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Captured US soldier shown on film

Aljazeera has aired videotape showing an American soldier held prisoner by an armed Iraqi group.

A spokesperson for the unidentified Iraqi resistance group said on the tape that the soldier was being "treated according to the Islamic way of treating prisoners of war".

He added that the group had arrested the soldiers in order to swap him with some of its hostages being held by the American occupying forces.

The videotape, received late on Friday, showed the captive dressed in US army uniform and surrounded by armed masked men.

On the tape, the soldier identifies himself as Keith Mathew Maupin...

<font color="#C4C1CA">No-one seems to be bothered how POW's are treated these days, so I hope that they stick to to their statement about treating him well and protecting him from harm.</font>

heh, one might point out some key issues:

1) it is illegal to air public video of prisoners of war on television.

2) there is only one standard of conduct for treatment of prisoners of war: the un, international standard. The Islamic way ~= the islamic extremist way (in this case) and this equates to the fact that they are torturing this soldier. if you are religious, pray for him.

3) The word hostages as a reference to the people being held by the US is a misnomer. The correct term is "Prisoner of War." The term hostage is being used as a propaganda red herring to serve a specific purpose: anti americanism (the same tactic that cost the victory in vietnam).

Isn't Saddam a prisoner of war? Didn't they air clips of him right after his capture?

No, no, no! You musn't call them Prisoners of War because then you would have to deal with the Geneva Convention. The correct misnomer is "illegal combatants"

LOL -- ROTFL!!! [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] But, I think the correct misnomer is actually "enemy combatant." Maybe we can mix our misnomers without causing any harm -- so long as we don't say the word "POW."

Not to get too much into the argument because there are too many loop holes on either side of the argument, but realistically when you put aside all the BS there is a difference between the showing of Saddam and the showing of this and previous soldiers taken prisoner.

Saddam's brief clips, which were shown repeatedly by the media, showed that it was actually him, which was an incredibly important fact to get out, and that he was healthy and being cared for medically. Yes there may have been other motives, but I think the basic video releases showed these aspect and little more.

The soldiers taken prisoner, on the other hand, are always forced to say something against their will. The latest forced to say that he'd come to "break Iraq" and that he'd failed to do so. I'm pretty sure the last thing on that guys mind was breaking Iraq. He was given a demeaning script which he was forced to read. My guess is that if he had chosen not to say what they told him, he wouldn't have looked so healthy on the tape, and yes that is different.

We can argue semantics and acronyms ad nauseum, but the reality is that there is a difference.

I certainly do hope they take care of him as they seemed to promise.

Well, I think that the insurgents think that it is equally important to get out the fact that they have taken a POW and are treating him well. Their breach of the Geneva convention in this respect is no different from the Saddam scenario.

Whether he was demeaned by being forced to read a script or demeaned by showing his mouth open during a PUBLIC medical examination and unwashed and in disarray, the result is the same.

As such, there is NO difference between the two.

They are talking about the numerous people who are taken away from their homes or 'arrested' on the streets for questioning on 'suspicion' of wrongdoing. These people are often held for months on end and denied access to their families and judicial review - there are currently 10,000 being held in this manner.

I think publicly forcing someone to admit guilt or wrong doing under threat of death or violence is quite a bit different than showing someone having a medical exam. Yes, I could have done without seeing the inside of Saddam's mouth, but he wasn't force to use that mouth to admit guilt in any way. In fact, he'll be allowed to use that healthy mouth to proclaim his innocence.

I guess we'll just have to disagree again, but while I can see that both were wrong, I can't understand your thinking there is NO difference.

Well, the provision in the Geneva convention that you must treat prisoners with a certain degree of care seems to be at odds with the prohibition of airing footage of the POWs -- in the modern world, you are well-advised to show evidence that you are doing what the law requires, but the broadcast prohibition makes that hard.