This is a pretty fuckin sad hobby. I can see getting into an argument from time to time, but if it's your full time entertainment, that's pathetic. You know this is all pointless, don't you?
To each their own. Some make ships in bottles or collect coins for fun or sit in front of the TV like vegetables all day. I post on Slashdot and other forums for mild amusement, at least its interactive. Call it a hobby.
Driving into a gunfight. huh. Don't suppose you've heard of darwin awards, have you?
US forces in Iraq killed more journalists in 2 years then in both sides in 10 years of Vietnam war. Next you are going to pretend that getting near gun fights is a new, never done before thing, invented by the press last week. Get a grip.
I can see this is a waste of time, you are a blind fascist ideologue bent on mayhem and murder.
As for the entire Israel/Palestine issue- a muslim in Israel has it a lot better than a jew in a muslim country.
Besides them being second-class citizens. You should examine history. Prior to establishemnt of Israel a whole slew of Jews lived all over the Middle East, in places like Baghdad (where they had an entire quarter of the city) and did quite well. The shit hit the fan after Israel engaged in its antics of treating Arabs as if they were disposable trash to be buldozed out of the way. But your blinders will not let you see that.
Some of the lands Israel has that you like to call a 50 year old illegal occupation were lost to Israel when the surrounding countries attacked- and lost.
Bypassing the wee little point of White westerners getting together and carving pieces out of these countries without bothering to talk to them (who cares about those brown Arabs anyhow) and all the fun which followed from there, even if one accepts 1947 borders, as I do, you should note that no country is entitled to hold a piece of their neighbour it "conquered", regardless of who attacked who. And under the international law (which you, being a fascist, despise and hate) these are occupied territories. You must like both the Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union a lot. They too were in the same business as Israel when it comes to territorial expansion into their neighbours and operated on the same principle: "I took it, so its mine!".
which consisted mostly of put our tails between our legs and run
No which consisted of withdrawing to a defensible position, a wee little difference.
I don't expect you to do a damn thing. It would be a freakin miracle if any lefty canadian actually accomplished anything requiring the slightest ambition.
We have our own accomplishments but they are running contradictory to your fascist world view and thus you just will ignore them.
I only asked because you seem quite confident in your vast intellect. Though, i suppose, as a lefty canadian you'd be quite adept at forming up large, expensive, and useless government beuracracies.
Which also happen to have balanced budgets (a novel concept for you: a government which spends less or equal to what it earns, you should look into it) and provide all sorts of services to Canadians which make our lives much more livable then for a large chunk of US citizenry. But to each their own.
You don't seek out the good news coming from Iraq- and there is plenty- so you think it's a total failure (remember the old press axioms: If it bleeds, it leads, and no news is good news)
The good news out of Iraq is simply inconsequential in the light of the bad news, because the bad news is what drives the events. That is why it takes a band of dedicated ideologues with microsocopes to find them and slant them all to oblivion to make things look rosy. "Biggest Iraq reconstruction expo in Amman was a success!" says Chernkoff. In Amman. In Jordan! In Jordan because if it were held in Bagdad it would have been blown up into smithereens. If this was not so pathetic it would be funny. Economic development! Just that he forgot to mention 60% unemployment among Sunnis and one of their major cities leveled, where people live in tents on the ruins of their former homes. And who need iris scans to get in and out of their own city with 30% of them not allowed in or out. And that electricity in Baghdad is provided less then 8 hours a day, down from over 11 hours just a few months back. And that most of the country has no clean water and raw sewage on the streets is the norm. That has to be good for business. So the Kurds have it good. Except that they had it good for the last 15 years, as they were for all intents and purposes a separate state for all that time under the protection of no fly zones, and that it is now causing violence in Kirku
Oh yeah, here's a different point of view on that reuters cameraman link from alertnet. I think he does a decent job of explaining it:
Which can be summarized quite accurately as "How dare these fucking journalists, like, duh, try to film stuff when we are shootin' things and stuff, yea! Their fault for, like, duh, not staying at home and writing an ode to our Brave, like, duh, Soldiers! Only, if their, like, duh, home is in like, duh, Green Zone or we can still shoot em up, like, cause, like, duh, we are fightin', them, duh, like, Terrists and stuff, duh. It is all them, duh, journalists, fault, like, duh, for us shootin' em up, duh. Cause, duh, all jorunalists are, like, libruls. And it always is, like, someone else's, like, duh, damn fault anyway. Always. Out Brave Troops, like, are Glorious, duh, and like, Brave and stuff, duh. Them never be making, like, mistakes and things, or shootin' them journalists, like, duh, on purpose, duh, even if them are, like, evil librul journalists and, them, like, deserve to die, duh. Yuk! Yuk!".
Sure, sure, but what did the Jews ever do to the Germans? Or Poland for that matter? France?
Just about as much a Iraq did to the US.
We have clear cause for fighting jihadists, and it's best done in their backyard, not ours.
But here is the very lie you are living. The "jihadists" you speak of are not only a minuscule portion of Muslim societies in Middle East, and elsewhere, but your very presence and actions in the Middle East creates them.
You also disingenuously ignore their laughable military capabilities (that is before you gave them the resources of torn-apart Iraq to plunder). It took Osama and crew 20 years of effort, 2 attempts and a gigantic dose of luck (and incompetence on the US authorities' part) to manage to destroy the WTC. And even then, the apex of technology he was able to achieve involved box cutters.
Furthermore, the death toll, being as unjust and devastating for New Yorkers that day as it can be, was in perspective an insignificant blimp on the statistics of the nation. Car accidents kill 47,000+ people a year in the US. Bin Laden, in the pinnacle of his freedom and resources, after 20 years of effort, managed 3000.
And in response the US went batshit crazy. "Overreaction" is far too mild a word. Instead of pursuing cooperation of nations in bringing the responsible criminals to justice, it went to "war". A "war" against 0.001% of Muslims, involving bringing misery and humiliation to the remaining 99.999%. Terms like "Fishing with dynamite" or "Mosquito hunting with 500lb bombs" come to mind. Now if there was a brilliant plan designed to fail, ever, this is it.
Similarly, in London, perhaps 10 men with $200 of a budget, scared the whole Britain into abandoning reason and running around in panic, shedding their basic liberties and rights.
The "enemy" you speak of is only capable of, at best, minuscule (in military terms) attacks, whose power comes from the panic mongering in the very Western media, too busy with "infotainment" to pursue reason (but that is another story). His technological level is laughable and will remain so as he has no ability to obtain any of those "WMDs" which the clever manipulators of the "war" on this side continuously panic monger about. Don't even bother spinning contorted, never-never land, make believe, Tom Clancy fables of under-the-desert complexes staffed with Russian scientists or similar nonsense.
All that is required to repel all these attacks on the US mainland is good intelligence and screening at entry. Intelligence which has to be obtained from the Muslim populations from which those malcontents originate. And this is where the whole imbecilic contraption of "War on Terror" truly falls apart. By conducting yourself as a master race (even if you claim otherwise) in the Middle Eastern affairs, by decades of utterly callous disregard for the wishes of the inhabitants of the place, by engaging in wanton destruction and outright subjugation of the people there by military means on fabricated pretexts (say hello to Adolf again), you are losing the war on the "jihadis" completely and utterly. Because the way to defeat those tiny minority radicals is to make sure that their own societies find their activities abhorrent, counter-productive, unjust and so on. Instead they are seen as "a duty of a Muslim" and "desperate and just response of the oppressed to their oppressor", thanks to your brainless tactic.
