POW = no rights?

Question

I am sorry but if you are a "Prisoner of War", why are the people who caught you to treat you right?
You are a "Prisoner of War", not on holiday...
Whats the point of all this, its a WAR for crying out loud???
I just cant get my head around it, its lets get the other side & kill them, take a few prisoners then are they to take them to the movies, out to dinner?
No they tourture them dont they?
Not that I have been in a camp like that but come on...
Why are we so interested in the rights of the prisoner when its a WAR!
You go to die, if you make it back your one of the lucky ones, or are you?
Hope you get the point to all this.

Answer 1

Actually, I sort of understand your point. The Geneva Convention sets forth rules which includes "humane" treatment of prisoners. The Red Cross is supposed to have "access" to the prisoners to ensure that they are being treated properly. It doesn't make much sense, really. Why are we going to treat those who are captured any better than the ones on the field...the ones being shot at? It's war...real-life...not a game. In war, there are no rules and there shouldn't be for the handling of prisoners.

It's not that I want to see people get hurt; it's not that I want war at all. I personally wish it would all just stop.

Answer 2

Two anectdotes, both about the Second World War:

In 1944, when it was becoming clear to everyone that the western Allies were going to invade France, the Nazis began to conscript young men to bolster the ranks of their army, which had suffered a lot of losses against the Soviets. Some of these young men were sons of veterans of the First World War. Many of these veterans had surrendered to advancing American forces during the collapse of German lines at the end of that war. They remembered the good treatment they had been given; indeed, for many of them, life in the American POW camps was better than life in the German trenches had been. Therefore, when these men were sending their sons off to war, they would usually give advice along the lines of, "Keep your head down, don't shoot unless you have to, and surrender to the first Americans you see."

This illustrates the principle that treating prisioners well will encourage people to surrender. When people are fighting, especially when they don't think they will win the fight, it is better for everyone for them to surrender to the superior force. This will only happen if they are convinced they won't be abused after surrender.

Second anectdote: During the invasion of Normandy, a Canadian division was making a push through German lines. An SS unit launched a counter-offensive, and began to push the Canadians back. During WWI, the Canadians and the Scots were the two troops that the Germans had learned to fear the most, due to their tenacity and lethality. Thus, when the SS captured Canadian units, they would usually execute them all and then publicize the fact, in an effort to demoralize the rest of the Canadians. Instead, this had the opposite effect, and the Canadians, outraged at the murder of their compatriots, redoubled their effors, repulsed he German counter-offensive, and extended the same courtesy to captured SS units that the SS had extended to the Canadians.

This illustrates the principle that abusing prisioners only strengthens the will of the enemy to resist and will encourage them to abuse any prisioners they might take. Where no mercy is expected, none is given.

Therefore, the purpose of decent treatment of prisioners, from a military perspective, is to encourage people to surrender instead of attempting last stands, and also to encourage the opposing side to not abuse any prisoners it takes.

This is not to mention the fact that captured soldiers have inalienable human rights.

Now, since you're clearly thinking of the current war in Iraq, although you don't say so, let me respond to an objection you might make. The insurgents and the terrorists, capturing Coalition soldiers, don't take care of them at all. They usually execute them for propaganda purposes. So the argument that the Coalition abusing prisioners will encourage the enemy to abuse their prisioners is flawed, since they clearly have no interest in not abusing their prisioners, and will do so regardless of how the Coalition treats prisioners. That's fair enough.

However, by abusing prisioners, the Coalition loses moral legitimacy, and begins to appear to be no better than the people it is fighting. This is very dangerous, as the war in Iraq was and still is justified by the argument that the secular democracy that the Coalition is bringing is better than the dictatorship of Hussein or the theocracy of Al Qaeda. Therefore, the Coalition must exhibit the virtues of liberal democracy. By mistreating prisioners, the Coalition makes it seem as if those virtues are just a facade for brutal imperialism, and thus makes it impossible to win the war in any meaningful sense.

Answer 3

I do get your point, not expressed well. We should not treat prisoners of war better than our poor or our prisoners for crimes. The Geneva Convention said humane treatment, not air conditioning, TV, special foods, books of choice & etc.
Al queda has sawed off heads of our prisoners & we freak out over pictures taken to embarrass them. While wrong not life threatening. I wish everyone would treat prisoners like they are family but go to your local prisons & ask to see body cavity searches, watch them pick up trash in 90 degree heat & 24 hr solitary confinement. We let terrorist talk to each other & wonder why groups of them go on hunger strikes - do not let them talk to each other.

Bleeding hearts call our soldiers murderers & their prisoners abused innocents. What has happened to patriotism?

Answer 4

The last time the US met another country on the battle field and our POW's were treated well...

Anybody...

Anybody....

Anybody...

Germany, WWII. Before the Geneva Convention took effect in 1950.

No one since has treated our POWs with the respect that is supposed to be given, even other signatory countries.

Mistreatment of POWs is not right, but it happens, and to think it does not is just silly.

Embarrassment is not mistreatment or torture, chopping a head off is.

Answer 5

The whole idea is suppose to be that both sides are SUPPOSE to treat their prisoner humanly, Wouldn't you like to think that if your son daughter mother or father were a pow they were getting treated decently?

Answer 6

I understand what you are saying... I do not so much have a problem with POW's having rights, for me its mostly our lack of ability to torture for necessary information...you think that the al'quada scum bags are following the geneva convention?? because i know they werent when they beheaded american citizens and soldiers...

Answer 7

If your father, son, brother, sister, mother, or friend was a POW, wouldn't you want to know that they were being treated with at least a certain degree of human decency???

AND I agree with lc_firefighter....

Answer 8

Because we don't want to decend to their level. No ,I don't get the point because we would be Nazis if we didn't treat them humanely. We're humans ,not animals, and people, especially Bush and his gang of political cretins, should remember that.

Answer 9

yea i got the point of all that, you are an IDIOT