This is a crime that violates the 5th and 6th amendments, and we should be arresting and prosecuting those who gave the order to violate this man's constitutional rights.
Are our rights worth less than the paper they are written on?
Well, you may have a chance to act on that belief, if you are ever called to sit in judgement on a jury. Lots of things will prevent you from acting unilaterally (no total, sentencing authority; other members of the jury), but you'll be able to say your 2 cents. That's the beauty of the way our criminal justice system works . . .
. . . or works in an ideal, happy-path case, at least. Exceptions like this one are far from uncommon. The military justice system in general is pretty far from that in a lot of cases. So are things like FISA courts etc. Whether we should be trying to move closer to that ideal (which, even when practiced perfectly, has its flaws) or not is anyone's guess.
If you consider the US Constitution some sort of whimsical fancy in the domain of fairies, I am glad you're discharged. And saddened that anyone considered you honorable.
Not thinking the constitution applies in a foreign war zone isn't something someone should be discharged for, and that opinion should not be used to judge someone's entire life.
Forget the constitution, ex/soldiers should know better than to dismiss the Geneva convention offhandedly like this, it isn’t a good look for a military without a stellar reputation as is.
>The Geneva Conventions are treaties between states that define how they will treat each other's soldiers if captured in war.
The Geneva Conventions are a set of ethical standards that should apply to all persons, regardless of the legal application
>The Geneva Conventions do not apply to wars with non-state actors or states who are not participants to the treaty.
Any person that is of good moral and ethical character would apply them to all persons.
>The Geneva Conventions would never apply to traitors on your own side, which is the case here.
Has there been a trial convicting the person of Treason under US Law?
I guess no only to you not believe in basic human rights, you also subscribe to the moronic ideology of "guilty until proven innocent" where the government only has to assert treason, not actually prove it beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of your peers
>Perhaps military people know more about the Geneva Conventions than you give them credit for.
I am not really interested in the legal application of the Geneva Accords, I am interested in the moral and ethical foundation they are based on.
Ethical and moral people believe that the Geneva Accords should apply to all persons at all times regardless of declarations of war or any other factors.
This moronic idea that you should abuse, torture, or treat inhumanly a person simply because they are a "non-state" actor has no place in the modern world, it is an excuse to defend barbarism, barbarism we should be looking to expunge from the world not justify
> I am not really interested in the legal application of the Geneva Accords, I am interested in the moral and ethical foundation they are based on
That is a completely fine and reasonable position as an individual, but that cannot be the position of someone in the military.
If everyone in the military decided how to exercise lethal force on the basis of their own personal morality as opposed to what their civilian government has decided the law is that would be complete chaos.
Any blame here falls entirely on the civilian government which has decided, in accordance with all its laws, that the things you object to are legal and right.
The military is doing its duty under the law to obey the directives of civilian authority.
If you disagree with the law, then by all means object, but object to those who are responsible for making the law.
The alternative is that the military decides the law for itself, which would be a military dictatorship, and I don't think you would advocate for that.
>That is a completely fine and reasonable position as an individual, but that cannot be the position of someone in the military.
Well I have to go Godwin on that... So you hold the soldiers that put then Jews in the oven blameless for their unethical and immoral actions because "they were just following orders"
That defense never worked in Nuremberg.
The idea that unethical actions should simply be dismissed because you were ordered by someone that claims higher authority to commit an unethical action is absurd to me.
>That is a completely fine and reasonable position as an individual, but that cannot be the position of someone in the military.
The comment we are all replying to is not "someone in the military" but someone that has been discharged from the military and is continuing to support this unethical position.
>the civilian government which has decided, in accordance with all its laws, that the things you object to are legal and right.
They may have decided they are legal, that is all.
Legal and ethical are very very different
>Any blame here falls entirely on the civilian government
Nope, I can blame everyone involved. "Just following orders" is not a valid defense IMO
>>In that case, also blame the tax payers, who are the ones who fund all of this.
So you are under the mythical belief that Taxation is voluntarily, when in reality taxation is involuntary theft if you refuse they will come and take it from you, if you resist their taking your property they will put you in a cage and if you resist them putting you in a cage they will kill you.
Taxation is in no way a voluntary act
>>The individual soldiers who actually carried out atrocities on their orders were never charged.
> The Geneva Conventions are treaties between states that define how they will treat each other's soldiers if captured in war.
They also cover treatment of civilians, medical units, and infrastructure. Amongst other things.
> The Geneva Conventions do not apply to wars with non-state actors or states who are not participants to the treaty
Yes, they do.