But I posit that it is so by design, because the "War on Terror" and all the idiotic slogans like "Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" (which will inevitably and spectacularly fail if you stay the course much longer, as the number of the ever-more-determined "jihadis" now grows much faster then you can kill them) are actually designed to prolong and escalate the "war" so that those who benefit from this arrangement can get their loot and consolidate their power. And that would be your fascist heroes. The state purse looters, th
Yeah, you just go ahead and keep showing how better than me you are! And save those self-rightoues eyes from any arguments that may be more articulate than mine, lest you have to think for five seconds.
I skipped that toxic piece of fascist thinking because it is not worth refuting. Not because I am somehow superior but becuse that sort of crap was being refuted starting all the way back in 1920s when it first surfaced. All that has changed in it are the villains de jeur but the rhetoric is the exact same nonsense. I cant even fathom why would you post something from a vile racist who feels his "service" to Apartheid South African army is something to be proud of? That to kill (pre-emptively no less) anyone who happens to disagree with him is a good and civilized idea?! If you were to apply even half of those disturbed notions you would end up with an uncanny facsimile of the Nazi Germany circa 1930s. Only a proud fascist would do so.
As for the nazi comments, way to Godwinn the thread.
You gotta be kidding. You posted a compilation of almost verbatim excerpts from various Nazi speeches by Hitler, Goebbels and others, sprinkled with some South African and Israeli supremacist ideas and you are accusing me of calling Godwin upon myself!
My argument is that some people must be dealt with harshly because they have not be raised in a civilization that values what we do. It's not a matter of race, it's a matter of being born and raised in a civilization that respects decency.
Or to put it this way:
Extremes must be fought by extremes. Against the infection of materialism, against the Jewish pestilence we must hold aloft a flaming ideal. And if others speak of the World and Humanity we say the Fatherland - and only the Fatherland!
- Adolf in 1922
We are not a master race, but we have a superior society, and the fact that it isn't blindingly obvious to you makes me think you've spent a few too many years being indoctrinated by multicultural evangalists.
Err, the reason that we have that "superior" society is because that society adheres to these wild notions of Personal Liberty, Law, Due Process and similar funny stuff. You apparently see no harm in jettisoning all of that, just because you happen to be frightened by the latest bogeyman. Not understanding, apparently, that as soon as you do that, that particular game called "civilization" is over and we have joined the savages.
Civilization would fall if those charged with guarding it thought as this fellow. So much self-flaggelation over the rights of the enemy, so little concern about actually finishing the job so war's unpleasent aspects can be discontinued.
Or as your mentor used to say it, "guarding the peoples". As to the job at hand:
History proves: He who has not the strength - him the 'right in itself' profits not a whit. A world court without a world police would be a joke. And from what nations of the present League of Nations would then this force be recruited? Perhaps from the ranks of the old German Army? THE WHOLE WORLD OF NATURE IS A MIGHTY STRUGGLE BETWEEN STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS - AN ETERNAL VICTORY OF THE STRONG OVER THE WEAK. There would be nothing but decay in the whole of Nature if this were not so. States which should offend against the elementary law would fall into decay.
-- Adolf, 1923
All of that in the name of peace, of course:
[we] then knew only one aim: To maintain peace, to work in peace, to raise the prosperity of its inhabitants, and thereby to contribute to human culture and civilization.
This Germany of peace times has attempted, with unending diligence, with geniality, and with steadiness, to form its life within and to safeguard outwardly - through participation in peaceful competition with the nations - its due place in the sun
Yes, no doubt, now. I strongly suggest that you go back to admiring your collection of swastikas and parading in that Wehrmacht helmet of yours in front of the mirror. I hope it will make it up to you for leaving the ranks of civilized humanity.
And to those Slashdot readers who somehow find themselves reading this: go back and see how much this neo-nazi tried to appear "reasonable" at the beginning of this thread, almost passing as a honest participant in the discussion of Geneva Conventions, until I found him out. Let it be a warning to you that those who are in such inexplicable opposition to things plainly obvious as decent and just, might be in fact thinly disguised dwellers of some unspeakably vile sewers of history.
Wheras you opted for a slur against the handicaped, a sure sign I've met my better
Ah yes, we are now going to engage in "my insult is better then your insult", as a diversionary measure designed to save you from admitting that you were trying to posture as an innocent victim of my verbal abuse, and that you were caught doing so. Perhaps you should try this on someone who has not seen this trick a few hundred times already.
No go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.
Message understood: you admit the failure of your reasoning and are skulking away, trying to cover your retreat with references to Monty Python's, much more funny then your pitiful attempts, work.
Err, thats the "CONVENTION
ON THE INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
OF RIGHTS IN AIRCRAFT" dude. A Geneva one, yes, but a completely wrong one. The four Conventions pertaining to basic warfare were signed by over 200 countries which is nearly everyone on the globe.
Moreover, the jihadists from various contries pouring in to fight the 'infidels' sure as hell don't fight for any recognized army or country, and aren't covered by any treaty whatsoever.
Nothing of the sort. They are covered by GC4 as criminal civilians to be tried for mass murder etc, in regular courts with all due process.
Such types comprise most of the people with extended involuntary stays in cuba.
Which makes that stay utterly and completely illegal, not to mention immoral and seriously undermining whatever remains of US' credibility.
They're just there to kill people.
Which makes them civilian bandits due for civilian courts or enemy combatants due for POW camps as long as they adhere to rules of conduct of war, alternatively a civilian war crimes court.
However, please post the links you have of stories of Iraq Army soldiers being 'tortured'.
You cannot be serious. Most of the denizens of Abu Gharib (and many other such places where the pictures did not manage to leak - and thus no problem, right?) are Saddam's Baath army members or "suspected insurgents" aka people under Article 4.A.2 of GC3.
So you admit then that an uncivilized response can be warranted to an uncivilized opponent.
You mean to equate a pointy verbal response to murdering people after secret trials, with no adequate representation, on secret evidence, in undisclosed locations? I sure hope that was not what you meant. Furthermore, no, an uncivilized action does not warrant an uncivilized response in the field of warfare. If it were so, one could claim to be perfectly justified setting up gas chambers in Gitmo. I hope that is not what you are trying to insinuate.
Also, the tales of 'torture' I hear out of Gitmo sound like the lamest torture ever invented. Made to sit uncomfortably. blindfolded and forced to listen to static. scared by dogs. moved between hot and cold rooms. Cry me a river, i've put myself through far worse than any of that intentionally.
Yes, and some eat broken glass for fun and profit too. I also hear some gay men are thought to enjoy sodomy. I tell you what, get your buddies to make you do that when you are not in the mood and for far longer then you think is acceptable. Then come back and discuss it.
If they are proper prisoners of war as you suggest, then they should be held until the end of hostilities. No trial, evidence, or communication needed. They're simply being kept off the battlefield.
Yes but under a well defined set of circumstances, which do not include black bags on heads, cages, sleep depravation and the like. The conditions at Stalag 13 were superior to those at Gitmo and that is nothing to be proud of.
As for the reuters journalist, there's been more than once when the press has been tipped off about an impeding terrorist photo-op and dutifully showed up to film people getting murdered, instead of warning anyone. Reuters folks have participated in such activities.
How could you not comprehend the freedom of the press? It is their prerogative, specially if they are third parties to the conflict to obtain intel from any side. If you think that entitles the US army to treat them as "insurgents" that means you have completely lost any perspective and became a modern version of a Brown Shirt, equally as dangerous to those who love the social achievments of our civilization as the terrorists themselves.
Reuters can whine and stamp all it wants about demanding release, but I'm more inclined to believe our military has a good reason to hold onto them, then terrorist-symp
Maybe that's a clue that the number of people willing to pay for that feature set is inadequate to support the production at that price point. That the exact combination of features you want in an MP3 player is no longer available does not mean capitalism is broken.
