Red Cross aids Taliban

They have. It’s called the Red Crescent. http://www.ifrc.org/

DefenderofIslam - wrong. http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/emblem-history

@Zulu,

Thanks for the link, that was interesting.

Even then, more than 100 years ago, muslims insisted on the Red Crescent because their soldiers might be "offended" by the Red Cross.

If it offends them so much, don't treat them. Let them rot.

Very good point, Tom.

This story is yet another reason why I do not donate ANYTHING to the Red Cross. Not my money, not my blood, nor my time. There are other, much more worthy organizations that make better use of those commodaties.

No, you're pathetic.

You don't aid mass-murderers. You don't aid men who blow up girls' schools. You don't aid men who are backward Barbarians who treat girls and women as less than camel dung. You don't aid 21st century Neanderthals who throw acid on women and never receive any consequences. You don't aid men who sell their pre-pubescent daughters to old men to "marry." You don't aid chest-beating pathetic males who force women to "cover" themselves, with only a mesh screen for vision. You don't aid evil men who deny girls and women an education and earning their own money. You don't aid evil Muslim males who cut off peoples' heads. In short - you don't aid evil.

Yeah, they're Dhimmis, and there's nothing "paranoid" about saying that. You don't aid the Taliban. That's such a no-brainer that your comment speaks volumes about your intelligence level.

Gravenimage

take lots of notes, convey to Ayaan Hirsi Ali lots of love from all her admirers (of which I am one, I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'Infidel'), and send Mr Spencer and Marisol a full report of the occasion.

Be sure to keep an eye open for any attempted disruption by Muslims.

I'm with you on this one.

From the ICRC mission: "The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence and to provide them with assistance."

Under their principle of reciprocity, if they offer assistance to one side in a conflict, they must offer to all sides.

"They [Taliban] have no value as human beings and the world would be better off if they were all dead."

The always-honest and correct Susanp. Exactly, no doubt about it.

Kim maybe should go outside for some air before you post. That way you won't come across as a nasty bitter individual.

The Taliban are all the things you have described them as. I would love to see them eradicated as should all reasonable people. But the ICRC as explained by a poster above help all sides in a conflict. If a Talib is lying bleeding to death should he be helped by the ICRC? He is a human being and how ever repugnant his views may be (I say may as some of them are simple farm boys who are bribed to fight) he should be helped. By helping enemies in distress we show that as a civilization we are better than they are.

Ministering to a fallen Taliban by Red Cross personnel is one thing, but actually providing the Taliban training is an entirely different matter. The former would be a form of humanitarianism, even though the Taliban are barbarians. The latter is indicative of a moral equivalency so awful (and stupid) that it should stink in the nostrils of all those who can discern between good and evil. Besides, you should know that the Red Cross does not take an impartial approach between Israelis and Arab Muslims, allowing for the Red Crescent but not accepting the Israeli version of the IRC.

"I'm not so sure members of the Taliban are 'humans'. They have no human characteristics beyond appearance and are murderous, cruel, bestial savages, a scourge on humanity. They are brain-rotted zombies that ride around the Afghanistan wasteland in Japanese pickup trucks wearing turbans and holding machine guns. When they're not torturing their fellow citizens, trying to kill Americans, or executing women in abandoned soccer stadiums, they are throwing acid in the faces of schoolgirls, spraying poisons in girls' schools and/or burning them down, or raping their multiple wives to proliferate their evil spawn. In between these wholesome activities, they grovel to their demonic deity and derive inspiration from their wicked mullahs. They have no value as human beings and the world would be better off if they were all dead."

Brava SusanP. You are right.

Hey "clan" - why don't you go and join the evil Taliban, you creep? That's your speed, you nasty bitter individual. Good Riddance.

No, you're pathetic and paranoid.

Get out of our country and go join the Taliban, you mass-murderer-sympathizer. Go aid and abet the evil Taliban, you evil creep.

Three posts in a row!?!? Get a life.