The protections are not as extensive, but the conventions also cover any armed conflict within the territory of a contracting party, such as the Syrian Arab Republic. They also cover occupation of a contracting party's territory, whether armed or not.
> The Geneva Conventions would never apply to traitors on your own side, which is the case here.
The conventions don't make any exception for traitors. They certainly don't allow Syria to take an ISIS fighter prisoner and avoid their convention responsibilities by handing him over to the US.
The point of the conventions is sort of a mutual aid that encourages nations to abide by rules of war. It is not a right in any real sense, nor does it mean one side must always act ethically to the other side which ignores and flouts it. Essentially its a gentleman's agreement, and is as binding as one of those.
Once one side breaks it, I don't think treating them like they haven't is proper.
right. the only enforcement mechanism for international law is war (economic or military). So to enforce the laws of war requires more war, which limits their practical effect.
> The conventions don't make any exception for traitors
Yes, but the basis of the conventions is treaties between states. Only a state that was party to that treaty would have standing to claim that the treaty had been violated.
Since a traitor would be a citizen of the state who would theoretically be violating the treaty then no other state would have standing to assert a violation.
Isn't he an "unlawful enemy combatant" (does not wear an uniform and carry arms openly, so Geneva does not apply) and not a "traitor"?
OT. There's a famous Vietnam photo of a South Vietnamese executing a man in civilian clothes who is actually a North Vietnamese spy. IIRC that was completely legal.
Held: "Foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention in United States courts. 476 F.3d 981, reversed and remanded."
Note that this relates to foreign citizen. The Constitution applying to US citizen in otherwise identical circumstances is even more obvious:
"U.S. citizens designated as enemy combatants by the Executive Branch have a right to challenge their detainment under the Due Process Clause. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded."
And US soldiers should, even if there were any ambiguity, err on the side of caution. They are, after all, constantly reminding us how they're fighting for US citizens' freedoms.
They are, after all, constantly reminding us how they're fighting for US citizens' freedoms.
They say that often enough to forget, even if only momentarily, that they're really fighting for the enrichment of the military-industrial complex.
Probably the kids who are just in for a few years haven't realized it, but anyone who sticks around longer has seen enough to know. The "your freedoms" people are lying to themselves more than they are to us.
ISIS says what he says about civilians. GP advocated it for soldiers.
I have no problem with summary executions of soldiers caught by the enemy - that is something that happens in war and trying to make rules about it after is just silly.
However given that he has been taken prisoners, we have to play by the book and give him a lawyer. It is not a big issue anyway it shouldn't be hard to prove him guilty.
Summary execution of captured soldiers (i.e. without adherence to the rule of law etc.) is a war crime. Fact. That you have no problem with it is not surprising, and pisses all over what America would like to believe it stands for. What some Americans wish it did stand for.
Like if you send a platoon to get into some taliban fighter’s home and execute him in front of his kids it’s a war crime, but if instead you just flatten the house with a bomb it’s not. Well in option 1 the kids get to live, I’d argue it’s preferable to option 2.
What if, when you captured this soldier, that apparently this platoon of yours can do, you just didn't summarily execute him? That's really my suggestion. Try to not murder people, when you have that option. As opposed to the OP option of summary execution of captured soldiers.
I don't see that this is theoretical. We watched this play out in practice for many years. Turns out that running around executing people really doesn't help. Or maybe we just didn't do it enough? We do seem to be well beyond the point of listening to reality nowadays; maybe we just need to shout ideology louder. Like ISIS.
I am not convinced ISIS will be defeated by inviting their fighters to a polite debate where we will attempt to convince them of the error of their ways.
You're not trying to convince current ISIS soldiers, but instead the potential future members of their ranks that are being inundated with propaganda about how hypocritical American policy is.
Winning ultimately will be more about drying up their sources for new recruits so that a war of attrition has some effect.
Well with option 1, you create a whole family of terrorists who will (with some justification) hate and try to destroy the United States for the rest of their lives which will later become the justification for endless war, so if you're someone who profits from or enjoys war and death and misery it sounds pretty good I suppose.
The US is not a signatory to Additional Protocol II. There’s no legal reason they can’t execute partisans for being partisans. If you’re not part of the uniformed armed forces of a signatory of the Geneva Conventions your participation in hostilities is illegal and once those facts have been determined partisans can be legally executed. The USA seems very unlikely to do so but that’s policy, not law.
Most ppl didn't care/do anything when the previous Nobel Prize winning guy droned an American and his son (and other crimes). Why should ppl care now about this if the guys doing it are quite honest in their contempt for the rule of law? Say what you will about DJT, but he's quite honest (mostly 'cause he can't control the diarrhea from his mouth).
