On May 21, 4:25*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:

The underlying problem with this entire argument - the hingepoint if
you like - is whether the U.S. has any treaty obligations to people
who make war in plain clothes, make war intentionally upon
non-involved non-combatants, and purposely hide among civilian
populations when being pursued. My understanding is that we have one
important obligation to such people upon capturing them: Formally
finding out whether or not they are in one of the classes of people
specifically protected by treaty obligations (POWs, civilians caught
up in wartime, etc.), or whether we can treat them as spies with
essentially no redress under any treaty to which we are signatories.

Then there's the smelly leftwing elephant in the room. The left - for
entirely political reasons - insists on trying to regard these
combatants as subject to and having standing before our domestic
*civilian* law. But these people have no such standing unless they
happen to be U.S. citizens (in which case they are entitled to our
full legal protections since their citizenship trumps any
international treaty). Foreign non-citizen invaders - in- or out of
uniform - are covered at most by international treaty. They have no
legal redress before a domestic legal system to which they are not
parties.

I think you're wrong there - citizenship is not a test for whether someone
is subject to our laws. During WW2, hundreds of thousands of German and
Italian POWs were held in U.S. territory, many of whom were U.S. citizens
(think dual citizenship). Not one got access to our courts. See below for
why. The issue of citizenship was raised by a couple of the German saboteurs
captured in New Jersey. The Supreme Court said citizenship didn't matter.

Even Moses told the Israelites: "You shall have but one law for your
brethren and the sojourner in your midst."



By this definition, the Bush administration was dead wrong in
the Hamdi case - Hamdi was a U.S. citizen - and SCOTUS properly found
this way. But you don't go onto the field of battle - even if it is on
your own domestic soil - and start handing out the full rights of
legal residence to people who are essentially an invading army. This
is sheer insanity possible only by people who think Noam Chomsky is a
genius, Ward Churchill is right, and Barack Obama is a statesman.

There may be practical, political, and PR reasons arguing for- or
against waterboarding or having to listen to Keith Olberman's regular
squealings - both arguably forms of torture - but there is no *legal*
reason not to when the subject is: a) Not a U.S. citizen, and b)
Operating as a non-uniformed combatant making war upon civilians.

The 4th Geneva Convention defines a "lawful enemy combatant" as one who a)
Wears a distinctive uniform, b) Carries arms openly, c) Reports to a defined
chain-of-command, AND d) Conforms his conduct to the customary rules of
warfare. By extension, anyone not meeting all four of these conditions is an
"unlawful" enemy combatant.

The folks at Gitmo - and Hamdi - are unlawful enemy combatants. They are not
criminals and are not entitled to the protections our Constitution gives to
criminal defendants (trial by jury, lawyer, indictment, etc.). Neither are
they POWs subject to the restrictions of various treaties, conventions, and
the rules of war. As unlawful enemy combatants they are subject to the whim
of the president under his Article II powers.

In wars past, most UECs were summarily executed. These included spies,
saboteurs, guerrillas, fifth-columnists, and the like. As distasteful as it
is, belligerent entities are will within their rights according to the
customary rules of war to dispose of UECs forthwith in any manner they see
fit.

Until 1951, the rules governing the conduct of the U.S. Navy ("Rocks and
Shoals") permitted the hanging of captured pirates by any captain of a naval
vessel.

I read your dissertation and a lot of it works for me. That is when it
comes to dealing with UEC's.
However, where does torture come in? You well know, that you can get
ANYBODY to confess to ANYTHING.
So what is the value of that torture? A sadistic outlet?
Or worse. And by that I mean torturing somebody so they will spit out
the support for a war which was started under false pretences. IOW, if
you don't have the reasons to wage war, torture somebody to say
something that will justify your phoney reason?
Where is the legal, moral justification for THAT reason to torture?

" Look honey, I nuked that country because they were going to nuke
us!"
"oops, I better get somebody to say that they WERE, in fact, going to
nuke us."

The thing that ****es me off and many others, world-wide, is that
slimy, dirty apologists' revisionist history which is used to cloak
the real reasons for killing 4000+ of your finest soldiers: greed.
There is NO justification to kill and torture for greed.