I am in agreement with you in so far as medically helping a wounded Taliban whom the Red Cross (or American medics) have taken prisoner. But see my 9:57 A.M. post to Ipso Facto for a distinction which I think keenly important.

I don´t see any problem in training the Taliban in medical procedures so they can reduce suffering and save more lives - also innocent lives - themselves.

Actually the neutrality of Red Cross in Afghanistan put the organisation in a unique position to critizise the barbaric way the Taliban fight:

"KABUL (March 06, 2010) — The Red Cross Saturday condemned the use of booby trap bombs by the Taliban in an area of southern Afghanistan that has been so heavily mined people are afraid to leave their homes.

The bombs -- or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) -- are also preventing refugees from returning to the area of Helmand province where US Marines have led 15,000 troops in an assault against the Taliban, it said.

In an unusually strong statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the use of IEDs -- the main weapon in the Taliban arsenal -- was "completely unacceptable."

The Marjah farming area has been so heavily mined with IEDs that civilians were largely confined indoors and the sick and injured could not be evacuated for help, it said.
People who fled the area before and during the assault, launched on February 13, feared returning to villages where commanders and residents have said the bombs are planted in fields, hanging from trees and even embedded in the walls of houses.

"Improvised mines and other explosive devices are posing a deadly threat to civilians in Marjah," Reto Stocker, head of the ICRC in Kabul, was quoted in a statement as saying.
"They make it almost impossible for people to venture out or to evacuate the sick and wounded, who therefore receive little or no medical care," he said.

The use of mines, and the lack of any measures to protect civilians "runs counter to the most basic principles of international humanitarian law," the statement said.
"Any use of these weapons, which are prohibited in the country under the Mine Ban Convention just as they are in 155 other countries, is completely unacceptable."
The Red Cross rarely employs such powerful language, preferring to raise such issues confidentially with all parties to the conflict, in hopes they will adhere to accepted guidelines for treatment of civilians and war wounded.

The Geneva-based organisation is one of the few that maintains a dialogue with the leadership of the Taliban, which is waging a brutal war against the foreign troops in Afghanistan supporting President Hamid Karzai's government.
The condemnation of the use of IEDs implies extreme frustration with the use of weaponry that by definition is indiscriminate in its targeting.

The Taliban is the only party in the conflict to use IEDs, said Bijan Farnoudi, the ICRC's spokesman in Kabul, adding: "The improvised mines in Marjah have been left behind in huge numbers by the Taliban."

A UN report released earlier this year said most civilian casualties in the Afghan war -- now in its ninth year since the overthrow of the Taliban's 1996-2001 regime -- are caused by Taliban attacks, mostly using IEDs and suicide bombers.

Operation Mushtarak ("Together" in Dari) is slowly winding down as resistance wanes from the Taliban, who for years controlled the area along with drug traffickers, NATO and Afghan commanders said this week.

But Afghanistan's defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said IEDs are the main challenge facing troops yet to bring the area under complete control, and for civilians wanting to go home.

The UN said this week that 27,700 people left Marjah and Nad Ali, target areas of Mushtarak, which aimed to clear the way for the Afghan government to re-establish sovereignty, security and civil services.

By March 2, only 645 families, or about 4,500 people, had returned, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said.

"The conditions for return are not ideal as armed clashes are reputed to continue in a number of villages and IEDs are still present," UNOCHA said.

It said despite mine clearance efforts, IEDs were still being placed along the roads leading out of Marjah, which along with Taliban checkpoints were restricting movement of people and goods, leading to food shortages.
The ICRC's Stocker said little food was reaching Marjah as few commercial vehicles were able to enter.

"Sooner or later, residents and displaced persons will have no choice but to move about, if only to find food and water," he said.

"Sadly, there will almost certainly be casualties, as improvised mines and unexploded homemade bombs do not differentiate between a military vehicle and a boy on a bicycle."

Ipso, you wrote:

"I seems to me that the negative attitude towards Red Cross shown here by the commentators in principle is similar to the attempt by the Nazis to obstruct the organizations humanitarian work during WWII."