If one is unwilling to raise one's voice for political expediency reasons when the "good guys" are doing "bad" things then all this hoopla about this admin pulling back const. protections is a bit of a laugh, aint it?
Except of course that people that the ACLU and others absolutely did raise their voices about the targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki. Indeed there was quite a lot of legal back and forth about its legality.
Personally, I see pragmatic difference. It is easily within the within the U.S' capabilities to give this person a lawyer. It's not clear how the U.S would have bought Anwar al-Awlaki to justice for the crimes that he was proud of committing.
Yes, a "lot of legal back and forth" by Government lawyers writing secretive memos that are nothing but a sham. Throw them in the same cell.
They also of course killed his U.S. citizen son ("I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father") and 8 year old daughter (not a U.S. citizen, so clearly worthless).
It must be comforting to live in a world that is so black and white. That legal back and forth isn’t worthless. It’s what systems based on the rule of law do when faced with knotty problems. You’ve decided that they are a sham and that the lawyers should be thrown in jail without due process.
Find me anyone other than the people in your head who believe the daughter was worthless.
There is no legal back and forth! There was no legal process! You seem to have a hard time understanding this.
Writing secretive memos on how to extra-judicially kill U.S. citizens is little different from Freisler giving his expert opinion to the Wannsee conference.
I've always thought Anwar al-Awlaki was a somewhat odd example.
Suppose an American man is found guilty of war crimes in, say, France, and is ordered captured dead or alive. While conducting military exercises in France, the US, an ally of France, gets the opportunity to capture him, dead. They do so. Are you outraged?
Replace France with Yemen and you pretty much have the situation with this individual.
I should say, I agree with you on the point that drone strikes in general are not good policy. I'm more concerned about civilian casualties than the actual targets, though. I've yet to come across a case to change my mind.
What makes this even more annoying is that people making these decisions will not be held personally responsible. Instead the government (aka "all US citizens and tax payers") will have to pay for this. There are people undermining our democracy and they likely will get away with a fraction of the punishment a petty criminal gets. To me this kind of behavior should be prosecuted tougher than murder.
>This is a crime that violates the 5th and 6th amendments, and we should be arresting and prosecuting those who gave the order to violate this man's constitutional rights.
Funny. They can get in line behind John Yoo, J. Edgar Hoover, Henry Kissinger and thousands of others. They'll have to pull Yoo away from the prestigious appointment at UC Berkeley he got as a reward for his crimes, strip the name Hoover got to place on the FBI building for his, and take away the adoration and respect murderous war criminal Kissinger gets from politicians of all stripes first.
There has been an argument going on for some time about whether or not the domestic legal system is capable of handling terrorism cases -- cases have recently been prosecuted in civil courts like the Boston Bombing, etc. Perhaps it's time to think about whether or not the domestic legal system is capable of handling crimes committed by the powerful (rich, politically powerful, etc). The answer is obviously no, but what could we do to make it so? Would that be good?
Powerful people get much better treatment and representation than the common person, despite the best intentions of equality in front of the law that our court system was meant to create.
Enemy combatant "held without charges" sounds a lot like any vanilla prisoner of war.
So they took in some POWs, one says "no, wait, I'm really one of you, just kidding about the shooting and stuff" and the military needs some time to figure out whether normal rules of war apply in this case. Hard to get too worked up over this, if you ask me.
I undrestand that there's a good amount of carve outs for wartime stuff.
However, if there's any doubt about whether they even belong in the "enemy combatant" category, it seems pretty basic to allow them their attorney. Otherwise the gov't could claim you're an enemy combatant every time they want to take your rights away, and then lock you up forever.
Sure, eventually it will be overturned, but if the gov't just wants you in there for a bit then that's enough.
There's perhaps a more ambitious argument to be made here about the AUMF, what is actually a war, the classification of ISIS as such, etc. But good luck making that argument in this environment
> "Otherwise the gov't could claim you're an enemy combatant every time they want to take your rights away, and then lock you up forever."
Which is exactly what the judge in this case is afraid of:
Judge Chutkan recognized how dangerous the government’s claims are.
“The government could snatch any U.S. citizen off the street and hold them as an enemy combatant… for as long as it took to come to some ‘final disposition,’” she posited. “That kind of unchecked power is, quite frankly, frightening.”
It’s an American citizen, not an enemy combatant. But sure, not worth getting worked up over - the concept of rights under the American empire is laughable.
