Mosque lost its Geneva Convention Protection

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Why keep harping on history? -- because it relates to the contemporary. On Hennity and Colmes this evenings discussion on the precedent for the marines firing a Hellfire missile and calling in a F-16 Eagle to drop a 500 pound bomb on the outer wall of a Sunni mosque was never brought up, there or anywhere else in the news media. The issue was whether this action was against the Geneva Convention.

In the WWII Italian campaign, the Nazi army had occupied the Abby of Monte Cassino located 50 miles northwest of Naples and was used as a lookout and fortress. The American and allied troops were taking tremendous casualties after repeated attempts to push northward and to climb the mountain to take capture (they never did take it; made a bypass landing to the north). So on February 15, 1944 the United States Army Air Corps launched medium and heavy bombers from North Africa and pummeled the Abby into near rubble. Thus, in the Geneva Convention August 12, 1949 it was held that a religious building that was used for military fighting lost its protection and sanctuary.

In the fighting in Fallujah the Sunni mosque was used as a fortress, and the U.S. Army and Marines were taking casualties during six hours of fighting coming from the mosque. Therefore it lost it's Geneva Convention protection and was justly attacked. Period!

R. Cheney,
Kemah

I meant that the Liberal elements here and elsewhere will be the first to demand coalition forces lay off Mosques. Even though, the Liberals here constantly abuse the rule themselves regarding churches. They will want to have it both ways. Use churches with impunity here AND demand that coalition forces permit the same abuses of the rule in Iraq. That's all.

Note that the mosque wasn't attacked for being a mosque; it was attacked for being a fort. Similarly for Monte Cassino (although in that case, the Germans weren't using it but later used the rubble.) The allies later rebuilt Monte Cassino. Similar reasoning applied to the Indian Army siege of the Golden Temple at Amritsar.

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