America's current War on Terror is causing a readjustment of centuries of POW policies. Prisoners of war are once again in the news as America and Western Europe grapple with a new, faceless enemy and the rules of war and the torture of POWs are open to reconsideration. Until very recently, there has been astonishingly little written on the subject of prisoners of war. Yet, to understand the present, it is critical to look back over history. To that end, Arnold Krammer examines the fate of war prisoners from Biblical and Medieval times through the halting evolution of international law to the current reshuffling of the rules. The issue of prisoners of war is of more immediate concern now than ever before and an examination of the history of their treatment and current status may well influence foreign policy.
The fate of war prisoners through history has been cruel and haphazard. The lives of captives hung by a thread. Execution, enslavement, torture, or being held for ransom were equally likely. International agreements developed haltingly through the 19th and 20th centuries to culminate in the Geneva Accords of 1929. America's current War on Terror is causing a readjustment of centuries of POW policies. Prisoners of war are once again in the news as America and Western Europe grapple with a new, faceless enemy and the rules of war and the torture of POWs are open to reconsideration. Until very recently, there has been astonishingly little written on the subject of prisoners of war. Yet, to understand the present, it is critical to look back over history. To that end, Arnold Krammer examines the fate of war prisoners from Biblical and Medieval times through the halting evolution of international law to the current reshuffling of the rules.
Since biblical times, war captives have been considered property and counted as booty to be enslaved or killed. Americans were interested in generals and weapons and battles, but not the fate of prisoners of war. The Second World War, when 90,000 Americans fell into enemy hands, began to change that. Concern for our POWs in Germany and Japan, and close contact with enemy camps in America began to change our attitudes. However, it was the Vietnam War, media-driven and polarizing, that caused the American public to truly reevaluate the plight of its sons and brothers, heroic and clearly loyal, as they fell into the hands of an inscrutable and apparently unyielding distant enemy. More recently, during the first Gulf War of 1991 and the current War on Terrorism, the issue of prisoners of war has moved to center stage, involving the clash of ideologies, politics, and expediency. Since 9/11, the rights and safety of prisoners of war caught up in the War on Terror have been debated in Congress and adjudicated on by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whose conclusions were protested by numerous organizations. The issue of prisoners of war is of more immediate concern now than ever before, and an examination of the history of their treatment and current status may well influence foreign policy.
