And feeling much recreated, but tired. Why is it relaxing is so exhausting?

We hiked on the north coast, watched seals and whales, and tried to ignore events on the other side of the planet, not altogether successfully. It was particularly brutal, because the hotel television had no news channels except CNN. I saw an interview that Wolf Blitzer did with some woman from the ICRC, trying to get her opinion on the news of the Iraqis videotaping our captured soldiers and giving the tape to (among probably others) Al Jazeera.

She squirmed and twisted and wiggled, and no matter how much he questioned her, she absolutely would not bring herself to directly criticize the Iraqi regime.

"Is it a violation of the Geneva Convention?"

"We adhere to the Geneva Convention, and we understand all the words in it. We expect all parties to adhere to it."

"But is Iraq in violation of it?"

"States must follow the Geneva Convention, and we expect them all to do so."

This seems beyond perversity.

[Update on Monday morning]

Here's the rush transcript. It's quite enlightening:

BLITZWE: What can you tell us about what you've seen about these U.S. POWs who've now been paraded out on Iraqi television, Al-Jazeera rebroadcasting that videotape?

TAMARA ALREFI, INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS: What we have seen is obviously what everybody else has seen. Now, as being an organization that works in situations of conflict and that is concerned about the fate of the victims, all of them, so be it wounded people, prisoners of war or civilians, yes, we are as concerned as everybody else is, particularly that the laws are clear under International Humanitarian Law, the Law of Armed Conflict or the Geneva Conventions and particularly the third Geneva Convention related to the treatment of the prisoners of war.

BLITZER: Now, I just interviewed the defense secretary of the United States, Donald Rumsfeld, who said that what Iraqi TV did was a violation of the Geneva Conventions, parading POWs before television cameras. Is that your understanding of the Geneva Conventions?

ALREFI: Well, our understanding of the Geneva Conventions is about reading the articles of the Geneva Conventions, and obviously Article 13 refers specifically to such a situation. Because it says that POWs must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity. And any activity, any act that contradicts any article of the Geneva Convention is a violation.

BLITZER: What you saw on Al-Jazeera, the videotape of Iraqi television, was that a violation, in your opinion, of the Geneva Conventions governing prisoners of war?

ALREFI: What I saw, what we saw on Al-Jazeera is actually something we often referred back to journalists about. It is up to the journalists to have the ethics or not to show what happened.

Now, if we go back to the article I just told you about, then anything against this article is a violation.

BLITZER: Because the article, and I'll read it specifically. It says "You cannot have outrages against personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

Was what we saw on Iraqi television, these American prisoners of war, these soldiers, including one female, was that in your opinion degrading treatment of these POWs?

ALREFI: Well, our concern is the concern of the ICRC and this article in particular, when it comes to publicly displaying prisoners of war, is a concern for their safety and the safety of their families. I mean, we do know that showing publicly prisoners could be detrimental to the safety of their family.

BLITZER: Are you in touch with the Iraqi government now in connection with these American POWs?

ALREFI: We are in constant contact with both parties, actually, and the fact that we -- the ICRC has sent out a memorandum at the outbreak of the (inaudible), reminding all the parties to the conflict of their obligations under the Geneva Conventions. All of them are signatory of the Geneva Conventions.

Now, in this aspect, these are POWs. This is a category of victims that falls under the mandate of the ICRC. So the answer is we are going to activate our mandate. We are going to get in touch with the authorities concerned, yes.

BLITZER: The Reuters News Agency is reporting even as we speak right now that there is a statement coming out of the Iraqi government, they will treat these American soldiers, these prisoners of war according to the Geneva Conventions, which, if that's going to happen that would obviously be encouraging to the ICRC.

ALREFI: Well, this is exactly what the ICRC hopes for anyway. But this, again, is what we hope for from all parties detaining people, detaining people who are taken as part of the conflict. Yes, this is exactly what we hope for.

BLITZER: As you know, the Iraqi government, when it comes to prisoners of war, doesn't necessarily have the best track record and I am specifically referring to the 500 or 600 Kuwaiti prisoners who are still missing in Iraq, the Kuwaiti government -- we're in Kuwait right now -- still says the Iraqis are refusing to notify them, refusing to tell them whether they have them, refusing to provide any information.

I assume the International Committee of the Red Cross has been in touch with the Iraqi government involving the Kuwaiti POWs from the first Gulf War.

ALREFI: Absolutely. But, again, let's not mix all the cases. This is a totally different case. This is a case that the ICRC will work on specifically and, as you just mentioned, we did have a kind of a commitment to treat those people as per the Geneva Convention, so I don't think we should mix everything together.

BLITZER: All right. Tamara, thank you very much. Good luck to you and the Red Cross, the International Committee of the Red Cross.

ALREFI: Thank you very much.

See? While one can infer from what she's saying that the Iraqis are guilty of violations, she makes every effort to successfully avoid saying that directly. And she makes every effort to make her words apply to both sides, as though there is some equivalence in terms of the respective record both in human rights in general and treatment of POWs in particular. We are apparently supposed to infer that the coalition forces are just as likely to engage in this behavior as the Iraqis, and she's keeping a close eye on us.

[Update at 10:36 AM PST]

CNN has the spelling wrong on her name. It's "Al Rifai." An Arabic name. If I'm reading my Dutch correctly, this article says that she's Syrian.

Tamara Al-Rifai, de Syrische woordvoerster van het Rode Kruis, doet de hectiek af met een lach: "Ach, ze weten dat het voor de goede zaak is." Die 'goede zaak' is Irak. Het Rode Kruis zit daar al sinds 1981, een jaar na het uitbreken van de bloedige oorlog tegen buurland Iran, en heeft het verval van nabij meegemaakt.

What a shocker.

A huge fraction of the anti-American community's tactics rely upon the misuse of language: to deceive when they can, to obfuscate when they can't deceive, and to evade when anyone becomes annoyed by the obfuscations and tries to pin them down. Obviously, our ICRC representative had fallen to the third tactic.

We've seen endless amounts of this over Middle Eastern affairs, particularly with regard to Israel and its crown of thorns, the Palestinian irredentist terrorists. We will see more. When Saddam's dungeons have yielded up their tortured inmates, when his nerve gas factories and anthrax labs have been smashed open, when his locked file cabinets have disgorged the arrangements with French, German, and Russian suppliers, we will see much, much more.

Pray for a quick victory, and the safety of our men at arms.

"Pray for a quick victory, and the safety of our men at arms."

Always. And Amen.

As I recall, the International Red Cross is not supposed to publicly criticize a combatant. That is part of what was so disturbing about their public comments regarding conditions at Guantanamo.

As I read interview, Tamara Al-Rifai was stating that the rules are clear and then pointed to the rules which prohibits exactly what the Iraqis did. She probably went as far (or further) than she is supposed to go.

Not that I have all that much respect for the IRC.