Posts Tagged → Northern Ireland
Not really that extraordinary
The news today that Britain was afterall involved in helping to take two Al-Qaida terrorists out of Iraq and hand them over to the Americans to be interrogated has been greeted with the usual hand-wringing.
Ministers and their officials didn’t know at the time but is this so-called extraordinary rendition really extraordinary at all?
Why on Earth should Pakistani terrorists illegally in Iraq, engaged in military actions against Coalition troops and the population of Iraq, be treated as though they were local civilians?
When people argue that this is a War Crime or a violation of the Geneva Convention they are playing the terrorists’ game for them: accepting that somehow an armed foreign fighter in a theatre of war is somehow actually a civilian.
In Northern Ireland IRA terrorist hunger strikers died to be recognised as prisoners of war. British governments refused to accept that status but almost certainly operated a “shoot to kill” policy towards IRA terrorists at times during the Troubles.
Today, we are supposed to feel bad about Britain for recognising foreign fighters in Iraq as combatants rather than civilians.
These people were in Iraq to kill British and other Coalition forces and terrorise genuine Iraqi civilians. They weren’t there on holiday or pilgrimage. They were captured in theatre and, as I understand it fully within the rules of the Geneva Convention, handed over to our allies and removed from the theatre of war. So what?
The Geneva Convention rightly, seeks to put in place a framework to protect civilians. What a shame that across the World terrorists don’t apply the Convention, instead they deliberately target or use civilians as part of their military campaign.
It is time Britain stopped beating ourselves up for treating foreign fighters like terrorist combatants not friendly civilians.
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