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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (2157)	1/13/2003 3:45:04 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15987

Zonder.. Military regulations are not nearly as powerful as Executive Orders, which is what Bush laid out last Spring (2002). Thus, as we used to say in Army.. Prior guidance has been "overcome by events". The Geneva Convention does not have a distinction for "unlawful combatants" and so such a classification does not exist for all intents and purposes. Who cares? The geneva convention states exactly what is, at minimum, a combatant and the treatment they must be accorded. All others not so covered, must be treated in accord with the convention until a competent tribunal is convened. It doesn't give a time frame for convening such a tribunal, nor any other details.. merely that they will be treated well. They must enjoy POW status until this tribunal is called together, you mean. No, NO, NOOO!! None of them meet the requirements so stated in the Geneva Convention for them to be declared legal combatants (insignia, uniforms, identification.. etc).. Thus, while they must be treated with the same "quality of living" conditions as POWs, this does automatically make them POWs. They are unlawful combatants from known and unknown locations/nationalities who have taken up arms against the US and it's citizens. Many of these guys down in Guatanamo are refusing to give their names, let alone anything else about themselves. And they are members of an organization, not a national state represented by a government. And since their organization DIDN'T sign the Geneva Convention, they are just SOL IMO. What will eventually happen to them is that all the evidence that is accumulated against them will likely result in a "war crimes" style trial in which they will all (or a large groups of them) be tried at once. Btw, Rudolf Hess, formerly Hitler's right hand man, was held incommunicado from 1941 until the post WWII Nuremburg trials in 1946. And he was a LEGAL combatant. And then he was held for another 42 years incommunicado in Spandau prison with all 4 major powers taking turns guarding him.. He must have known something.. .hehe. The bottom line is that the "war on terror" is far from over. The battle against Al Quaida is far from over. And the investigation as to how these detainees actually fit into the AQ infrastructure, let alone who they actually are, will require a long time. And so long as they are well-treated, I could care less about any "competent tribunal".. Because I don't want them back on the street. And neither of us are lawyers Zonder. And even if we were, we're be making up the law, interpreting it, and trying to convince some legal authority that it represents the current situation... cannot just sign a treaty and then invent a designation and claim your detainees are not covered by it, you know... Sure you can... Because the Geneva convention didn't take into account supra-national criminal organizations engaging in war against state powers... Sure, individual acts of terrorism which criminal courts have handled, but never a declaration and act of outright war by a non-state actor against a state power. Thus, Bush declared them unlawful combatants... And no one really cares enough (except possibly you) to deem it necessary to try and argue that Al-Quaida should be treated like an international government and its members treated as legal combatants. Are you going to engage in such an dubious enterprise?? The law is not like the 10 commandants.. It's basically a set of guidelines with statutory enforcement. a And international treaties are even worse off, having little to NO enforcement, except when the prevailing powers so deem it necessary. When there is evidence that these folks are being mistreated, or evidence that some of them had perfectly legal and non-violent reasons for being captured with AK-47s in their hands, then you might evoke some measure of concern from me.. But until then, I'm content with it the way it is. Hawk