That's baloney. Many people have been embittered by the lack of neutrality shown by the ICRC, as mentioned in several posts above. In fact, in your attempt to cite the exceptional acts of humanitarians you yourself cite some very disparaging facts.

Many people resent the fact that the ICRC criticizes democracies much more than dictators who obey no public sentiment. Many people resent the fact that, even today, this leads to the enabling of human rights violations that make Guantanamo prison look like a health spa. Many people also resent the unfortunate policies that many national societies have or have had regarding repayment of aid to individuals, and this gets conflated with the ICRC failings.

I have nothing against the Taliban receiving medical aid from the ICRC, as did Japan and the USSR in the Second World War. But like then there have to be limits, because the Taliban will not follow the Conventions to which Afghanistan decades ago acceded; if the ICRC were to treat the Taliban and its opponents as equals they then undermine the legal basis for their own participation. Wellington drew a good a line as any, and his reasons were forceful and correct.

I for one believe this world needs the ICRC. We should not be silent or excusing when we are faced with its failings.

You don't see any problem in instructing the Taliban in medical procedures so they can save more lives? Really, you can't be this thick, can you?

Let's try a thought experiment here. Suppose, for argument's sake, there was an organization that held that the propagation of the human species was not acceptable, for whatever stupid reasons. Therefore, it had, as its chief purpose, to kill any child on site before the youngsters could procreate. Would you still aver that the Red Cross should instruct this organization as to how to treat medical wounds of all sorts? And how, pray tell, are the Taliban really any better this this fictional body of sadistic and confused losers?

I'm not talking here about dealing with members of the despicable Taliban organization who are wounded while carrying our their foul deeds. I've already addressed that. No, I am addressing, once again, apparently to your complete obliviousness of right and wrong in the larger world, the ethics of teaching any heinous organization or ideology how to medically treat with individuals who are wounded. Your inability to see that barbaric entities SHOULD NOT be dealt with approximately the same way as are those entities of all sorts which are rooted in civilizational norms is evidence, ipso facto (hope you appreciate this one), that moronic moral relativism has corrupted your brain. You know, one should not be so open minded that one's brains fall out. Ponder here, for instructional purposes, what Winston Churchill would think of your assessments. Your PC/MCness is showing most glaringly, not that you would get this.

P.S. I don't give a goddamn that the Red Cross has inveighed against barbaric Taliban techniques. So what? This is not the damn point or, if you think it is, then you are a moral idiot. Clear enough?

lol! I see you can dish it out but can't take it.

As many posts as it takes. Now, go out and get some air, and while you're at it - a life. Good Luck!

*

"You are giving the Taliban waaaay too much credit. They don't give a damn about innocent lives! Come on, are you kidding? Hell will freeze over before the Taliban cares about the innocent. I cannot believe you wrote that. OK, where is Ipso, and what have you done with him?" - champ

Perhaps a pod person has taken over the original?

"Perhaps a pod person has taken over the original?"

lol! ...yeah, and the Taliban aren't human either:

http://halmasonberg.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-movie-poster1.jpg

"The Red Cross (The Red Crescent?) was to be established as the organization neutrally and impartially providing a medical assistance to war victims ON a BATTLE FIELD."

Please tell me where the battlefields are in an all out civil war that divides families and tribes?

Afghanistan is not a trench war like WWI and the Red Cross had to adopt its philosophy accordingly!

Instead of rational arguments I get heated rhetoric and name calling. Leave such tactics to the socialists and magical thinkers. That´s where it belongs.

You are the moral relativist here. Not me and not the Red Cross. What you are proposing is that RC put up Medicare “DEATH-TRIBUNALS” along the lines:

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Taliban or have you ever in any way aided or abetted a terrorist organisation?”

If so the ethical principles we are bound to prevent us from offering you any medical help to relieve your pain and suffering or any assistance that may improve the chances for your survival.