Or perhaps, just maybe, the features were nowhere as important to the "success" as the marketing circus and the corresponding lunatic expectations of 300% profits and subsequent disappointment at "lack of growth" of the shareholders. Aka failure of logic and capitalism in general, so common these days. Apple is milking the market of the fashion sheep for all its worth and a great many of pin-headed businessmen drool at the idea of "iPod-killer", meaning taking all that undeserved profit for themselves. Reasonable products and modest profits are not something they are interested in.
The point was, marketing muscle alone isn't enough to make a product successful.
There was a time I would believe it, but then this happened.
Read up, it actually says some companies will have a small advantage that they can leverage against their competitors to steal marketshare. Its quite fascinating. Modern communications and distribution will work to increase this effect, which makes the overall system even mor efficient.
Nothing of the sort. As soon as that occurs, that little wee thing called competition is supposed to restore the equilibrium by new players entering the market. Adam Smith repeatedly warned about monopolies and oligopolies being the worst threat to his "invisible hand" model. Read up indeed.
Rio had piss-poor marketing, so? This feeds into the "Rio had bad management" arguement. Marketing is supposed to pay for itself, I spend $1 million advertising my product, it generates sufficient sales to earn $1.3 million. If all it took was advertising, then Rio should have paid for it.
What you neglect to see is that marketing of that sort, aka "branding" is contrary to the tenets of capitalism. The idea of consumer choice is predicated upon the consumer being knowledgeable, being able to make a rational choice. If that fails, the whole capitalist "invisible hand" system fails. Add to this the fact that the types of marketing Apple could do were simply not available to Rio. Apple leveraged its existing "brand recognition" and could also afford much larger campaigns then Rio and sign contracts with recording companies Rio was too small for. It was (and still is) a stacked deal.
Is this what bothers you? that Apple had the insight to realize something other than technology might motivate buyers? Because Sony realized this too, as did Nike, and dozens of others.
See "invisible hand" and failure of thereof above.
What you said is "Their reasons are stoopid and mine are intelligent".
I am sorry, I was unable to find that line in my posts, could you point me to it?
And occaisonal typos and spelling errors, which you have helpfully pointed out because you are no better than me.
I started pointing them out because I realized they interfered with the logic of the sentence. I assumed that by passively pointing them out (as opposed to "you made a typo here! haha! Look everyone!" as some do) I am simply giving you the opportunity to correct the meaning should I guess it wrong.
Ah, you were using the "two wrongs make a right" arguement. That because they are foolish and childish, you should be too.
Nothing of the sort. But you simply cannot accuse me of something the original poster does because I point that out. It does not work that way, which, I am sure, you find disappointing and confusing.
... nor am I they [sic] guy who first accused you of acting as a holier than thou snot.
the present Convention shall apply... between two or more of the High Contracting Parties
... Afghanistan and Iraq both were parties. Your point?
Now, when you're done eating your humble pie over that,
There is no "humble pie" to be eaten.
we can discuss how truly committed you are to being civilized if you rapidly degrade into middle-school name calling:
Then you should also note that it is merely a response to same.
We can also discuss how human scum may or maynot be receptive to the kinder, gentler ways we prefer, and how we may have to adopt more brutal methods when dealing with these particular types if it is the only effective means of supressing and defeating such types.
Calling people names haven't killed or tortured anyone. Granted I have a short fuse for morons but that is my personal failing. What impact does that have on keeping people incommunicado in chains for years on no evidence I am not quite sure. How does it explain this type of behaviour escapes me. Could you explain?
the only error in your argument is that we (the U.S.) are technically not at war with either Afghanistan or Iraq. a declaration of war can only come from congress. there hasn't been a declared war fought by the U.S. since WWII. now that doesn't make what's going on in Guantanamo right no matter how badly anybody whores out terms like 'civilized' or 'decent', but i'm thinking it does provide just enough legal ass-coverage.
Not really. The GC3 states:
In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.
As soon as Iraq or Afghanistan recognized it as war, that legal fig-leaf was gone.
Your claim that everyone who's not a soldier is a civilian, even if they carry weapons and shoot at soldiers, does strike me as surprising. Could you find a citation for this?
During WWII, a lot of fighting had been in the grey zone between soldier and civilian. It cannot have been an oversight that these are not covered, more likely it's a deliberate attempt to force people to either satisfy the article, or stay completely out of the conflict.
No it is simply a matter of jurisdiction. The Conventions simply state that of you are a sole man with a gun taking pot-shots at the occupying troops and you manages to kill someone you are then simply a murderer under the civilian law and to be tried accordingly. If you are a citizen turned spy you get to be tried as a spy under existing treason laws of the country you are in etc.
What you seem to be missing is that the Conventions do not immunize anyone other then the specific classes they mention (POWs) for the specific actions (acceptable warfare). For the rest they simply assign the types of trial to be conducted. That is how noone can slip through the cracks and that is why what the US does is so egregious because the US simply bypassed the whole process and declared itself beyond and above any of these provisions, claiming that it can arbitrarily establish a new class of participant, one who has no rights whatsoever other then those US happens to be in the mood of granting. Under the conventions that is not possible, either you are to be treated as a combatant or a civilian. No special kind of "grey zone" exists.
so calling people dimwits because they aren't experts will get us nowhere.
You should note that I only responded to ad-hominem attacks in kind.
According to this [wikipedia] article 2 of the third geneva convention states:
That the relationship between the "High Contracting Parties" and a non-signatory, the party will remain bound until such time as the non-signatory no longer acts under the strictures of the convention. "
Wikipedia lies. Please do not quote Wikipedia on anything political because it is utterly unreliable as a source and its data depends on whose political bias happens to be dominant at the moment in the "edit wars".
The actual GC3 text is:
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.
Which is quite different (i.e. no opt-out clause).
The question is rather academic as both Afghanistan and Iraq were signatories. However consider this: if the Wikipedia interpretation were true it would allow one to start acting arbitrarily barbaric in respect to captured soldiers just because you are fighting someone who does not subscribe to the Conventions. In this line of reasoning, one could argue you are entitled to set up gas chambers for the members of Al-Queida just because they are not officially a party to the Geneva Conventions and are not following their rules. But US still must adhere. Such is the burden of the defender of Liberty. Either you believe in it or you are just an obnoxious opportunistic pretender. No other options exist for the US.
What you can argue (and which is the point of view I hold) is that Al-Queida is not an armed force of a Power but a criminal organization to be dealt with via criminal courts the very same way you deal with the Mafia or some of the european leftist rebels of the 1980s and similar social malcontents. They cannot be considered a nation or any other sort of Power which the GC3 would apply to in a war-like scenario, because you simply cannot be at war with them (GC4 still applying to those found in Iraq/Afghanistan). Thus Gitmo is simply illegal as the US is not at war with Al-Queida. In the context of Iraq and Afghanistan the Conventions apply as usual and the US has to stingently follow the rules.
GC3 explicitly states you only get protection if you wear uniform, so why should one demand protection if you don't wear uniform?
The article 4.A.1 makes no such distinction:
Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
It makes no note of uniform. These additional provisions apply to a different category described in 4.A.2. Also note that if you do not fall under GC3 then by default you are covered by GC4. The "insurgents" are then either POWs (if they were in Saddam's army and still believe they are in it), armed resistance under 4.A.2 (all they need is command structure, some basic rules of engagement, a head-band and a weapon worn in the open - see the battle for Falluja) or they are war criminals (that is POWs until their trial in a civilian court or in Hague under the supervision of a Protecting Power) or civilian criminals in which case they get tried in their own country (that would be all those Al-Queida foreign idiots who blow up schools if they are not deemed to fall under 4.A.2).
a guy who blows up a polling station full of civilians is not.