No, not at all! The US doesn't give it's "detainees" official POW status because, POWs actually got rights, too! So they are held without legal basis or recourse. That's all fine and dandy, as far as foreigners are concerned. Except, of course, that USians are special and have special rights, so it's bad to treat them the same way.
Reminds me of when a USian was droned in 2011. Suddenly there's an outcry in the US! Never mind that guy was probably more guilty than hundred-thousands of other victims of the US "bringing peace and democracy".
The key word you used here is "probably". No-one will ever know because he was vaporized before anyone got a chance to assess the situation. This is why we have trials.
The key word he used is, that allmost everyday people get vaporized by US drones, who are clearly innocent but are just foreigners and so the outcry happens when a US citizen got hit, who probably was one of the bad guys.
He criticizes the unbalance and did not said, that also that guy deserved a trial.
But on the other hand, there is a war going on. And in a war you can't really held a trial for every person you shoot while in a COMBAT .. but if you have a death lists of people you are planning to kill, then yes, if you claim to base your actions on human rights and freedom etc. you should prove that those persons actually are the enemy.
Otherwise the step into dictatorship with deathsquads will be only a matter of time, if the best way of problem solving is secretly killing people the government claims to be bad.
Isn't the whole point of "enemy combatant" that it allows people to be held in a state not governed by national, or international law or treaty? "PoW" has actual meaning, rules, treaties etc.
Or they could be treated like a criminal, but that would give them a lawyer, due process and so on.
I think that the US, and most western European governments still shy away from torturing PoWs or criminals. "Enemy combatants" however, are the dixie cups of modern policy. Fill 'em up, suck 'em dry, and throw the crumpled remains in the trash. All with a clear conscience.
> Enemy combatant "held without charges" sounds a lot like any vanilla prisoner of war.
This is a convenience because war is chaotic, and prisoners of war could be held near the front, where people have more pressing duties than to worry about the comfort of prisoners that they only took out of a sense of civility (above some minimal consensus standard.) Once prisoners are away from the front, and resources are available, there's no reason why a prisoner of war should be any different from any other prisoner.
When this treatment becomes "the normal rules of war" and active for years on end, nowhere near a front, it has become a rationalization and a loophole.
Unless the US has declared war on itself, the capture of an American POW by the US seems contradictory in principle, and should make any American at least a bit uncomfortable.
If it's difficult to consider whether or not the rules of war apply in this case, then maybe that's because the war being waged is unjust in its scope or fraudulent in its definition.
One driver for American internment camps for Japanese citizens appears to have been the actions of several Americans of Japanese descent immediately after Pearl Harbor - the Niihau incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_incident
The reason there are detainees and enemy combatants in addition to POWs is that a POW is someone who was fighting under the banner of another state. If the person isn't wearing a uniform or if they fight for a group that isn't recognized as a state, they are not generally a POW. "Rules of war" apply to POWs in this system.
More than two months is quite a bit of time to 'figure things out', even by military standards, and I don't see any good reason to deny him access to a lawyer during that process anyway.
The normal rules of war always apply. Famously, that's the point of them. A state isn't allowed to ignore the rules of war if it finds them inconvenient.
The Geneva Conventions are quite clear that PoWs are allowed to communicate with the outside world, subject to militarily necessary censorship. If charged with a crime, they have the right to choose their legal representative.
> A state isn't allowed to ignore the rules of war if it finds them inconvenient.
Actually, that's exactly what the government is doing. The convenient thing about the "War on Terror" is that "Terror" isn't a nation, so, by the government's logic, they get to call them "enemy combatants" not "prisoners of war" (avoiding all that pesky Geneva Convention business).
I'm trying to find the passed Congressional bill for the authorization of use of military force in Syria that would have declared an actual war, but cannot seem to find which bill it was.
The term 'enemy combatant' was an invented categorization of antagonist during the GW Bush administration to skirt the protections offered by the United States Constitution and the formal rules regarding Prisoners of War, which are of course part of the Geneva Convention to which the US is a signatory.
The rules are pretty specific, and preclude the sort of treatment we've afforded 'enemy combatants.'
The reason we call them 'enemy combatants' is so that we can torture them, detain indefinitely contrary to the Constitution of the United States, and hold show trials where we prosecute them for fighting against the US in wars that are certainly illegal from an international standpoint.
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Second,
doesn't matter whether a person is an ass or not. When it comes to deciding things that affect their life too, they should have a say. And that's the whole point of actual democracy.
It's not for deciding on some BS "best course" (which doesn't even exist, different people want different things and see them as best), but of giving people an equal say to public matters.
Saying: these people shouldn't have a say because they're "asses" is not really different that saying these people shouldn't have a say because they are blacks, women, etc.
