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

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (121506)	6/22/2005 2:46:50 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793718

And they've not been properly charged, much less convicted, of being terrorists Again with the law enforcement mentality. Go read Osama bin Laden's declaration of war on the US, and do him the credit of believing him sincere. He is not a criminal. He is an enemy. He wants to destroy the USA. Wars on drugs, wars on poverty, wars on crime and wars on terrorism don't end, NOT EVER Drugs are a vice, that will continue to be sold as long as people want to buy them. Crime also, which is done mostly for money. Terrorism is not a vice, it is a tool in the service of an ideology. It is a technique of war. The jihadis are not doing it for the money, though they use the services of many who are. They are doing this for the cause. Ideological wars do not last forever, only as long as the ideologies are in favor. How many fight today for Nazism? How many fight for Communism? How about the Maoists or Shining Path? Why don't you tell me that these are also pseudo-wars that will last forever, whose combatants must be charged with crimes like burglars? This is a war, not by decree of the US, but by decree of Al Qaeda. You cannot fight a war by charging individual soldiers with criminal offenses. That makes no sense and does not work.

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (121506)	6/22/2005 2:47:06 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 793718

The problem is that under the GCs, enemy combatants are not entitled to a trial, simply to incarceration under humane conditions. Once the conflict is over, they are entitled to repatriation. Assuming that the imprisonment of AQ fighters at Guantanamo calls into play the GCs, who can say when the war on terror has ended such that repatriation is legally required? A decent legal case can be made for the proposition that since no entity signing off on the GCs is involved, the AQ combatants are not entitled to any of the GCs' protections. They can be tried for crimes they may have committed, if any US criminal laws apply to them. But since they are combatants unaffiliated with a state which is a party to the GCs, it seems that they are only entitled to a hearing on whether they are in fact combatants and therefore properly held. I am not sure, but I think that this is the current status of things. As a matter of principle, I would apply the GCs to them in all respects, regardless of the lack of any affiliation to a nation which has declared war on us. It is the humane, civilized thing to do But even if the GCs are applied, they should be held until the conflict is over. Given the state of things, it would be pure folly to let them loose so that they could participate in informal warfare against us. In any event, the legal framework for dealing with combatants who are unaffiliated with a signatory to the GCs is in dire need of revision. That can kind of revision can take decades to implement.