In which case he is a criminal to be tried for mass murder by the courts in his country. As far as the Occupying Power is concerned he falls under the Fourth Convention.
The preamble of first convention of 1949:
Yes, technically the Conventions originated in 1929 but they were nearly completely revised at the end of WWII as a result of the Nazi experiences.
The US didn't sign the treaty that would recognize the permanent international war crimes court in the Hague.
Which is only another point against the US.
As far as I'm aware the US is bound by the following verbage in the same treaty quoted above... before its own courts
Yes but not military tribunals. "Own courts" here refers to regular civilian courts with all the due process that entails. Witness the following section of Article 146:
"In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of proper trial and defence, which shall not be less favourable than those provided by Article 105 and those following of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August 12, 1949."
but most importantly examine the whole provision of "Protecting Power" (i.e. 3rd party to oversee the trials) which exists solely for the purpose of curbing arbitrary judgments, see Aticle 9 and so on.
Again, the standard is "competant tribunal", not civilian courts, and certainly not international courts. I'll admit there's certainly room for reasonable people to disagree about what that means
The term "competent tribunal" does not even appear in GC4 you quoted. The term appears in GC3 in Article 5 as
"Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal".
Note that it applies only to the determination of status of the combatant. Following which the other provisions kick in: civilian criminal = civlilian court, POW = internment till hostilities cease, War Criminal = a trial in front of a regular court for war crimes (under the supervision of a Protecting Power) or in Hague if you are sane and do not wish to credibly accused of rigging the trial (see Milosevicz and crew).
who violate the rules of war lose their POW status and can be tried by a "competant tribunal".
And that is to be arbitrarily determined by the very enemy who captured them?! You gotta be kidding. If that were true, no soldier ever would qualify as a POW as soon as some officer in the invading army decided that he "violated the rules of war". As per GC3 4.A.1, the POW status is awarded with no exceptions to: "Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces" which would cover all Taliban foot soldiers (an army of Taliban-controlled Afganistan) and all Iraqi "insurgents" who were members of the Saddam's Ba'ath army. Note that the additional conditions are placed in 4.A.2 only on "other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements".
If you were to take your reasoning to its logical conclusion, the Chech partisans who assassinated the Reinhard Heidrich - the German Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia would be terrorists and the Germans would be entitled to do with them as they please. I do not even want to consider looking into the the dark sewers of relative morality such an opinion could only dwell in.
The Numremberg trials were possible because the actions of the German leadership were so at odds with civilized conduct that all of the members of the Alliance agreed upon and came up with a protocol to deal with them. The Geneva Conventions are a result of that agreement as they were signed after the Nuremburg trials.
While the Geneva conventions prohibit the trial of POWs for the act of making war, they can be tried, by US military tribunal, for violations of rules of war. We are perfectly within our rights, under international law, to execute these people if they are judged to be war criminals.
NO! If they are "violating the rules of war" that determination is to be made by the court in Hague not by the US! You can't appoint yourself judge, jury and executioner. The test to determine if they are "violating rules of war" is designed so that you cannot fudge it yourself, to your own ends. Only after the international courts decide that these people were indeed violating the rules, can you try them in (international or under international supervision) military tribunals. Until then they are POWs.
i am interested in hearing how president bush went back in time to 1942 and added the idea of unlawful combatants in the US legal system.
US legal system is irrelevant as the Geneva Conventions override it (as all treaties do). The GC3 was signed in 1949 which would take precedence over a 1942 decision even within US legal system itself. "Unlawful combatant" in regards to the Geneva Convention is a never before used (in this context) invention of the Bush Administration and you can quote all appologist-made Wikipedia articles (this being the main reason Wikipedia is such a poor source of political data) you can find and it will still not change this rather obvious and easily verified fact.
Geneva Conventions applies to armies of nations, not rogue terrorist cells. Why not? Because terrorists act as civilians, they strike specifically at civilians, there is [b]no[/b] possibility that terrorists follow any rules of 'war'. This is not something the Bush Administration invented.
In which case the US is not at war and they are merely criminals to be tried in accrodance with international law standards. You cannot have it both ways! Either they are para-military caught during military operations or they are criminal suspects. What the Bush Administration has done is to invent a whole new category of "no-rights-whatsover-because-we-say-so" oponents. This is only giving factual ammunition to those who had long claimed the US to be a hypocritical warmonger whose oh-so-pious regard for law extends only as far as its interests.
The Federal Courts, the Supreme Court, the members of both houses of Congress, all know and say this is perfectly legal.
No, but they do they know on which side their bread is buttered and we are talking about some inconsequential brown people of whom a number are actual terrorists so who cares. Its not like they are going to get a TV campaign going during elections or something that would actually hurt these members of Congress.
But a little fool on the Internet, living in Hyper-reality, has no explanation as to [i]how[/i] the Bush Administration is, in his view, doing something illegal.
Explanation is really simple, dimwit: none of the Geneva Conventions allow for this, they don't even mention an "unlawful combatant" as a valid class of prisoners. And they apply to all signatories regardless if they are fighting a non-signarory, as long as they are at "war". Its dead simple. And if you are not at "war" then they are criminal suspects and suject to internationally accepted laws, including access to a lawyer etc.
There is one possibility you and your liberal blogs have not considered: that it is perfectly legal and proper to do so (after all, terrorists don't attend conventions).
Proper? Proper?! You mean to sink to the level of murderous, beheding, torturing, child-killing thugs because you are fighting them is proper?! In that case you have not only already lost that fight but you will be counted among those very barbarous enemies of civilization, democracy, law and freedom. And that would be proper indeed.
um, no, get your facts straight, it was invented during WWII to handle germans landing in the US to sabotage the infrastructure. There is a lot of legal precident behind it. If you dont believe me, google the term. Point is, you hurt your argument by adding that line in there.
Which article of the GC3 even mentions the words "unlawful combatant"? Any article of any of the 4 Geneva Conventions in question? Read them and then come back whining.
By the way the 3rd convention was signed 1949 making your "Supreme Court Decision" crap from 1942 in the other post even funnier.
this article pretty much demolishes your entire post. Relevant parts for those who don't want to bother clicking the link,
Right. A wikipedia "article" "demolishes" my argument. Cool. Lets see... which article of the GC3 even mentions the words "unlawful combatant"? As soon as you come back with one I will admit my error.
It was introduced into US domestic law in 1942 by a United States Supreme Court decision...
Here we go again. The Supreme Court has no authority to alter the Geneva Convention. Only all the signatories together can do so (over 200 countries). This alone should tell you the value of that "article". One should look at this US' uniliatreral attempt to modify to its own benefit a treaty it signed with 200 other countries and laugh.
Except the part about how the Geneva Convention is a reciprical agreement between signatory states and those who abide by it, neither of which can be said to apply to any of the pieces of shit at gitmo.
All those "pieces of shit" are there as the result of combat in either Afganistan (a war) or Iraq (a war) or a "War on Terror". Geneva conventions bind any signatory, regardless if they are fighting a country which was not one.
Folks like you piss and whine whenever US troops scare someone with a damn dog or make them sweat a little under the interrogation light, but you're awfully fucking quiet when the same type of folks we hold prisoner in gitmo blow up an iraqi police station, or kill a few newly elected iraqi officials in broad daylight.
