US POW's on TV.

Iraqi officials have stated that US POW's will be shown on TV soon.

poor guys - that's going to be pretty disturbing viewing. Wonder if they're being kept company by the missing members of the ITV crew?

Watching the SKY news this morning and the US and UK military have denied that any planes and tanks have been destroyed and they deny any soldiers are missing. The media are speculating that it may be special forces who have been captured.

there is one missing RAF Tornado, shot down in 'friendly fire'. They haven't been able to trace the wreckage or the crew as yet

question, have people actually considered the thought that perhaps the Iraqi's are putting up a fight, and that it was actually shot down by enemy forces? god this war just makes me more confused.

watching the war on the TV its really very obvious that these guys are putting up a good fight in places. Seems to me though that the Americans are still better at killing their allies than the people they are fighting.

British killed by Iraqis 0

British killed by USA 2

just watching the major news outlets, while the Iraqi's in Baghdad are searching for two pilots that have ejected over the city. They have said they were shot down, but I doubt a pilot is going to just eject over the enemy's city.

He may have had no option to but eject over Baghdad.

WTF, now it was shot down over the city? I must say BBC is crap. I would never trust anything on that channel. When others get to the point the moment news starts, BBC bores you with never ending MP speaches

Nasiriyah - Apparently it's possible that soldiers may have been captured in the fighting. 50 US casualties also reported...

seems to be conflicting reports on the news services whether any pilots have been shot down and captured over Baghdad. Watching on the TV there seemed to be plenty going on around the river but one reporter has stated that his team had been watching since the incident started and had seen nothing come down and also that no one had been pulled from the river,

looks like it will be somewhile before we know the truth about casualties and Pows

I'm hearing around 10 casualties near Nasiriyah, and fewer than 10 soldiers have been captured. I hope they don't drag these poor men through the streets like they did in Desert Storm; hopefully we will be able to rescue them and keep them safe.

Aljazeera (through various new services) currently showing alleged POWs. One looks to be in good health and the other seems to be in some distress. Sorry there were apparantly more than this. Five alive and four dead who were shown, only going on what the news services are saying but it seems that the parading of the prisoners like this is against the terms of the geneva convention.

[Edited on 23-3-2003 by cassini]

According to Mr Rumsfield, showing pictures of these prisoners being asked questions by the media is against the Geneva conventions. But weren't we showing footage of Iraqi POW's yesterday?

Does Mr Rumsfield have a brain inside his thick skull?

Below is a link to The Geneva Convention as it concerns P.O.W's.
The question is do American troops deserve protection under the articles of the convention when the US Government have not allowed P.O.W's in this and other conflicts the same protection.Particularly the situation in Guantanimo Bay also the scenes we have been seeing on the TV may itself be a contravention as P.O.W's should not be held up to Public humiliation.Putting them on TV kneeling with their hands above their heads must count as humiliation.

From the Geneva Convention.

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees

193.194.138.190...

Yet again America ignoring these conventions has left their own troops without protection.So don't cry foul when it rebounds after all with no UN resolution are these US Prisoners Lawful or Unlawful Combatants.

One rule for us, another for you.

Quite agree John the treatment of those people in Guantanimo Bay certainly negates the US right to lecture on the proper treatment of prisoners. May be it was a chance missed by the Iraqi regime to show they will treat Pows with the respect that america has n`t.

"But weren't we showing footage of Iraqi POW's yesterday?"

Yep, the news services were showing them and they have been doing the same today. A fundamental difference may be that these people were shown surrendering, were n`t interviewed and were basically just left alone.

I did note however that some of the UK papers had pictures of Iraqi Pows faces shaded out who had the previous day been in full view on Telly

www.washingtonpost.com...


The Associated Press
Sunday, March 23, 2003; 11:12 AM

The Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera aired footage from Iraqi television Sunday of interviews with what the station identified as captured American prisoners, and also showed bodies in uniform in an Iraqi morgue that it said were Americans.






[Edited on 23-3-2003 by William]

A Woman?

Is it normal for women in the US Army to serve on the front line?

Sounds like these may have been maintenance-type troops. Engineers and such-like.

The policy of "containing" cities is very risky in this way. We put engineers in around cities which are still the front-line effectively. This war is not going in the way that the US/UK were hoping.

A reporter on Fox news said that when a US military official had reviewed the video of the POW's which also showed 4 or 5 bodies in a morgue which appeared to have been executed - they had been shot in the head.