Sorry if this was covered - but my impression, so far, gathered through the press, was that a category of "illegal combatants" did exist in the 3rd 1980 Geneva convention as a kind of footnote that covered un-uniformed partisans and such. And I've repeatedly seen it was repeatedly that the Bush legal position, while aggressive, is "very well-lawyered." But in today's FT about Rumsfield refusing to back down, I see a paragraph that seems to flatly deny any validity to their position at all:
<quote>
Mr Bush and administraiton officials decided earlier this month to refer to detainees as "illegal combatants," a term which does not exist in the Geneva Convention or other international treaties on war.
<unquote>
What happened, somebody finally read 'em all through from cover to cover so they could say it with assurance?
The short form of that paragraph is: Bush administration refuses to obey Geneva convention.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com