Look, idiot, let me explain it in a way your peanut brain can absorb: this is becasue if you do the same as they do, you become the same pieces filthy shit they are. Get it? Now, I fully understand that it is the objective of some, like you, to become as imbecillic, vicious, murderous and bigoted as the Al-Queida crew, but some of us still hold to these "quaint" notions of civilization and that supposedly civilized nations are to be held to a higher standard then a band of blood-thirsty thugs.
Get your facts right. The people in camp X-ray were not wearing military fatigues. They are NOT covered by the geneva convention.
Of course they are. Geneva conventions (plural) cover all classes of participants in warfare, one of them is "non-uniformed" combatants (GC3) or alternatively civilians (GC4). There is no possibility of anyone in a war not to be covered by one of the Conventions. The "unlawful combatant" bullshit is wholly invented by the Bush Administration.
They are funded by ALL Canadian taxpayers, but have a nasty habit of advocating left wing liberal causes.
Damn those darn facts which have "left wing liberal" bias. And damn the CBC for reporting them! How dare they!
If they acted more like the BBC (yeah, they aren't perfect either)when it came to programming maybe they would have a larger viewing base
BBC also has a nasty habit of sticking to facts thus "yeah, they aren't perfect either" but it can be brown beaten by rigged "inquiries" and its executives made to resign for reporting them darn inconvenient facts, thus you like it more. And if you want "viewing base" then CBC should be showing "Survivor" 24/7, execpt that is not its mission.
Also, cbcwatch.ca is run and operated by Wayne MacLaurin, one of the Canadian dot.com con artists (he owned more dot.com busts then I can count, all of which appear to have served the purpose of "asset conversion" of that of shareholders to his pocket), and whose political stance can be described as "you cant fucking tax meee! I am too fucking important!!! Down with the commie Canada!" or something to that effect. Naturally a public broadcaster (or public health or public roads) is somewheat contrary to that ideology as are all other things which interfere with Mr. MacLaurin raking in money, like laws for example, a true Libertarian that he is.
Slashdot Mirror
To each their own. Some make ships in bottles or collect coins for fun or sit in front of the TV like vegetables all day. I post on Slashdot and other forums for mild amusement, at least its interactive. Call it a hobby.
US forces in Iraq killed more journalists in 2 years then in both sides in 10 years of Vietnam war. Next you are going to pretend that getting near gun fights is a new, never done before thing, invented by the press last week. Get a grip.
As for the entire Israel/Palestine issue- a muslim in Israel has it a lot better than a jew in a muslim country.
Besides them being second-class citizens. You should examine history. Prior to establishemnt of Israel a whole slew of Jews lived all over the Middle East, in places like Baghdad (where they had an entire quarter of the city) and did quite well. The shit hit the fan after Israel engaged in its antics of treating Arabs as if they were disposable trash to be buldozed out of the way. But your blinders will not let you see that.
Some of the lands Israel has that you like to call a 50 year old illegal occupation were lost to Israel when the surrounding countries attacked- and lost.
Bypassing the wee little point of White westerners getting together and carving pieces out of these countries without bothering to talk to them (who cares about those brown Arabs anyhow) and all the fun which followed from there, even if one accepts 1947 borders, as I do, you should note that no country is entitled to hold a piece of their neighbour it "conquered", regardless of who attacked who. And under the international law (which you, being a fascist, despise and hate) these are occupied territories. You must like both the Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union a lot. They too were in the same business as Israel when it comes to territorial expansion into their neighbours and operated on the same principle: "I took it, so its mine!".
which consisted mostly of put our tails between our legs and run
No which consisted of withdrawing to a defensible position, a wee little difference.
I don't expect you to do a damn thing. It would be a freakin miracle if any lefty canadian actually accomplished anything requiring the slightest ambition.
We have our own accomplishments but they are running contradictory to your fascist world view and thus you just will ignore them.
I only asked because you seem quite confident in your vast intellect. Though, i suppose, as a lefty canadian you'd be quite adept at forming up large, expensive, and useless government beuracracies.
Which also happen to have balanced budgets (a novel concept for you: a government which spends less or equal to what it earns, you should look into it) and provide all sorts of services to Canadians which make our lives much more livable then for a large chunk of US citizenry. But to each their own.
You don't seek out the good news coming from Iraq- and there is plenty- so you think it's a total failure (remember the old press axioms: If it bleeds, it leads, and no news is good news)
The good news out of Iraq is simply inconsequential in the light of the bad news, because the bad news is what drives the events. That is why it takes a band of dedicated ideologues with microsocopes to find them and slant them all to oblivion to make things look rosy. "Biggest Iraq reconstruction expo in Amman was a success!" says Chernkoff. In Amman. In Jordan! In Jordan because if it were held in Bagdad it would have been blown up into smithereens. If this was not so pathetic it would be funny. Economic development! Just that he forgot to mention 60% unemployment among Sunnis and one of their major cities leveled, where people live in tents on the ruins of their former homes. And who need iris scans to get in and out of their own city with 30% of them not allowed in or out. And that electricity in Baghdad is provided less then 8 hours a day, down from over 11 hours just a few months back. And that most of the country has no clean water and raw sewage on the streets is the norm. That has to be good for business. So the Kurds have it good. Except that they had it good for the last 15 years, as they were for all intents and purposes a separate state for all that time under the protection of no fly zones, and that it is now causing violence in Kirku
Which can be summarized quite accurately as "How dare these fucking journalists, like, duh, try to film stuff when we are shootin' things and stuff, yea! Their fault for, like, duh, not staying at home and writing an ode to our Brave, like, duh, Soldiers! Only, if their, like, duh, home is in like, duh, Green Zone or we can still shoot em up, like, cause, like, duh, we are fightin', them, duh, like, Terrists and stuff, duh. It is all them, duh, journalists, fault, like, duh, for us shootin' em up, duh. Cause, duh, all jorunalists are, like, libruls. And it always is, like, someone else's, like, duh, damn fault anyway. Always. Out Brave Troops, like, are Glorious, duh, and like, Brave and stuff, duh. Them never be making, like, mistakes and things, or shootin' them journalists, like, duh, on purpose, duh, even if them are, like, evil librul journalists and, them, like, deserve to die, duh. Yuk! Yuk!".
Just about as much a Iraq did to the US.
We have clear cause for fighting jihadists, and it's best done in their backyard, not ours.
But here is the very lie you are living. The "jihadists" you speak of are not only a minuscule portion of Muslim societies in Middle East, and elsewhere, but your very presence and actions in the Middle East creates them.
You also disingenuously ignore their laughable military capabilities (that is before you gave them the resources of torn-apart Iraq to plunder). It took Osama and crew 20 years of effort, 2 attempts and a gigantic dose of luck (and incompetence on the US authorities' part) to manage to destroy the WTC. And even then, the apex of technology he was able to achieve involved box cutters.
Furthermore, the death toll, being as unjust and devastating for New Yorkers that day as it can be, was in perspective an insignificant blimp on the statistics of the nation. Car accidents kill 47,000+ people a year in the US. Bin Laden, in the pinnacle of his freedom and resources, after 20 years of effort, managed 3000.
And in response the US went batshit crazy. "Overreaction" is far too mild a word. Instead of pursuing cooperation of nations in bringing the responsible criminals to justice, it went to "war". A "war" against 0.001% of Muslims, involving bringing misery and humiliation to the remaining 99.999%. Terms like "Fishing with dynamite" or "Mosquito hunting with 500lb bombs" come to mind. Now if there was a brilliant plan designed to fail, ever, this is it.
Similarly, in London, perhaps 10 men with $200 of a budget, scared the whole Britain into abandoning reason and running around in panic, shedding their basic liberties and rights.
