Slashdot Mirror
Company Denies Its Robots Feed On the Dead
Back in January we covered the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, or EATR. The EATR gets its energy by "engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment ..." So many news outlets picked up the story and ran it with titles alluding to the robot "eating flesh" or even "eating corpses" that a company spokesperson put out a press release saying, "This robot is strictly vegetarian." The statement says in part, "RTI's patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes 'human bodies,' the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips — small, plant-based items for which RTI's robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI."
would that be modded "interesting".
Convenient that this thing carries a wood chipper with it, then.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
The Bush administration seemed to be the only ones interested in what the Geneva Conventions actually say. The distinction of lawful and unlawful enemy combatants is made in article 4, part 1 of the third Geneva Convention, which defines who qualifies for the protections described in the convention. The interpretation of this by the Bush administration was in no way novel. It is no different from the interpretation of the International Red Cross. I honestly can't understand the rationale of those who suggest that enemy combatants -- lawful or unlawful -- must be charged with a crime or else released while hostilities are ongoing. It is an absurd position that no country in recorded history has ever practiced. The whole point of the third Geneva Convention is the assumption that enemy combatants are NOT released until hostilities cease. Enemy combatants are not held because they committed a crime. They are held because they are enemy combatants in ongoing hostilities. If they committed a crime, that is a separate issue.
The question under US law of the proper jurisdiction for combatant status reviews and trials for war crimes is a much less straightforward one. The Constitution does not address the issue directly, because when it was written there were no treaties codifying the law of war, and so issues arising under it were naturally under the purview of the commander-in-chief. However now that there are treaties codifying it, it can be argued that jurisdiction for any cases arising under those treaties now fall under the power of the judiciary under article III. The Supreme Court decided (surprise, surprise) (in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) that that power belonged to the judiciary. Therefore Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, establishing the military tribunals as inferior court with original jurisdiction, as article III empowers them, given it should be treated as a case arising under a treaty. However this makes it all the more complicated, as military tribunals don't operate under all the same constitutional constraints as civil and criminal federal courts. This is an open invitation for the Supreme Court to decide to arbitrarily determine which constitutional constraints should apply to the military tribunals and which should not, which would be (clearly, to me) overstepping its power. That would put the president in the position of either acquiescing to the usurping of power by the Supreme Court, or maintaining his authority under the law and the constitution, resulting in a so-called "constitutional crisis". This is a vital ambiguity in the constitution separation of powers, and so there is only one legitimate solution, which is for the congress and the state legislatures to agree on a reasonable balance of power in the form of a constitutional amendment. The congress is frankly negligent for not pursuing this.
As for Abu-Ghraib, it was a case of criminal abuse by US soldiers, US civilian interrogators, and Iraqi informants and interpreters that the Army Criminal Investigation Command began investigating very shortly after the abuses began, and long before the information was illegally and detrimentally made public. The 12 soldiers charged were tried, convicted, and sentenced in military court. Unfortunately, there were other guilty parties who went unpunished, or inadequately punished, including civilian interrogators and Iraqi informants and interpreters. If the abuse photos had not been publicized, creating a vastly increased atmosphere of shame for the victims and panic for the participants, it is very possible that the investigation could have gathered the evidence necessary to bring justice to more of the guilty parties. However, what I find reprehensible in the aftermath, is the propaganda used by some to politicize these crimes by equating them to the policy of the Bush administration of using interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation.
So obviously there's no direct parallel for the American Revolution today, but my point is that standards of war change -- and if we continue to believe that only "proper" war combatants should be protected, we're betraying principles which most of us believe to be more important than any government.
But this principle hasn't changed. In the formulation of the Geneva Conventions they gave much thought to the place of partisans or militias, who might not be uniformed. If they are under the common command of the uniformed army, if they are identifiable from a distance, and if they carry their arms openly, among other things, then they are protected. People who mix in with civilian and drop a grenade in a jeep are purposely not protected by the Geneva Conventions. These principles were identical during the American revolution. American civilians shooting guns at British authorities before the Declaration of Independence would appropriately be arrested and tried as a criminal. After the Declaration of Independence and the establishment of an army and organization of militiamen under its command, the British (if they were behaving appropriately) treated prisoners with the courtesies due from the law of war, and not as criminals. However, a spy or a sabateur would be tried and executed, just as under the Geneva Conventions.
These are very important principles, as these are the structures that prevent wars from devolving into genocides, as such "unprotected" tactics lead to soldiers' fear of civilians, which in turn leads to the massacres of civilians. It is not hard to find examples of this phenomenon, and it is precisely the purpose of the Geneva Conventions to avoid such developments.
I retract my statement in the parent post that there is ambiguity where a trial of a prisoner of war should take place, insofar as that prisoner of war is a lawful enemy combatant, and protected by the Geneva Convention. I was just reading through it and was shocked to find this (emphasis added):
The granting of Habeas to civil courts is a flat-out violation of the Geneva Convention. Did the Justice Department miss this?! Or has it not been brought up because it only applies to lawful enemy combatants?