Tom Watson wrote:
On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:12:37 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:
wrote:
SNIP
From the Fourth Protocol, 1949:
Art. 4. Persons protected by the Convention are those who,
at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves,
in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to
the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.
Sorry Sparky, the 4th Protocol is specifically authored for *civilians*.
A person engaging in combat while dressed in civilian garb - i.e., No
distinguishable uniform is NO LONGER A CIVILIAN, and thus not protected
by this Geneva agreement. That's why we can legally hang spies, incarcerate
them without normal due process, and generally do (almost) anything
we want to them. The Geneva conventions (last I read them - perhaps
Barbara Streisand or Rosie O'Donnell have updated them with their
considerable intellectual abilities) make a clear distinction between
combatants/non-combatants/civilians. Too bad all the Lefties today
can't do the same thing ...
"...The Plataeans had surrendered on the promise that the guilty would
be punished, but only after trial. The "trial" consisted simply in
asking them one by one what they had done for the Spartan side in the
war. It seems that one of Thucydides' purposes in this part of the
history is to illustrate the moral effects of the war by describing
some of the atrocities and injustices committed by both sides."
http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y6701.html
"Athenian atrocities such as those against Melos (whose men were
massacred and women and children sold into slavery, after they had
resisted Athenian demands to join their League in 416/15) “should
rather be ascribed to the evil effects that war has upon the character
of man. In this respect human behaviour has not changed” (174), it
causes distinct discomfort to be told that “the Athenian disposition
of the Mytilenaean problem cannot be considered excessively harsh”
(140; “only” one thousand men were executed, after the Athenians had
changed their minds and did not treat them as they would treat
Melos);"
http://www.trentu.ca/academic/ahc/qq95mcg.htm
"Tritle equates the atrocity at My Lai with Athenian actions at Melos
in 416-5BC. There, Athenian soldiers put to death all adult males,
enslaved the women and children and gave over the territory to 500
Athenian settlers. Tritle sees Melos and My Lai as clear examples of
actions taken by soldiers suffering from battle-induced post traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD). The comparison is natural and euphonic. Melos
and My Lai are the most infamous atrocities perpetrated by the "good
guys" in the Peloponnesian and Vietnam wars. But the Melos side of the
equation is problematical."
http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/...s/16feb01.html
Of course, "This is not another Vietnam" (op cit - various).
Neither is it another Peloponnesian War.
Neither is it a Fifth Century BCE internecine engagement.
It is what it is and is as it was ever thus:
Res Ipsa Loquitur.
If you can downshift for a moment from your argumentative mode and see
the table as it has been set before you, you will find that, once we
are engaged - and "grim visaged war" holds sway, we revert - and that
"we" is actually "WE", as the state is man writ large and we are held
accountable, if not by our gods, then certainly by our historians.
Perhaps, but it is equally true that survival comes before almost
everything. If, in the act of attempting to be as enlightened as
possible and as liberal in our treatment of our enemies as we can be, we
commit suicide, we've lost our humanity just as surely as if we'd been
roasting barbarians on the spit in front of the Pentagon. There has to
be balance and oversight in this matter. Neither the ideological Left or
Right want any such thing. The Right wants a blank check - which I
oppose - and the Left wants to apply the niceties of our domestic social
contract to foreign invaders - which I oppose even more. I do not want
to see our culture be further diminished and eroded so that Michael
Moore can continue to stuff donuts in his chubby little face and lecture
the rest of us about "restraint".
I took Rob's initial point to be a cautionary note that we not become
the next "good Germans", who choose to ignore the horrors inflicted in
our name.
It is a valid assertion and deserves to be treated with respect.
Not when he falsely claims the authority of a document that has no
standing in this particular case. If he (or you) want to make the
case that we ought to tread carefully even when dealing with spies or
other non-uniformed combatants, that's a fair debate. But performing
textual prestidigitation to give an argument the appearance of authority
when the source claims specifically does *not* apply, is cheap political
theater. It is a time-honored canon of war that nonuniformed combatants
enjoy essentially no protection other than the good will of their captors.
This is Reality ... as opposed to the Lefthink that opposes it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/