The "enemy" you speak of is only capable of, at best, minuscule (in military terms) attacks, whose power comes from the panic mongering in the very Western media, too busy with "infotainment" to pursue reason (but that is another story). His technological level is laughable and will remain so as he has no ability to obtain any of those "WMDs" which the clever manipulators of the "war" on this side continuously panic monger about. Don't even bother spinning contorted, never-never land, make believe, Tom Clancy fables of under-the-desert complexes staffed with Russian scientists or similar nonsense.
All that is required to repel all these attacks on the US mainland is good intelligence and screening at entry. Intelligence which has to be obtained from the Muslim populations from which those malcontents originate. And this is where the whole imbecilic contraption of "War on Terror" truly falls apart. By conducting yourself as a master race (even if you claim otherwise) in the Middle Eastern affairs, by decades of utterly callous disregard for the wishes of the inhabitants of the place, by engaging in wanton destruction and outright subjugation of the people there by military means on fabricated pretexts (say hello to Adolf again), you are losing the war on the "jihadis" completely and utterly. Because the way to defeat those tiny minority radicals is to make sure that their own societies find their activities abhorrent, counter-productive, unjust and so on. Instead they are seen as "a duty of a Muslim" and "desperate and just response of the oppressed to their oppressor", thanks to your brainless tactic.
But I posit that it is so by design, because the "War on Terror" and all the idiotic slogans like "Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" (which will inevitably and spectacularly fail if you stay the course much longer, as the number of the ever-more-determined "jihadis" now grows much faster then you can kill them) are actually designed to prolong and escalate the "war" so that those who benefit from this arrangement can get their loot and consolidate their power. And that would be your fascist heroes. The state purse looters, th
I skipped that toxic piece of fascist thinking because it is not worth refuting. Not because I am somehow superior but becuse that sort of crap was being refuted starting all the way back in 1920s when it first surfaced. All that has changed in it are the villains de jeur but the rhetoric is the exact same nonsense. I cant even fathom why would you post something from a vile racist who feels his "service" to Apartheid South African army is something to be proud of? That to kill (pre-emptively no less) anyone who happens to disagree with him is a good and civilized idea?! If you were to apply even half of those disturbed notions you would end up with an uncanny facsimile of the Nazi Germany circa 1930s. Only a proud fascist would do so.
As for the nazi comments, way to Godwinn the thread.
You gotta be kidding. You posted a compilation of almost verbatim excerpts from various Nazi speeches by Hitler, Goebbels and others, sprinkled with some South African and Israeli supremacist ideas and you are accusing me of calling Godwin upon myself!
My argument is that some people must be dealt with harshly because they have not be raised in a civilization that values what we do. It's not a matter of race, it's a matter of being born and raised in a civilization that respects decency.
Or to put it this way:
We are not a master race, but we have a superior society, and the fact that it isn't blindingly obvious to you makes me think you've spent a few too many years being indoctrinated by multicultural evangalists.
Err, the reason that we have that "superior" society is because that society adheres to these wild notions of Personal Liberty, Law, Due Process and similar funny stuff. You apparently see no harm in jettisoning all of that, just because you happen to be frightened by the latest bogeyman. Not understanding, apparently, that as soon as you do that, that particular game called "civilization" is over and we have joined the savages.
Civilization would fall if those charged with guarding it thought as this fellow. So much self-flaggelation over the rights of the enemy, so little concern about actually finishing the job so war's unpleasent aspects can be discontinued.
Or as your mentor used to say it, "guarding the peoples". As to the job at hand:
All of that in the name of peace, of course:
Yes, no doubt, now. I strongly suggest that you go back to admiring your collection of swastikas and parading in that Wehrmacht helmet of yours in front of the mirror. I hope it will make it up to you for leaving the ranks of civilized humanity.
And to those Slashdot readers who somehow find themselves reading this: go back and see how much this neo-nazi tried to appear "reasonable" at the beginning of this thread, almost passing as a honest participant in the discussion of Geneva Conventions, until I found him out. Let it be a warning to you that those who are in such inexplicable opposition to things plainly obvious as decent and just, might be in fact thinly disguised dwellers of some unspeakably vile sewers of history.
Ah yes, we are now going to engage in "my insult is better then your insult", as a diversionary measure designed to save you from admitting that you were trying to posture as an innocent victim of my verbal abuse, and that you were caught doing so. Perhaps you should try this on someone who has not seen this trick a few hundred times already.
No go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.
Message understood: you admit the failure of your reasoning and are skulking away, trying to cover your retreat with references to Monty Python's, much more funny then your pitiful attempts, work.
Err, thats the "CONVENTION ON THE INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF RIGHTS IN AIRCRAFT" dude. A Geneva one, yes, but a completely wrong one. The four Conventions pertaining to basic warfare were signed by over 200 countries which is nearly everyone on the globe.
Moreover, the jihadists from various contries pouring in to fight the 'infidels' sure as hell don't fight for any recognized army or country, and aren't covered by any treaty whatsoever.
Nothing of the sort. They are covered by GC4 as criminal civilians to be tried for mass murder etc, in regular courts with all due process.
Such types comprise most of the people with extended involuntary stays in cuba.
Which makes that stay utterly and completely illegal, not to mention immoral and seriously undermining whatever remains of US' credibility.
They're just there to kill people.
Which makes them civilian bandits due for civilian courts or enemy combatants due for POW camps as long as they adhere to rules of conduct of war, alternatively a civilian war crimes court.
However, please post the links you have of stories of Iraq Army soldiers being 'tortured'.
You cannot be serious. Most of the denizens of Abu Gharib (and many other such places where the pictures did not manage to leak - and thus no problem, right?) are Saddam's Baath army members or "suspected insurgents" aka people under Article 4.A.2 of GC3.
So you admit then that an uncivilized response can be warranted to an uncivilized opponent.
You mean to equate a pointy verbal response to murdering people after secret trials, with no adequate representation, on secret evidence, in undisclosed locations? I sure hope that was not what you meant. Furthermore, no, an uncivilized action does not warrant an uncivilized response in the field of warfare. If it were so, one could claim to be perfectly justified setting up gas chambers in Gitmo. I hope that is not what you are trying to insinuate.
Also, the tales of 'torture' I hear out of Gitmo sound like the lamest torture ever invented. Made to sit uncomfortably. blindfolded and forced to listen to static. scared by dogs. moved between hot and cold rooms. Cry me a river, i've put myself through far worse than any of that intentionally.
Yes, and some eat broken glass for fun and profit too. I also hear some gay men are thought to enjoy sodomy. I tell you what, get your buddies to make you do that when you are not in the mood and for far longer then you think is acceptable. Then come back and discuss it.
If they are proper prisoners of war as you suggest, then they should be held until the end of hostilities. No trial, evidence, or communication needed. They're simply being kept off the battlefield.
Yes but under a well defined set of circumstances, which do not include black bags on heads, cages, sleep depravation and the like. The conditions at Stalag 13 were superior to those at Gitmo and that is nothing to be proud of.
As for the reuters journalist, there's been more than once when the press has been tipped off about an impeding terrorist photo-op and dutifully showed up to film people getting murdered, instead of warning anyone. Reuters folks have participated in such activities.
How could you not comprehend the freedom of the press? It is their prerogative, specially if they are third parties to the conflict to obtain intel from any side. If you think that entitles the US army to treat them as "insurgents" that means you have completely lost any perspective and became a modern version of a Brown Shirt, equally as dangerous to those who love the social achievments of our civilization as the terrorists themselves.