Couple reasons why direct democracy is terrible and your concept of people being able to care for themselves to the point they should influence society as a whole is also terrible.
“Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli
“Men are so simple, and governed so absolutely by their present needs, that he who wishes to deceive will never fail in finding willing dupes.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
If anything, those examples, negate your argument.
Machiavelli offered this advice to the "Prince" -- that is, to an authority who rules outside of democracy.
And he told the prince that it's easy to dupe men.
That more of a reason for democracy -- direct and real, not representative. In which, there are neither princes, nor representatives to try and dupe people for their own interests.
And where, if people find out someone duped them (eg. someone that they appointed to do something), they can immediately arrange for their removal (not after a 4 year term).
If we're going to argue definitions, might as well see what more conventional definitions from the dictionary look like (from Google's Dictionary)
re·pub·lic
/rəˈpəblik/
a state in which supreme power is held by the people
and their elected representatives, and which has an
elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.
de·moc·ra·cy
/dəˈmäkrəsē/
a system of government by the whole population or all
the eligible members of a state, typically through
elected representatives.
Now, the next thing we should probably figure out is in what sense did Franklin mean it? Did he believe that the word 'Republic' conveyed merely that the country would be governed by Rule of Law? That seems extremely unlikely.
Democracy: actual equal access to decision making for everybody, majority decides.
Republic: from latin, res-publica, elected representatives manage public affairs, once removed from the people (and cozy with powerful interests).
(Law still "rules" in both democracy and a republic -- to the extend that special interests don't bribe and influence their way into it, which is easier in a republic than in an actual democracy ancient-Athenian style, where people directly vote).
The detainee is a citizen and as such is afforded the same protections as any other citizen. By definition, not providing him with an attorney is not keeping him safe.
People dispute what the government “should” do, but when it comes to citizens, there are certain things the government “must” do, regardless of what people think.
I think everyone should have rights but him being American is significant because most people's impression is that as an American the right to a lawyer is protected by the Bill of Rights to our Constitution and Americans take any violation of the Bill of Rights very very seriously.
Those protect people not citizens. You’re right that’s not how it’s popularly understood but it’s why we have Gitmo: it’s an attempt to apply a thin veneer of legitimacy by pretending it’s a military proceeding (as if theres exceptions for those in the documents you mentioned) and keeping it as far outside the purview of judicial legal analysis as possible.
I don't trust the ACLU. Black lives matter is about the dragon-king of poverty and crime, not police. They don't get that, and so no solution they offer is capable of engaging the root cause. They don't understand because they are unwilling to ask.
Incredible, the average HNer here is naive enough to thinks he has 'rights'. Rights are something that governments 'grant' when it is convenient so that citizens do not rebel and can be exploited appropriately. You generally have no protection form the state if they decide to make your life miserable.
Hate to break it to you, but this very thing happening is proof of the grandparent.
Unless you have lots of guns and are willing to go to war with $government , you're going to have a very bad time. And even if you armed to the teeth, you still going to have a very bad time, but instead you're shot at.
Want to join the ranks of political prisoners? It's really easy, just get worked up and be outspoken about it publicly. You have everything to lose, and nothing to gain. If you must meet about it, do so in secret, not here in front of everyone.
106 comments
[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 189 ms ] threadAre our rights worth less than the paper they are written on?
There is no magical USA constitutional fairy while on the Syrian battlefield. You wanted to fight for ISIS and now it time to pay the piper.
Wow…isn't that a bit of an extreme conclusion to jump to? How do you know they're trying to fight for ISIS?
. . . or works in an ideal, happy-path case, at least. Exceptions like this one are far from uncommon. The military justice system in general is pretty far from that in a lot of cases. So are things like FISA courts etc. Whether we should be trying to move closer to that ideal (which, even when practiced perfectly, has its flaws) or not is anyone's guess.
The Geneva Conventions do not apply to wars with non-state actors or states who are not participants to the treaty.
The Geneva Conventions would never apply to traitors on your own side, which is the case here.
Perhaps military people know more about the Geneva Conventions than you give them credit for.
The Geneva Conventions are a set of ethical standards that should apply to all persons, regardless of the legal application
>The Geneva Conventions do not apply to wars with non-state actors or states who are not participants to the treaty.
Any person that is of good moral and ethical character would apply them to all persons.
>The Geneva Conventions would never apply to traitors on your own side, which is the case here.
Has there been a trial convicting the person of Treason under US Law?
