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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (121503)	6/22/2005 2:16:02 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793718

Nadine, re: If they were lawful combatants under Geneva Convention IV, then they would be kept as POWs, i.e. "uncharged, unrepresented and unconvicted foreign nationals" for the duration of the conflict. Would you have a problem with that? Should terrorists have more rights than POWs? "No," and "no." But that's the point. They're legally either "lawful combatants" or they're terrorists. And they are not "lawful combatants" no matter how many times Bush and Cheney say it. The simplistic proclamation of this Administration that we're in a "war on terror" is fine. That doesn't make it a "WAR," however, at least not in any historical or legal sense of the word. Wars on drugs, wars on poverty, wars on crime and wars on terrorism don't end, NOT EVER. We declared a "war on drugs" but we didn't hold foreign drug dealers uncharged and unconvicted, maybe forever, based on some tortured definition of "enemy combatants." Similarly we can't uphold the concept of international justice, much less American justice, and forever hold combatants in the never ending "war on terror" without representation, charges and convictions. And they've not been properly charged, much less convicted, of being terrorists. Not in any court of the US, not in any world court and not in the courts of their home nations. In fact, one of the allegations of those supporting our current system seems to be that we don't have sufficient evidence to prove any terrorist crimes on the part of many of them. So what gives us the right to mix and match whatever powers we want and arrive at the legal conclusion that the rest of the world can pound sand because we're going to keep them? Regardless of the guilt or innocence of the men we're holding at Gitmo, what we've done in terms of procedures and justice there sets a poor example for the world, diminishes the concept of American justice and, frankly, is shamefully embarrassing to most thoughtful legal scholars. Ed