Quote Originally Posted by Polarbear1605 View Post
If I remember the numbers correctly we officially processed 80000+ detainees in Iraq up to 2008 or 9 ? Of that number we release 73,000+. Question: Are our soldiers and Marines really that bad when it comes to IDing the enemy? If you catch a civilian with a rifle he is a combatant and therefore a POW. They belong in the POW camp for the duration. This processing detainees under the Rules of Law is not what the US Military is trained for. Now if you want to release a POW in exchange for information....hmmm...OK...especially, if he can tell me something I don't know. In a insurgency you gotta have a system.
Don't know what percentage of detainees are noncombatants inadvertently swept up, but my understanding is that the released also include known insurgents vetted by some process to secure low recidivism.

From Chapter 2, Article 10 of Hague Convention IV 1907

Art. 10. Prisoners of war may be set at liberty on parole if the laws of their country allow, and, in such cases, they are bound, on their personal honour, scrupulously to fulfil, both towards their own Government and the Government by whom they were made prisoners, the engagements they have contracted. In such cases their own Government is bound neither to require of nor accept from them any service incompatible with the parole given.


Art. 11. A prisoner of war cannot be compelled to accept his liberty on parole; similarly the hostile Government is not obliged to accede to the request of the prisoner to be set at liberty on parole.


Art. 12. Prisoners of war liberated on parole and recaptured bearing arms against the Government to whom they had pledged their honour, or against the allies of that Government, forfeit their right to be treated as prisoners of war, and can be brought before the courts.
Clearly the laws of war anticipate the release of prisoners of war within the duration, and other than where where the laws of a belligerent reciprocate there doesn't seem to be any limit on the generosity with which parole may be offered. More to the point, there doesn't seem to be a restriction at all on releasing detainees with no conditions placed on them whatsoever. That last option is precisely what I'm investigating.