Reuters can whine and stamp all it wants about demanding release, but I'm more inclined to believe our military has a good reason to hold onto them, then terrorist-symp
Or perhaps, just maybe, the features were nowhere as important to the "success" as the marketing circus and the corresponding lunatic expectations of 300% profits and subsequent disappointment at "lack of growth" of the shareholders. Aka failure of logic and capitalism in general, so common these days. Apple is milking the market of the fashion sheep for all its worth and a great many of pin-headed businessmen drool at the idea of "iPod-killer", meaning taking all that undeserved profit for themselves. Reasonable products and modest profits are not something they are interested in.
The point was, marketing muscle alone isn't enough to make a product successful.
There was a time I would believe it, but then this happened.
Read up, it actually says some companies will have a small advantage that they can leverage against their competitors to steal marketshare. Its quite fascinating. Modern communications and distribution will work to increase this effect, which makes the overall system even mor efficient.
Nothing of the sort. As soon as that occurs, that little wee thing called competition is supposed to restore the equilibrium by new players entering the market. Adam Smith repeatedly warned about monopolies and oligopolies being the worst threat to his "invisible hand" model. Read up indeed.
Rio had piss-poor marketing, so? This feeds into the "Rio had bad management" arguement. Marketing is supposed to pay for itself, I spend $1 million advertising my product, it generates sufficient sales to earn $1.3 million. If all it took was advertising, then Rio should have paid for it.
What you neglect to see is that marketing of that sort, aka "branding" is contrary to the tenets of capitalism. The idea of consumer choice is predicated upon the consumer being knowledgeable, being able to make a rational choice. If that fails, the whole capitalist "invisible hand" system fails. Add to this the fact that the types of marketing Apple could do were simply not available to Rio. Apple leveraged its existing "brand recognition" and could also afford much larger campaigns then Rio and sign contracts with recording companies Rio was too small for. It was (and still is) a stacked deal.
Is this what bothers you? that Apple had the insight to realize something other than technology might motivate buyers? Because Sony realized this too, as did Nike, and dozens of others.
See "invisible hand" and failure of thereof above.
What you said is "Their reasons are stoopid and mine are intelligent".
I am sorry, I was unable to find that line in my posts, could you point me to it?
And occaisonal typos and spelling errors, which you have helpfully pointed out because you are no better than me.
I started pointing them out because I realized they interfered with the logic of the sentence. I assumed that by passively pointing them out (as opposed to "you made a typo here! haha! Look everyone!" as some do) I am simply giving you the opportunity to correct the meaning should I guess it wrong.
Ah, you were using the "two wrongs make a right" arguement. That because they are foolish and childish, you should be too.
Nothing of the sort. But you simply cannot accuse me of something the original poster does because I point that out. It does not work that way, which, I am sure, you find disappointing and confusing.
Assuming I read that correctly, quote you:
Perha
... Afghanistan and Iraq both were parties. Your point?
Now, when you're done eating your humble pie over that,
There is no "humble pie" to be eaten.
we can discuss how truly committed you are to being civilized if you rapidly degrade into middle-school name calling:
Then you should also note that it is merely a response to same.
We can also discuss how human scum may or maynot be receptive to the kinder, gentler ways we prefer, and how we may have to adopt more brutal methods when dealing with these particular types if it is the only effective means of supressing and defeating such types.
Calling people names haven't killed or tortured anyone. Granted I have a short fuse for morons but that is my personal failing. What impact does that have on keeping people incommunicado in chains for years on no evidence I am not quite sure. How does it explain this type of behaviour escapes me. Could you explain?
Not really. The GC3 states:
As soon as Iraq or Afghanistan recognized it as war, that legal fig-leaf was gone.No it is simply a matter of jurisdiction. The Conventions simply state that of you are a sole man with a gun taking pot-shots at the occupying troops and you manages to kill someone you are then simply a murderer under the civilian law and to be tried accordingly. If you are a citizen turned spy you get to be tried as a spy under existing treason laws of the country you are in etc.
What you seem to be missing is that the Conventions do not immunize anyone other then the specific classes they mention (POWs) for the specific actions (acceptable warfare). For the rest they simply assign the types of trial to be conducted. That is how noone can slip through the cracks and that is why what the US does is so egregious because the US simply bypassed the whole process and declared itself beyond and above any of these provisions, claiming that it can arbitrarily establish a new class of participant, one who has no rights whatsoever other then those US happens to be in the mood of granting. Under the conventions that is not possible, either you are to be treated as a combatant or a civilian. No special kind of "grey zone" exists.
You should note that I only responded to ad-hominem attacks in kind.
According to this [wikipedia] article 2 of the third geneva convention states: That the relationship between the "High Contracting Parties" and a non-signatory, the party will remain bound until such time as the non-signatory no longer acts under the strictures of the convention. "
Wikipedia lies. Please do not quote Wikipedia on anything political because it is utterly unreliable as a source and its data depends on whose political bias happens to be dominant at the moment in the "edit wars".
The actual GC3 text is:
Which is quite different (i.e. no opt-out clause). The question is rather academic as both Afghanistan and Iraq were signatories. However consider this: if the Wikipedia interpretation were true it would allow one to start acting arbitrarily barbaric in respect to captured soldiers just because you are fighting someone who does not subscribe to the Conventions. In this line of reasoning, one could argue you are entitled to set up gas chambers for the members of Al-Queida just because they are not officially a party to the Geneva Conventions and are not following their rules. But US still must adhere. Such is the burden of the defender of Liberty. Either you believe in it or you are just an obnoxious opportunistic pretender. No other options exist for the US.What you can argue (and which is the point of view I hold) is that Al-Queida is not an armed force of a Power but a criminal organization to be dealt with via criminal courts the very same way you deal with the Mafia or some of the european leftist rebels of the 1980s and similar social malcontents. They cannot be considered a nation or any other sort of Power which the GC3 would apply to in a war-like scenario, because you simply cannot be at war with them (GC4 still applying to those found in Iraq/Afghanistan). Thus Gitmo is simply illegal as the US is not at war with Al-Queida. In the context of Iraq and Afghanistan the Conventions apply as usual and the US has to stingently follow the rules.
GC3 explicitly states you only get protection if you wear uniform, so why should one demand protection if you don't wear uniform?
The article 4.A.1 makes no such distinction:
It makes no note of uniform. These additional provisions apply to a different category described in 4.A.2. Also note that if you do not fall under GC3 then by default you are covered by GC4. The "insurgents" are then either POWs (if they were in Saddam's army and still believe they are in it), armed resistance under 4.A.2 (all they need is command structure, some basic rules of engagement, a head-band and a weapon worn in the open - see the battle for Falluja) or they are war criminals (that is POWs until their trial in a civilian court or in Hague under the supervision of a Protecting Power) or civilian criminals in which case they get tried in their own country (that would be all those Al-Queida foreign idiots who blow up schools if they are not deemed to fall under 4.A.2).In which case he is a criminal to be tried for mass murder by the courts in his country. As far as the Occupying Power is concerned he falls under the Fourth Convention.
The preamble of first convention of 1949:
Yes, technically the Conventions originated in 1929 but they were nearly completely revised at the end of WWII as a result of the Nazi experiences.
The US didn't sign the treaty that would recognize the permanent international war crimes court in the Hague.
Which is only another point against the US.
