect the civilian population. In other words, by identifying themselves as targets with their uniforms, the fighters provide a Sanctuary to the unarmed civilian population.

The other part is the correlary of that Sanctuary - how to punish the violators. Those would be the ones who are combatants disguised among the protected civilians, in case anyone wasn’t following along…

If they are military personnel trying to escape detection by hiding among civilians, they can be executed as a spy without even the formality of a drumhead court-martial. In fact, that is what happened to this guy, summarily executed for being caught in a warzone out of uniform.

And the reason is because of those Conventions.

One last bit from the First Convention…

Art. 50. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

Okay, so when NOT ONLY are the terrorists and insurgents not a party to the Conventions, and NOT ONLY are they not obeying the Conventions, and NOT ONLY are they deliberately violating them by committing almost every one of the acts that are specifically prohibited against those who are given specific Sanctuary, they are specifically excluded from ever being a part of them because they deliberately blend themselves in with the innocent civilians around them.

From the Fourth Convention…

Art. 34. The taking of hostages is prohibited.

‘Nuff said.

Now that we have spelled out exactly why the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to any of these quasi-military forces claiming to be conducting a jihad against us, I want to explain why they don’t apply to our treatment of them.

The Conventions (and associated Protocols) are a TREATY, with Signatories and everything.

If a group or nation is not a signatory to these Conventions, they will STILL apply so long as that group or nation follows them while in a conflict with a signatory nation. All it takes is that they follow the Conventions.

Terrorists don’t. Thus, the Conventions do not apply, no matter how you want to spin it.

Legally, the United States is under absolutely no obligation to apply the provisions of a treaty to which our opponents are not bound. However, from an ethical standpoint, we do so because of our own personal self-image and the image we have as a nation.

I’ll be the first to admit that we are far from perfect in this regard - there have been offenses against the other side in every war from the fall of Jericho to Abu Ghraib. But we take care to identify and punish those rare individuals who break those rules, when and as they occur.

How do the terrorists handle those violators? They praise them as a lion of holy war and the mass media defends them.

It’s time to start realizing that those who are advocating putting limitations on one side while defending the total lack of any such limitations on the other are not being fair and balanced (to coin a phrase).

Next question would logically be, “Okay, which side are they actually on? Who are they actually cheering for? Which side are they trying to help win?”

But we’re not allowed to question their patriotism, are we?

Windin’ your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day
You’ll drink the night away
And forget about everything
This city desert makes you feel so cold.
It’s got so many people but it’s got no soul
And it’s taken you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything

You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you’re tryin’
You’re tryin’ now
Another year and then you’ll be happy
Just one more year and then you’ll be happy
But you’re cryin’
You’re cryin’ now

Way down the street there’s a light in his place
He opens the door he’s got that look on his face
And he asks you where you’ve been
You tell him who you’ve seen
And you talk about anything

He’s got this dream about buyin’ some land
He’s gonna give up the booze and the one night stands
And then he’ll settle down in some quiet little town
And forget about everything

But you know he’ll always keep movin’
You know he’s never gonna stop movin
Cause he’s rollin’
He’s the rollin’ stone

And when you wake up it’s a new mornin’
The sun is shinin’ it’s a new mornin’
You’re goin’
You’re goin’ on. 

Now, back to my luncheon choice. I decided to splurge a little bit and make myself one of the “guilty pleasure” sandwiches. Not because it’s loaded with calories (all told, probably less than 650 for the whole meal, although that is admittedly somewhat high for such a simple meal), but because it is also considered nutritious, even though I find it VERY delicious.

A scrambled egg sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk. (Ketchup optional.)

Takes about fifteen minutes from “Gee, I wonder what I’ll have” to rinsing everything off again and sitting down to enjoy, but it’s just too good.

Real bachelor cooking, lemmetellya…

It looks as though John Murtha might have taken a page from John Kerry when it comes to overreporting the facts in order to sound more heroic than the actual events would warrant.

Now, “war hero” and “Marine” automatically brings to mind any one of the most vivid images in the public psyche, varying only in minor detals from generation to generation:

- John Wayne in “The Sands Of Iwo Jima” or “Flying Leathernecks”

- Sergeant Vince Carter of “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.”

- Former Drill Instructor R. Lee Ermey from “Full Metal Jacket”

Murtha just doesn’t strike me as anything even remotely like that, and that question struck someone else. So he went looking.

And what did I find?  Did I find a man of vast operational experience with an extensive combat record?

No.

I found a man whom fellow congressman Don Bailey of Pennsylvania, silver star and three bronze stars, calls a liar and a phony.  A man who came to Bailey crying and sobbing, thanking him for saving Murtha from the ethics committee (on Abscam-related charges) at which time he admitted to Bailey that his purple hearts weren’t earned.  A man with a couple of years of active duty and the rest of his 37 year career spent in the Marine Corps Reserve.  A man with one year in Vietnam as a staff intelligence offer.  A man who’s no more been in combat or is a war hero than I am.  Even John Kerry has more combat experience than Jack Murtha.

(Emphasis mine.)

However, just being a braggart is not enough. We have to show that he is a liar, too. Fortunately, he anticipates us…

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on May 12, 2002, reported that “Marine Corps casualty records show that Murtha was injured in ‘hostile’ actions near Danang, Vietnam, on March 22, 1967, and May 7, 1967.

“In the first incident, his right cheek was lacerated, and in the second, he was lacerated above his left eye. Neither injury required evacuation,” the Post-Gazette reported.

But an Oct. 26, 1994, article in the Herald-Standard quoted Murtha as describing two different injuries.

“I was wounded in the arm with shrapnel from a bullet that hit the motor mount of a helicopter. In the other, my knee was banged up and my arm was banged up when a helicopter was shot down from a very few feet,” Murtha told the Herald-Standard.

A June 1, 1967 report in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat quoted a letter that the newspaper indicated was sent by Murtha to his wife that same year. The letter apparently detailed yet another version of how Murtha qualified for one of his Purple Hearts. According to the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, Murtha’s injuries involved his being “struck in the ankle” by a “shot that ricocheted off the helicopter.”

So that’s three different versions of the same story, reporting injury to three different parts of his body.

Why, he shouldn’t bother running for Speaker, he should run for PRESIDENT!!