Gene Green Quotes

While Taliban fighters had an initial claim to protection under the conventions, they lost POW status by failing to obey the standards of conduct for legal combatants: wearing uniforms, a responsible command structure, and obeying the laws of war.

The United States of course wants to follow the highest standards of conduct with regard to enemy combatants who follow the rules of war. It should and does follow the Geneva Conventions scrupulously when fighting the armed forces of other nations that have signed the Geneva Conventions or follow their principles.

It is important to recognize the differences between the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. The treatment of those detained at Abu Ghraib is governed by the Geneva Conventions, which have been signed by both the U.S. and Iraq.

President Bush and his commanders announced early in the conflict that the Conventions applied.

If you shell a military base and happen to kill civilians, you have not committed a war crime; if you deliberately target cities and towns, you have.

Under the Geneva Convention, for example, a POW is required only to provide name, rank, and serial number and cannot receive any benefits for cooperating.

The Geneva Conventions cover everybody: military, civilian, everybody. We created this made-up category of unlawful enemy combatant in an effort to circumvent the conventions. But in fact, the other name for unlawful enemy combatant, in Geneva Convention terms, is either civilian or spy and saboteur. If they are civilians they can be prosecuted.... We should be prosecuting these people and we should be doing it in civilian courts. But to say we don't have to do any of these things because they are not covered by the Geneva Conventions is just a misapplication of the law.

The main problem with applying the Geneva Convention to detainees is that it would interfere with effective interrogation.

The laws of war do not apply only to the suspected criminals of vanquished nations. There is no moral or legal basis for immunizing victorious nations from scrutiny. The laws of war are not a one-way street.

Congress has taken an action now that makes it absolutely improper and illegal to use waterboarding... or any other form of torture by our military and by our other departments and agencies.

I don't need a U.N. report to tell me whether my army... operates according to the international law guidelines.

Not enough countries, not enough armies, not enough armed groups are abiding by the fundamental human values enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.

We need to understand that the Geneva Conventions are not just some historical documents born of another time, created for another purpose.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

I can tell you categorically that any mal-treatment of any detainees by U.S. forces or coalition forces is totally unacceptable - that our orders have and will continue to be that we will treat everyone in our charge with - humanely and with respect.

I believe the only time when we can call for intervention is when there is an ongoing genocide.

I knew that the Hague Convention prohibited the use of poison in war. I didn't know the details of the terms of the Convention, but I did know of that prohibition.

In light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, critics are arguing that abuses of Iraqi prisoners are being produced by a climate of disregard for the laws of war.

If we say the Geneva Convention is obsolete, then what do others who have our soldiers say?

One thing that in my reporting that I found and was amazed to find was that, as far as I could determine, neither high-level White House officials in the Bush administration nor even the top brass at the CIA even knew the history of water boarding when they approved it.

Prisoners, according to the law, who are non-U.S. citizens and are detained outside the U.S. - including in Guantanamo Bay - are denied 'habeas corpus.' They are also denied the right to claim the Geneva Conventions confer certain rights on them.

The concept of war crimes is an American invention.

There is no question that chemical weapons attacks are a heinous abuse of humanity and power. But to assume that military strikes are an effective retribution for the crime committed is wrong.

Military commanders do not want to be tried for war crimes, even if those crimes are committed online.

It has never been the case, that if you capture an enemy combatant in war, you have to give him a Jury trial.