The proper term is 'kidnapping'

What else would you call it? A woman's home is invaded. She is drug out of said home and taken to a secret location. She is held in that location for hours, days, months against her will and separated from her children. A ransom is requested: the kidnappers want her husband. That's kidnapping - plain and simple. It's also what U.S. troops are allegedly doing (under orders, no doubt from Washington that no one will admit giving) in Iraq. From the article:

The Iraqi woman told Knight Ridder on Friday that she and eight other female detainees in her cell had often talked among themselves. She discovered that all of them were being held because U.S. officials had suspected their male relatives of having ties to terrorism. In some cases, men in their families were killed during U.S. raids, the woman alleged.

The woman, whose voice trembled as she told her story, said she didn't want to be named because she feared that she or a member of her family would be arrested...

"We were talking about the charges against each of us," she said. "It turned out to be all the same. We were taken because they suspected our husbands or fathers of being terrorists."

She said she was cut off from her family during her capture and that she didn't see or hear from her husband until he, too, was released Thursday.

She said that during the first 12 days of her imprisonment, interrogators questioned her extensively but also offered her tea and juice.

"I was treated in a good way, no torture," she said...

In a memo written in June 2004 and released Friday, an officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose name was redacted, described the arrest of a 28-year-old woman from Tamiya, northwest of Baghdad. She had three young children, including one who was nursing.

U.S. forces raided her in-laws' home, calling her husband the "primary target." Before the raid, soldiers had decided that if the woman were at the in-laws' home, they'd detain her "in order to leverage the primary target's surrender," the memo's author wrote.

"During my initial screening of the occupants at the target house, I determined that the wife could provide no actionable intelligence leading to the arrest of her husband," the author of the memo wrote. "Despite my protest, the raid team leader detained her anyway."

Guess what, if this is true, and as you can tell I'm inclined to believe that it is, then it's unethical, immoral, against the law, and against the Geneva Conventions. Someone bring charges against these bastards! I'm not referring to the troops on the ground (though I wonder how they justify this), but rather to the bastards in Washington who ordered this. Like Abu Ghraib, however, that's not likely to happen and The (p)Resident, Commander and C(th)ief will most certainly not take responsibility for it.

See, Republicans have a new definition of "personal responsibility". All you have to do these days is state that you're responsible for your actions and for those who work for you. Then, there are no consequences. Once you've confessed, all is forgiven. Katrina? Admitted. Abu Ghraib? Admitted and corrective action taken against those down the food chain. WMD intelligence failures? Admitted and CIA director given medal. Prescription drug program failures? Admitted - no consequences. Avian flu vaccine stockpiles? Admitted and berate drug companies for seeking the profits you encourage. Pension plan underfunding? Admitted and write rules shaking a finger at companies. Coal mines? Hey, we imposed weak fines and slapped wrists! Only in the case of Katrina was anyone held accountable for these actions and even then, it was someone down the food chain.