Contributed by: filbert Monday, May 23 2005 @ 06:46 AM CST
From a Wall Street Journal editorial[*1] (registration required):
According to a Defense Department source citing internal Pentagon documents, the ICRC team leader told U.S. authorities at Camp Bucca: “You people are no better than and no different than the Nazi concentration camp guards.” She was upset about not being granted immediate access shortly after a prison riot, when U.S. commanders may have been thinking of her own safety, among other considerations.. . . We are trying to understand how a representative of an organization pledged to neutrality and the honest investigation of detainee practices could compare American soldiers to the Nazi SS. And considering the timing and content of several ICRC confidentiality breaches concerning the U.S. war on terror, it’s fair to ask if similar views aren’t held by a substantial number in the organization.
You know, not everyone who is detained by the U.S. is an innocent. Those who choose to operate outside international law and fundamental (i.e. Western) notions of human decency, like Muslim terrorists and their collaborators do, should not be allowed to expect protection by that law. They are not “insurgents,” “freedom-fighters,” “rebels,” or “opposition forces.” They are criminals, brigands, bandits, outlaws, crooks, thugs, fanatics, gangsters, marauders, pirates, punks. Terrorists.
The ICRC fatally damages their credibility by holding that “illegal combatants” are equivalent to, and have rights equal to, lawful prisoners of war.
Maybe the ICRC (not to be confused with the American Red Cross) is confused by the vaguely similar helmets of the Third Reich and the U.S. Military. They certainly have never heard of Godwin’s Law[*2] . Or possibly, Reductio ad Hitlerum[*3] is more appropriate here.