Why lawyers shouldn't be protected by the Geneva Convention

The title to this post is simply to note how those who engage in legal language, whether at the local, state, federal or international level, rarely state things in a clear concise way. This obfuscation is the main cause of never ending debate over the real meaning of laws and treaties and is a disservice to all.

Such is true of the Geneva Conventions, the documents which have been referenced repeatedly in relation to the questions of the status and treatment terrorists and non-uniformed fighters in recent years. However, the documents do have enough clarity to settle one question. To make this as simple as I possibly can, it is my opinion that the following Geneva Convention passage applies to these terrorists and would mean they are not given protections under the Geneva Convention.

Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
   
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:
   1. That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
   2. That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
   3. That of carrying arms openly;
   4. That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."
   The reason that these "unlawful combatants" lack of protection is that they are a real danger to the civilian population, since armies can not distinguish them from the civilians and they hide in churches, hospitals and behind civilian hostages. They are a scourge and can and should be dealt with as such. I believe that even the politicians and lawyers who wrote the Geneva Conventions understood this, but many partisans of this age do not.