As far as I'm aware the US is bound by the following verbage in the same treaty quoted above ... before its own courts
Yes but not military tribunals. "Own courts" here refers to regular civilian courts with all the due process that entails. Witness the following section of Article 146:
but most importantly examine the whole provision of "Protecting Power" (i.e. 3rd party to oversee the trials) which exists solely for the purpose of curbing arbitrary judgments, see Aticle 9 and so on.Again, the standard is "competant tribunal", not civilian courts, and certainly not international courts. I'll admit there's certainly room for reasonable people to disagree about what that means
The term "competent tribunal" does not even appear in GC4 you quoted. The term appears in GC3 in Article 5 as
Note that it applies only to the determination of status of the combatant. Following which the other provisions kick in: civilian criminal = civlilian court, POW = internment till hostilities cease, War Criminal = a trial in front of a regular court for war crimes (under the supervision of a Protecting Power) or in Hague if you are sane and do not wish to credibly accused of rigging the trial (see Milosevicz and crew).And that is to be arbitrarily determined by the very enemy who captured them?! You gotta be kidding. If that were true, no soldier ever would qualify as a POW as soon as some officer in the invading army decided that he "violated the rules of war". As per GC3 4.A.1, the POW status is awarded with no exceptions to: "Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces" which would cover all Taliban foot soldiers (an army of Taliban-controlled Afganistan) and all Iraqi "insurgents" who were members of the Saddam's Ba'ath army. Note that the additional conditions are placed in 4.A.2 only on "other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements".
If you were to take your reasoning to its logical conclusion, the Chech partisans who assassinated the Reinhard Heidrich - the German Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia would be terrorists and the Germans would be entitled to do with them as they please. I do not even want to consider looking into the the dark sewers of relative morality such an opinion could only dwell in.
The Numremberg trials were possible because the actions of the German leadership were so at odds with civilized conduct that all of the members of the Alliance agreed upon and came up with a protocol to deal with them. The Geneva Conventions are a result of that agreement as they were signed after the Nuremburg trials.
While the Geneva conventions prohibit the trial of POWs for the act of making war, they can be tried, by US military tribunal, for violations of rules of war. We are perfectly within our rights, under international law, to execute these people if they are judged to be war criminals.
NO! If they are "violating the rules of war" that determination is to be made by the court in Hague not by the US! You can't appoint yourself judge, jury and executioner. The test to determine if they are "violating rules of war" is designed so that you cannot fudge it yourself, to your own ends. Only after the international courts decide that these people were indeed violating the rules, can you try them in (international or under international supervision) military tribunals. Until then they are POWs.
The Third Convention. Note no "unlawful combatants" there.
Those not covered by GC3 fall under the Fourth Convention
i am interested in hearing how president bush went back in time to 1942 and added the idea of unlawful combatants in the US legal system.
US legal system is irrelevant as the Geneva Conventions override it (as all treaties do). The GC3 was signed in 1949 which would take precedence over a 1942 decision even within US legal system itself. "Unlawful combatant" in regards to the Geneva Convention is a never before used (in this context) invention of the Bush Administration and you can quote all appologist-made Wikipedia articles (this being the main reason Wikipedia is such a poor source of political data) you can find and it will still not change this rather obvious and easily verified fact.
Put that, whatever you are smoking, down or you might walk out of the window thinking its the way to the bathroom.
In which case the US is not at war and they are merely criminals to be tried in accrodance with international law standards. You cannot have it both ways! Either they are para-military caught during military operations or they are criminal suspects. What the Bush Administration has done is to invent a whole new category of "no-rights-whatsover-because-we-say-so" oponents. This is only giving factual ammunition to those who had long claimed the US to be a hypocritical warmonger whose oh-so-pious regard for law extends only as far as its interests.
The Federal Courts, the Supreme Court, the members of both houses of Congress, all know and say this is perfectly legal.
No, but they do they know on which side their bread is buttered and we are talking about some inconsequential brown people of whom a number are actual terrorists so who cares. Its not like they are going to get a TV campaign going during elections or something that would actually hurt these members of Congress.
But a little fool on the Internet, living in Hyper-reality, has no explanation as to [i]how[/i] the Bush Administration is, in his view, doing something illegal.
Explanation is really simple, dimwit: none of the Geneva Conventions allow for this, they don't even mention an "unlawful combatant" as a valid class of prisoners. And they apply to all signatories regardless if they are fighting a non-signarory, as long as they are at "war". Its dead simple. And if you are not at "war" then they are criminal suspects and suject to internationally accepted laws, including access to a lawyer etc.
There is one possibility you and your liberal blogs have not considered: that it is perfectly legal and proper to do so (after all, terrorists don't attend conventions).
Proper? Proper?! You mean to sink to the level of murderous, beheding, torturing, child-killing thugs because you are fighting them is proper?! In that case you have not only already lost that fight but you will be counted among those very barbarous enemies of civilization, democracy, law and freedom. And that would be proper indeed.
Which article of the GC3 even mentions the words "unlawful combatant"? Any article of any of the 4 Geneva Conventions in question? Read them and then come back whining.
By the way the 3rd convention was signed 1949 making your "Supreme Court Decision" crap from 1942 in the other post even funnier.
Right. A wikipedia "article" "demolishes" my argument. Cool. Lets see ... which article of the GC3 even mentions the words "unlawful combatant"? As soon as you come back with one I will admit my error.
It was introduced into US domestic law in 1942 by a United States Supreme Court decision ...
Here we go again. The Supreme Court has no authority to alter the Geneva Convention. Only all the signatories together can do so (over 200 countries). This alone should tell you the value of that "article". One should look at this US' uniliatreral attempt to modify to its own benefit a treaty it signed with 200 other countries and laugh.
All those "pieces of shit" are there as the result of combat in either Afganistan (a war) or Iraq (a war) or a "War on Terror". Geneva conventions bind any signatory, regardless if they are fighting a country which was not one.
Folks like you piss and whine whenever US troops scare someone with a damn dog or make them sweat a little under the interrogation light, but you're awfully fucking quiet when the same type of folks we hold prisoner in gitmo blow up an iraqi police station, or kill a few newly elected iraqi officials in broad daylight.
Look, idiot, let me explain it in a way your peanut brain can absorb: this is becasue if you do the same as they do, you become the same pieces filthy shit they are. Get it? Now, I fully understand that it is the objective of some, like you, to become as imbecillic, vicious, murderous and bigoted as the Al-Queida crew, but some of us still hold to these "quaint" notions of civilization and that supposedly civilized nations are to be held to a higher standard then a band of blood-thirsty thugs.
Of course they are. Geneva conventions (plural) cover all classes of participants in warfare, one of them is "non-uniformed" combatants (GC3) or alternatively civilians (GC4). There is no possibility of anyone in a war not to be covered by one of the Conventions. The "unlawful combatant" bullshit is wholly invented by the Bush Administration.
Damn those darn facts which have "left wing liberal" bias. And damn the CBC for reporting them! How dare they!
If they acted more like the BBC (yeah, they aren't perfect either)when it came to programming maybe they would have a larger viewing base
BBC also has a nasty habit of sticking to facts thus "yeah, they aren't perfect either" but it can be brown beaten by rigged "inquiries" and its executives made to resign for reporting them darn inconvenient facts, thus you like it more. And if you want "viewing base" then CBC should be showing "Survivor" 24/7, execpt that is not its mission.
Also, cbcwatch.ca is run and operated by Wayne MacLaurin, one of the Canadian dot.com con artists (he owned more dot.com busts then I can count, all of which appear to have served the purpose of "asset conversion" of that of shareholders to his pocket), and whose political stance can be described as "you cant fucking tax meee! I am too fucking important!!! Down with the commie Canada!" or something to that effect. Naturally a public broadcaster (or public health or public roads) is somewheat contrary to that ideology as are all other things which interfere with Mr. MacLaurin raking in money, like laws for example, a true Libertarian that he is.