I liked a number of subjects that were taught in CFLRS. Truly interesting. Code of Conducts Rules was one of them. A combination of 11 rules. One of them which caught my attention in the class was Rule #6. This is what the rule states:
Treat all of the prisoners of war and detainees humanly in accordance with the standard set by the Third Geneva Convention; any abuse, including torture is prohibited.
The point here is the difference between POW and detainee. The POW, when is captured, of course, is the individual who is in the uniform of enemy while a detainee is someone such as a Vietcong or a Taliban who engages in battle, ambush or any other harmful action against the forces in civilian cloths. The rule does not specify how differently they should be treated in other terms such as interrogation, imprisonment and handing them to other authorities, for example international courts or other forces. One case was capturing members of Taliban by CAF members and handing them to Afghan police or other officials. The captured members, of course, were beaten and tortured by the Afghan officials and then the then Prime Minister, Harper and his Defense Minister were questioned by the MPs. I don't know what happened after that but that was not the PMs and the CAF's responsibility to protect Taliban after they were turned over to Afghans! I guess the MPs were just looking for any subject to show their opposition to PM and his party!
(Photo: Canadian soldiers directing a number of Afghans in their traditional dress to detention. Any of them could be either a Taliban fighter or simply a civilian)
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