wikistan

I have a question? Everything i have heard the FARC was expecting a humanitating group. Does that mean the red cross is working with a terroist orginization?

Unsubstantiated hearsay. CNN ran this as their top story, seriously undermining their own journalistic integrity. Posting pictures that they themselves say came from a source that demanded money. CNN refused payment but was able to obtain fuzzy photos that DO possibly show the International Geneva symbol (bibs worn on certain personnel). However, context (which in THIS case in inherently paramount) cannot be established. Who was wearing the bib. At what time of the operation was the person wearing the bib. So many questions for this “source of information”. And with the introduction of payment for story, its authenticy is tainted.

Buried halfway down in CNN’s story is the only true first-person account to establish context. Why the quote is buried raises more questions about CNN’s motive (sensationalism vs journalism).

The witness is quoted “”After all these years of guerrilla war, we have become experts in identifying who is before us,” she answered. “That’s why I said it was very strange to me. I said, ‘Well, what is this? A helicopter, a white helicopter. Red Cross? No. France? No.’ There was no flag. There was nothing; there was no sign anywhere.”

The witness is former Colombian Presidential Candidate Ingrid Betancourt. The only on-record witness in this particular CNN article to refute any claims that International Red Cross symbols were used at the point of extraction.

Apparently, this source account is not good enough to establish legitimacy for what is otherwise a courageous and commendable rescue attempt.

Obviously any rational human being (not to mention any “humane” being) will scoff at this attorney’s position. And even if justified by ink now dry, written in a time immediately following direct conflict between superpowers, the articles of the Geneva Convention do not protect terrorist groups any more than they protect rapists, murderers, or white-collar criminals.

Terrorists are criminals, not valid soldiers of war. To categorize them as equal in any manner demeans true soldiers while emboldening monsters.

So on that note, maybe it’s good that this came up. Our own Supreme Court seems bent upon extending Constitutional rights to foreign terrorists. Maybe it’s time someone actually went through the international process of “splitting hairs” in excluding terrorists from the dictates of the Geneva Conventions.