For me as an universal ethical absolutist I don´t mix ethics with politics. The ethical obligation comes before any rights and any politics or political goal. From history we know what happens when we forget the ethical principles for humane warfare and revert to the methods of the enemy for the pure purpose of revenge. We start terrorizing the civil population of the enemy with indiscriminate carpet bombing and for good measure we throw in a couple of nuclear bombs.

That´s moral relativism. That´s the ends justify the means. That´s “My country right or wrong”. My position is that the same standards should be used when judging our actions and the actions of the enemy. A war crime is a war crime whoever commits it.

Red Cross has no political agenda only a humanitarian one: To help those who suffer from the effects of war. RC know who their neighbours are. They are not of a certain race, colour, sex, political or religious persuasion, they are human beings in pain and need period. RC leave the politics to the politicians, the war to the generals, the punishment to the tribunals, but they insist on our unconditional moral obligation to help those who suffer as a result of an armed conflict. This moral capacity is what makes us human and defines what the word humanitarian mean.

Churchill is dead so the question is not what he would think of my position but what I think of his historical and moral blunders.

Don´t believe a word produced by a "brain corrupted by moronic moral relativism". Listen instead to an American conservative politician, author, commentator, syndicated columnist and broadcaster like Pat Buchanan.

Independently of each other Pat and I have arrived at almost the same conclusions on a number of historical events and persons - Churchill included. I respect Churchill but my admiration is not unconditional.

Read Pat Buchanans latest book: “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World” (2008) – and you will in it find political evaluations and a moral position very close to mine:

“Buchanan called the British "area bombing" of German cities in World War II a policy of "barbarism" and quotes Churchill stating that its purpose was literally to terrorize the civilian population of Germany. In particular, Buchanan argues that the bombing of Dresden in 1945 was barbaric, a crime which he states that Churchill personally ordered, quoting Churchill himself and Air Marshall Arthur "Bomber" Harris as evidence.

Buchanan wrote that Churchill was responsible in large part for "Western man's reversion to barbarism" in World War II, and expressed regret that generals of the American Army Air Force like Curtis LeMay in bombing Japan followed the example set by British Air Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris in using "terror bombing" as a method of war against Germany.

He quotes LeMay, "We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo that night of March 9–10 than went up in the vapour of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." Buchanan's conclusion: "We and the British fought for moral ends. We did not always use moral means by any Christian definition."

Endorsing the concept of Western betrayal, Buchanan accuses Churchill and Roosevelt of turning over Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union at the Tehran and Yalta conferences. Citing the Cuban-American lawyer Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, Buchanan calls expulsion of the Germans from Eastern Europe, in which 2 million died, a crime against humanity "of historic dimensions", and contrasts the British prosecution of German leaders at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity whilst Churchill and other British leaders were approving of the expulsion of the ethnic German population from Eastern Europe.

Buchanan also writes that the United States should have remained non-interventionist with respect to the events of World War II. However, because the United States insisted the United Kingdom sever its alliance with Japan in 1921, this had the ultimate effect of leading to Japan to align itself with the Axis. Ultimately this led to the Japanese alliance with Germany and its attack on Pearl Harbor. Buchanan blames Churchill for insisting that the British Cabinet in 1921 give in to American pressure to end the alliance with Japan.”

You are a moral relativist of the first order. Because you are a relativist you don't recognize it and because you are a one dimensional patriot you don´t see it. It must have been your self-righteous hypocritical type Jesus had in mind when he said:

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.”

Have a nice day! ;-)

No need for a long reply. If you think Pat Buchanan, who is not a conservative but rather a reactionary (huge difference), and one who has implicitly asserted that Churchill is more culpable than Hitler for WWII, is worthy of reference, then any response by me will fall on deaf ears. You (and Pat) are the moral equivalizers par excellence. Accusing me of such is nothing but projection.

Really, your invoking Pat Buchanan says it all. His book on WWII was deservedly trashed by virtually every major historian, be they liberal, moderate or conservative (Christopher Hitchins' analysis was particularly devastating). Buchanan actually thinks that the Poles not dealing "rationally" over the issue of Danzig and the Polish Corridor was justified reason enough for Hitler to invade Poland and if only he had gotten this from the Poles no war would have ensued. This assessment borders on the insane.

