WHEN? THIS WEEKEND IN LISBON, PORTUGAL
Guilty of Murder
Dear Editor,
If it is true, as has been reported, that over 60,000 civilians, innocent
of even resisting the invasion of their country, have been captured and
held in Afghanistan and Iraq, then those who have died in captivity were,
in fact, murdered.
There is a good reason why the civilized world has agreed, via the Geneva
Conventions, on what constitutes the proper care and treatment of people
caught up in war. It's to prevent what has happened in this instance, the
imposition of a fully mechanized military on a civilian population of many
millions whithout first making detailed plans to provide for the health,
safety and welfare of the population; BEFORE any action against their
government is taken.
The failure to prepare and carry out such plans is not a mistake. 60,000
captives, some of them children who were held as ransom to extort
information from their families, are not a mistake. They are the result of
willfull, criminal negligence and, as in every instance where a death
occcurs during the commission of a crime, the people who died are victims
of murder. The people who organized and ordered the action are as guilty as
if they had done the deed with their own hands.
The only question remaining is who will bring these people to justice. It
is unlikely that the International Criminal Tribunal on Iraq, meeting this
weekend in Lisbon will have any more success than the Tribunal on
Afghanistan, but at least the world community is placing on the record the
judgement that the destruction of Iraq is wrong.