"DSK" wrote
....., I doubt it will do any good.

Not when your references support my position and impeach yours.

http://reference.allrefer.com/encycl.../prisoner.html

prisoners of war, in international law, persons captured by a belligerent
while fighting in the military. International law includes rules on the
treatment of prisoners of war but extends protection only to combatants.
This excludes civilians who engage in hostilities (by international law they
are war criminals; see war crimes) and forces that do not observe
conventional requirements for combatants (see war, laws of).

war crimes, in international law, violations of the laws of war (see war,
laws of). Those accused have been tried by their own military and civilian
courts, by those of their enemy, and by expressly established international
tribunals.

Those being held at Gitmo are war criminals tried by Afghan military courts.

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including
those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the
conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this
territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps,
including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following
conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and
customs of war.

Those held at Gitmo were not fulfilling these conditions hence they are war
criminals not POWs

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004.../usint8614.htm

Interesting but not applicable to the war criminals held at Gitmo. Moreover,
it simply forbids torture. They are not being tortured.

http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/

Rehash of the above .....

ANd here's a piece of liberal propaganda from that leftist pandering
trash, the Washington Post, which fingers Rummy directly
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...0540-2005Feb28

"The State Department's annual human rights report released yesterday
criticized countries for a range of interrogation practices it labeled as
torture, including sleep deprivation for detainees, confining prisoners in
contorted positions, stripping and blindfolding them and threatening them
with dogs -- methods *similar* to those approved at times by the Bush
administration for use on detainees in U.S. custody.
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved in December 2002 a number of
severe measures, including the stripping of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, and using dogs to frighten them. He later rescinded those tactics and
signed off on a shorter list of "exceptional techniques," including 20-hour
interrogations, face slapping, stripping detainees to create "a feeling of
helplessness and dependence," and using dogs to increase anxiety."

So DoD and DoS disagree. I agree with DoD. YMMV

Why is President Bush insistent on Congress not restricting his "right"
to torture prisoners? Why are they denying that they knew these foreign
gov'ts practiced torture ("I mean, really... nobody told us!")?

I have no idea why Bush does things but my slight aquantance with psychology
suggests he is mad - that like many religious people, he hears "voices" he
attributes to God that tell him to do things. I never heard anyone deny
that these foreign government practiced torture, just that these governments
had promised not to torture the ones we deported to them.