Buchanan is so dense or uninformed that he blithely ignores Hitler's call in Mein Kampf to move Germany to the Urals. Really, do you honestly believe, as Buchanan does, that Churchill is more responsbile for WWII than Hitler? Pathetic if you do. Me the moral equivalizer? Look in the mirror for that.

Stunning to witness first-hand someone like yourself arguing the silly positions that you do. But I'm confronted with the fact that folks like you exist and think the Taliban should be treated on approximately the same level with armed forces which are trying to preserve or establish liberty while their enemy would crush liberty if it had the chance. It is PRECISELY because you are engaging in moral equivalizing, just as Buchanan has, that defeating Islamic supremacism will be all the more difficult.

I don´t know what to say to an opponent whose PC world-view is so ingrained and frozen that he can hardly utter a sentence without twisting or denying the objective facts of the matter. A “self declared damned liar” seems appropriate:

“If you think Pat Buchanan, who is not a conservative but rather a reactionary (huge difference), and one who has implicitly asserted that Churchill is more culpable than Hitler for WWII, is worthy of reference, then any response by me will fall on deaf ears.”

Pat Buchanan never asserted – implicitly, explicitly or otherwise – that Churchill is more culpable than Hitler for WWII. Here is what Pat actually said:

“Buchanan writes, "For that war one man bears full moral responsibility: Hitler." He adds, "But this was not only Hitler's war. It was Chamberlain's war and Churchill's war..."

In Buchanan's view, the "final offer" made by the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to the British Ambassador Sir Nevile Henderson on the night of August 30, 1939 was not a ploy as many historians argued, but instead a genuine German offer to avoid World War II. Likewise, Buchanan argues citing F.H. Hinsley, John Lukacs, and Alan Clark, Hitler's peace offers to Britain in the summer of 1940 were real, and Churchill was wrong to refuse them. Buchanan writes that the Morgenthau Plan of 1944 was a genocidal plan for the destruction of Germany promoted by the vengeful Henry Morgenthau and his deputy the Soviet agent Harry Dexter White as a way of ensuring Soviet domination of Europe, and that Churchill was amoral for accepting it.

Are you in favour of the genocidal Morgenthau Plan or just a plain liar?

But this whole discussion about WWII and Winston Churchill is a side show provoked because you put him on a moral pedestal close to God:

“You know, one should not be so open minded that one's brains fall out. Ponder here, for instructional purposes, what Winston Churchill would think of your assessments.”

Your never answered the relevant moral questions I put forward about the conduct of the war: Is terror-bombing of civilians for the sole purpose of revenge morally justified or not?

Churchill, Roosevelt and Truman had no moral objections using terror against the civilian population of the enemy on a large scale. I do! Terror is always inhumane and amoral no matter who is using it and for what purpose. If you reject this assessment then you are truly a moral relativist.

In all your sidestepping and name-calling your forgot to relate to the logical implication of your position - at the core of our discussion:

“What you are proposing is that RC put up Medicare “DEATH-TRIBUNALS” along the lines:

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Taliban or have you ever in any way aided or abetted a terrorist organisation?”

If so the ethical principles we are bound to prevent us from offering you any medical help to relieve your pain and suffering or any assistance that may improve the chances for your survival.”

Is that they way you want the Red Cross to operate in Afghanistan? Please enlighten the debate!

What Pat Buchanan says explicitly and what he conveys implicitly are two different things on the matter of Churchill and his many roles during WWII. That's why I used the word "implicitly" in a previous post. Even assuming that the Ribbentrop offer was not a ploy a couple of days before Poland was invaded, even Chamberlain by that time, let alone Churchill, knew that the only way to avoid war with Hitler was to cave in to demand after demand of his, in other words to be a subservient nation to Nazi Germany. By the eve of WWII even the Chamberlainites realized that dealing with Hitler diplomatically was no longer an option and yet Buchanan stupidly and foolisly asserts that it was. And so do you.

