When Did War Become A Game Of Shared Information?

I am a wee bit confused. Are we in a war or aren't we? When has war been fair? You know the saying, All's fair in love and war?

In an article in the New York Times for September 9th, it appears the U.S. Army and the CIA are squabbling over prisoners.

Now, as I have stated before - I am not in favor of this war, but I support the men and women of the military. They are the ones who are fighting, dying and getting injured over there by simply doing their job, a job our country and President sent them to do.

In the article Army Says C.I.A. Hid More Iraqis Than It Claimed, by Eric Schmitt and Douglas Jehl, The House Armed Services Committee is looking into these allegations. In short, the CIA was being the CIA by keeping certain prisoners off of rosters for the Red Cross.

"Army jailers in Iraq, acting at the Central Intelligence Agency's request, kept dozens of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities off official rosters to hide them from Red Cross inspectors, two senior Army generals said Thursday."

The article goes on to say the CIA "Under the Geneva Conventions, the temporary failure to disclose the identities of prisoners to the Red Cross is permitted under an exemption for military necessity. But the Army generals said they were certain that the practice used by the C.I.A. in Iraq went far beyond that." I'm sorry, but that's the CIA, what is anyone supposed to do about it? Aren't they the elite, the scary people, the Men In Black, the service division no one else can touch usually?

One character in particular had an interesting code name "Triple-X". I'm sorry, but if he was good enough to get the name, shouldn't the CIA have had control of him? Images of Vin Diesel just can't help but flow into my mind. Could the U.S. Army hold a "Triple-X" character? And whose to say Triple-X wasn't a double agent? (I am a writer after all.)

"The disclosure added to questions about the C.I.A.'s practices in Iraq, including why the agency took custody of certain Iraqi prisoners, what interrogation techniques it used and what became of the ghost detainees, including whether they were ever returned to military custody."

Hmmmm, let me see, isn't the CIA well-known for its "interrogation techniques"?

I'm sorry, but I read the article and found myself chuckling. It is almost as if some grandmother somewhere in a military uniform was sitting back saying, "You kids play nice with one another now!" The CIA is doing nothing different from what it has always done, and what Army General or other Army official is going to tell one of the scary guys, "No you can't have this guy." It just doesn't make a bit of sense.

I don't want the prisoners mistreated, but I'm looking at this pragmatically. Come on people, grow up! Bad things happen in war. Do you think the Iraqi forces are having committees making certain their prisoners are all accounted for or giving all of the names to the Red Cross? I don't think so. Doesn't anyone remember those missing from the Korean War and Vietnam? Yeah, those wars gave us back all of the POWS and MIAs, right? If you believe that, I have some beach front property in Arizona for you to look at. I'll sell it cheap.

The complete article can be found here. Why don't you read the article and tell me what you think?