I guess no only to you not believe in basic human rights, you also subscribe to the moronic ideology of "guilty until proven innocent" where the government only has to assert treason, not actually prove it beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of your peers
>Perhaps military people know more about the Geneva Conventions than you give them credit for.
I am not really interested in the legal application of the Geneva Accords, I am interested in the moral and ethical foundation they are based on.
Ethical and moral people believe that the Geneva Accords should apply to all persons at all times regardless of declarations of war or any other factors.
This moronic idea that you should abuse, torture, or treat inhumanly a person simply because they are a "non-state" actor has no place in the modern world, it is an excuse to defend barbarism, barbarism we should be looking to expunge from the world not justify
That is a completely fine and reasonable position as an individual, but that cannot be the position of someone in the military.
If everyone in the military decided how to exercise lethal force on the basis of their own personal morality as opposed to what their civilian government has decided the law is that would be complete chaos.
Any blame here falls entirely on the civilian government which has decided, in accordance with all its laws, that the things you object to are legal and right.
The military is doing its duty under the law to obey the directives of civilian authority.
If you disagree with the law, then by all means object, but object to those who are responsible for making the law.
The alternative is that the military decides the law for itself, which would be a military dictatorship, and I don't think you would advocate for that.
Well I have to go Godwin on that... So you hold the soldiers that put then Jews in the oven blameless for their unethical and immoral actions because "they were just following orders"
That defense never worked in Nuremberg.
The idea that unethical actions should simply be dismissed because you were ordered by someone that claims higher authority to commit an unethical action is absurd to me.
>That is a completely fine and reasonable position as an individual, but that cannot be the position of someone in the military.
The comment we are all replying to is not "someone in the military" but someone that has been discharged from the military and is continuing to support this unethical position.
>the civilian government which has decided, in accordance with all its laws, that the things you object to are legal and right.
They may have decided they are legal, that is all.
Legal and ethical are very very different
>Any blame here falls entirely on the civilian government
Nope, I can blame everyone involved. "Just following orders" is not a valid defense IMO
In the Nuremberg trials only a handful of high political and military officials were charged and convicted.
The individual soldiers who actually carried out atrocities on their orders were never charged.
Many mid-level Nazi officials who were certainly complicit were not charged at all and went on to form the post-war government.
History is not as black-and-white or pleasant as you seem to believe it is.
> Nope, I can blame everyone involved.
In that case, also blame the tax payers, who are the ones who fund all of this.
So you are under the mythical belief that Taxation is voluntarily, when in reality taxation is involuntary theft if you refuse they will come and take it from you, if you resist their taking your property they will put you in a cage and if you resist them putting you in a cage they will kill you.
Taxation is in no way a voluntary act
>>The individual soldiers who actually carried out atrocities on their orders were never charged.
They should have been
They also cover treatment of civilians, medical units, and infrastructure. Amongst other things.
> The Geneva Conventions do not apply to wars with non-state actors or states who are not participants to the treaty
Yes, they do.
The protections are not as extensive, but the conventions also cover any armed conflict within the territory of a contracting party, such as the Syrian Arab Republic. They also cover occupation of a contracting party's territory, whether armed or not.
> The Geneva Conventions would never apply to traitors on your own side, which is the case here.
The conventions don't make any exception for traitors. They certainly don't allow Syria to take an ISIS fighter prisoner and avoid their convention responsibilities by handing him over to the US.
Once one side breaks it, I don't think treating them like they haven't is proper.
Yes, but the basis of the conventions is treaties between states. Only a state that was party to that treaty would have standing to claim that the treaty had been violated.
Since a traitor would be a citizen of the state who would theoretically be violating the treaty then no other state would have standing to assert a violation.
Isn't he an "unlawful enemy combatant" (does not wear an uniform and carry arms openly, so Geneva does not apply) and not a "traitor"?
OT. There's a famous Vietnam photo of a South Vietnamese executing a man in civilian clothes who is actually a North Vietnamese spy. IIRC that was completely legal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush
Note that this relates to foreign citizen. The Constitution applying to US citizen in otherwise identical circumstances is even more obvious:
"U.S. citizens designated as enemy combatants by the Executive Branch have a right to challenge their detainment under the Due Process Clause. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld
And US soldiers should, even if there were any ambiguity, err on the side of caution. They are, after all, constantly reminding us how they're fighting for US citizens' freedoms.
They say that often enough to forget, even if only momentarily, that they're really fighting for the enrichment of the military-industrial complex.
Probably the kids who are just in for a few years haven't realized it, but anyone who sticks around longer has seen enough to know. The "your freedoms" people are lying to themselves more than they are to us.