A very good friend of mine, who is Russian, and who once had respect for Buchanan, told me that he lost all respect for him once he read this book of his on WWII and he went on to say that the man is a fool and need not ever be listened to again. I agree. Moreover, ditto for the peace offer of 1940 which Buchanan again stupidly thinks should have been accepted. Only a fool who was prepared to live in the shadow of Nazi Germany indefinitely would have accepted such an offer. The most overrated individual of the twentieth century, Gandhi, also encouraged Churchill to accept the initiative but the Old Man, whom I don't put "on a pedestal close to God," but for whom I have tremendous admiration, concluded that death was preferable to slavery. Of course, this is lost on Buchanan and you. Perhaps now is a good time to tell you of my favorite state motto. It's New Hampshire's. Maybe you know it: Live Free Or Die. Just so.

Respecting the Morgenthau plan, it involved the permanent non-industrialization of Germany, leaving Germany only an agricultural country. This plan, while not terribly rational or wise, could hardly be called barbaric or genocidal. Churchill saw how unrealistic it was from the start but gave a go-ahead for it because he needed more financial assistance from America at that point. Besides, after two world wars in which German belligerance played the key role, I can see how, though unrealistic, many people would not ever want Germany to have an industrial infrastructure again. Fortunately, this plan was not implemented and can even be called foolish, but hardly genocidal.

As for terror-bombing for the sole purpose of revenge, yes, it is completely wrong, but Churchill, FDR and Truman NEVER bombed solely for the purpose of revenge and anyone who says so is either lying or is ignorant. Churchill (FDR and Truman too) came to the very sad but inevitable conclusion that in order to win the war against the invidious forces of Nazism and Imperial Japan (and in some ways the Japanese were even more barbaric than the Nazis; the Rape of Nanking and the fact that even Nazis wouldn't blow up Red Cross ships but the Japanese would are two examples of such), it could only be done by taking the war to the German and Japanese heartland. Churchill spoke movingly about the profoundly sad necessity of having to kill women and young German children in order to end the evil which was Nazism. As Churchill observed, sometimes civilization has to become almost as barbaric as the barbarian in order to save civilization. Now, you may disagree with this assessment (I don't), but you can no longer aver that Churchill bombed Germany only out of motives of revenge. This is simply not true.

Finally, I have never said that captured, wounded Taliban should not be medically treated (read my posts above for confirmation of this). Even though the Taliban are barbarians, it is still incumbent upon civilized forces to act in a civilized manner whenever possible. But what I do most heartily object to is the initiatvie by the Red Cross to treat both sides in this conflict in Afghanistan without any thought given to whom is right and who is wrong. The Red Cross reveals itself as a moral midget by providing medical training to the Taliban, an organization that denies proper medical aid to women and treats with prisoners in the most barbarous of manners. Allowing a heinous organization to continue longer in its fight because it has been instructed in medical training is evidence of a ethical lapse so great, it is breathtaking to see someone like yourself argue for it. But I guess living in the morally confused world that you do, and which you actually think is sapient, someone like yourself will conclude as you have. Well, that's your problem.

In closing I have one more thing to say and it is this: How the hell you've concluded I'm PC is beyond me. I'm about as un-PC as you can get, but your way of figuring things is so convoluted that it doesn't surprise me you would make this error since you have made so many others.

Short reply now. A longer one later.

"But what I do most heartily object to is the initiatvie by the Red Cross to treat both sides in this conflict in Afghanistan without any thought given to whom is right and who is wrong."

But that is the whole philosophy behind Red Cross. Who is right or who is wrong does not enter the humanitarian equation. Otherwise you have the absurd situation I described as Medicare “DEATH-TRIBUNALS". If Red Cross did not base their help upon a principle of abolute impartiality in conflicts they could not work because one or the other side would be justified in claiming that they were aiding or abetting "the enemy" and consider them enemies in disguise.

There is no room for comprimise here. Is it really that hard to understand?