Basically, stop being an asshole. That's a real person you just told has never done anything honorable in their life.
Just because you were honorably discharged doesn't mean you're right. If you'd summarily executed prisoners, you'd have committed a war crime.
I have no problem with summary executions of soldiers caught by the enemy - that is something that happens in war and trying to make rules about it after is just silly.
However given that he has been taken prisoners, we have to play by the book and give him a lawyer. It is not a big issue anyway it shouldn't be hard to prove him guilty.
Be better. Not just better at killing.
Like if you send a platoon to get into some taliban fighter’s home and execute him in front of his kids it’s a war crime, but if instead you just flatten the house with a bomb it’s not. Well in option 1 the kids get to live, I’d argue it’s preferable to option 2.
I don't see that this is theoretical. We watched this play out in practice for many years. Turns out that running around executing people really doesn't help. Or maybe we just didn't do it enough? We do seem to be well beyond the point of listening to reality nowadays; maybe we just need to shout ideology louder. Like ISIS.
Winning ultimately will be more about drying up their sources for new recruits so that a war of attrition has some effect.
Murder happens as well, is making rules and laws making murder illegal "just silly"
>I have no problem with summary executions of soldiers caught by the enemy
That is scary, Do you feel the same if an American Soldier was executed by the enemy?
https://www.propublica.org/article/uighurs-sold-to-us-milita...
If one is unwilling to raise one's voice for political expediency reasons when the "good guys" are doing "bad" things then all this hoopla about this admin pulling back const. protections is a bit of a laugh, aint it?
Personally, I see pragmatic difference. It is easily within the within the U.S' capabilities to give this person a lawyer. It's not clear how the U.S would have bought Anwar al-Awlaki to justice for the crimes that he was proud of committing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
They also of course killed his U.S. citizen son ("I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father") and 8 year old daughter (not a U.S. citizen, so clearly worthless).
Find me anyone other than the people in your head who believe the daughter was worthless.
Writing secretive memos on how to extra-judicially kill U.S. citizens is little different from Freisler giving his expert opinion to the Wannsee conference.
Suppose an American man is found guilty of war crimes in, say, France, and is ordered captured dead or alive. While conducting military exercises in France, the US, an ally of France, gets the opportunity to capture him, dead. They do so. Are you outraged?
Replace France with Yemen and you pretty much have the situation with this individual.
I should say, I agree with you on the point that drone strikes in general are not good policy. I'm more concerned about civilian casualties than the actual targets, though. I've yet to come across a case to change my mind.
I think the point is, "found guilty" _by whom_?
Yeah, uh, no.
Edit: typo pretty -> petty
Funny. They can get in line behind John Yoo, J. Edgar Hoover, Henry Kissinger and thousands of others. They'll have to pull Yoo away from the prestigious appointment at UC Berkeley he got as a reward for his crimes, strip the name Hoover got to place on the FBI building for his, and take away the adoration and respect murderous war criminal Kissinger gets from politicians of all stripes first.
There has been an argument going on for some time about whether or not the domestic legal system is capable of handling terrorism cases -- cases have recently been prosecuted in civil courts like the Boston Bombing, etc. Perhaps it's time to think about whether or not the domestic legal system is capable of handling crimes committed by the powerful (rich, politically powerful, etc). The answer is obviously no, but what could we do to make it so? Would that be good?
These are powerful people who had to go to court just like an average person.
So they took in some POWs, one says "no, wait, I'm really one of you, just kidding about the shooting and stuff" and the military needs some time to figure out whether normal rules of war apply in this case. Hard to get too worked up over this, if you ask me.
However, if there's any doubt about whether they even belong in the "enemy combatant" category, it seems pretty basic to allow them their attorney. Otherwise the gov't could claim you're an enemy combatant every time they want to take your rights away, and then lock you up forever.
Sure, eventually it will be overturned, but if the gov't just wants you in there for a bit then that's enough.
There's perhaps a more ambitious argument to be made here about the AUMF, what is actually a war, the classification of ISIS as such, etc. But good luck making that argument in this environment
Which is exactly what the judge in this case is afraid of:
Judge Chutkan recognized how dangerous the government’s claims are.
“The government could snatch any U.S. citizen off the street and hold them as an enemy combatant… for as long as it took to come to some ‘final disposition,’” she posited. “That kind of unchecked power is, quite frankly, frightening.”
Reminds me of when a USian was droned in 2011. Suddenly there's an outcry in the US! Never mind that guy was probably more guilty than hundred-thousands of other victims of the US "bringing peace and democracy".
But on the other hand, there is a war going on. And in a war you can't really held a trial for every person you shoot while in a COMBAT .. but if you have a death lists of people you are planning to kill, then yes, if you claim to base your actions on human rights and freedom etc. you should prove that those persons actually are the enemy. Otherwise the step into dictatorship with deathsquads will be only a matter of time, if the best way of problem solving is secretly killing people the government claims to be bad.
Or they could be treated like a criminal, but that would give them a lawyer, due process and so on.
I think that the US, and most western European governments still shy away from torturing PoWs or criminals. "Enemy combatants" however, are the dixie cups of modern policy. Fill 'em up, suck 'em dry, and throw the crumpled remains in the trash. All with a clear conscience.
This is a convenience because war is chaotic, and prisoners of war could be held near the front, where people have more pressing duties than to worry about the comfort of prisoners that they only took out of a sense of civility (above some minimal consensus standard.) Once prisoners are away from the front, and resources are available, there's no reason why a prisoner of war should be any different from any other prisoner.
When this treatment becomes "the normal rules of war" and active for years on end, nowhere near a front, it has become a rationalization and a loophole.
If it's difficult to consider whether or not the rules of war apply in this case, then maybe that's because the war being waged is unjust in its scope or fraudulent in its definition.
It's happened, some number of US citizens fought for Germany and Japan in World War 2 (and paranoia about it lead to the Japanese internment camps).
The Geneva Conventions are quite clear that PoWs are allowed to communicate with the outside world, subject to militarily necessary censorship. If charged with a crime, they have the right to choose their legal representative.
Actually, that's exactly what the government is doing. The convenient thing about the "War on Terror" is that "Terror" isn't a nation, so, by the government's logic, they get to call them "enemy combatants" not "prisoners of war" (avoiding all that pesky Geneva Convention business).
The convenient thing about the "War on Terror" is that like the "War on Drugs" it is not an actual war at all...
This allows unethical people to justify all manner of abuse, and inhuman treatment of Individuals
The term 'enemy combatant' was an invented categorization of antagonist during the GW Bush administration to skirt the protections offered by the United States Constitution and the formal rules regarding Prisoners of War, which are of course part of the Geneva Convention to which the US is a signatory.
The rules are pretty specific, and preclude the sort of treatment we've afforded 'enemy combatants.'
https://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/protected-persons/priso...
The reason we call them 'enemy combatants' is so that we can torture them, detain indefinitely contrary to the Constitution of the United States, and hold show trials where we prosecute them for fighting against the US in wars that are certainly illegal from an international standpoint.
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
turns out democracy is hard work
They aren't even close to the same
Republic : Rule of Law
Democracy : Rule ( tyranny) of majority
Thanks! That's accurate. Majority= asses.
Second, doesn't matter whether a person is an ass or not. When it comes to deciding things that affect their life too, they should have a say. And that's the whole point of actual democracy.
It's not for deciding on some BS "best course" (which doesn't even exist, different people want different things and see them as best), but of giving people an equal say to public matters.
Saying: these people shouldn't have a say because they're "asses" is not really different that saying these people shouldn't have a say because they are blacks, women, etc.
“Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli
“Men are so simple, and governed so absolutely by their present needs, that he who wishes to deceive will never fail in finding willing dupes.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Machiavelli offered this advice to the "Prince" -- that is, to an authority who rules outside of democracy.
And he told the prince that it's easy to dupe men.
That more of a reason for democracy -- direct and real, not representative. In which, there are neither princes, nor representatives to try and dupe people for their own interests.
And where, if people find out someone duped them (eg. someone that they appointed to do something), they can immediately arrange for their removal (not after a 4 year term).
What we have now is much closer to rule of majority than what Benjamin Franklin was referring to
But you likely wont put the work or the effort into understanding the difference nor would you understand the inherent dangers of democracy
I believe this grand experiment of a constitutionally bound republic has ran its course and what follows will be more misery for the poor.
Property rights, free markets, individual rights.... these are the eroded cornerstones folks are crapping on ... while reaping the benefits of them
Republic: from latin, res-publica, elected representatives manage public affairs, once removed from the people (and cozy with powerful interests).
(Law still "rules" in both democracy and a republic -- to the extend that special interests don't bribe and influence their way into it, which is easier in a republic than in an actual democracy ancient-Athenian style, where people directly vote).
Unless you have lots of guns and are willing to go to war with $government , you're going to have a very bad time. And even if you armed to the teeth, you still going to have a very bad time, but instead you're shot at.
Wow his guy respects more rights than Obama
Let’s see if he lasts long enough to get a lawyer! Anyone got a prediction market we can bet with?