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bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

For soldiers taken from the field of battle.
Also, I believe the rules specifically do not apply to those who have contributed atrocities, uniforms or not.
Kind of like the 3 people we waterboarded.

I'll ask again:  The conventions only apply to uniformed soldiers?  There's no other protections offered there, whatsoever, for anyone other than a soldier wearing a uniform?

Hmmm, I wonder if the supreme court has had anything to say on this issue....

There may be other protections, I'm not an expert on Geveva Convention.
However, they are not covered by the geneva POW conventions since they are not POW's.

resedit wrote:

I'm not an expert on Geveva Convention.

You don't say…

At any rate, how about reading up on the things you comment on before shooting your mouth off? It would lend a sense of coherence to your arguments.

.tsooJ

Alien wrote:

resedit wrote:

I'm not an expert on Geveva Convention.

You don't say…

At any rate, how about reading up on the things you comment on before shooting your mouth off? It would lend a sense of coherence to your arguments.

.tsooJ

You are no expert either, probably no one who posts here is, so kiss my flatulent ass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Geneva_Convention

resedit wrote:

Alien wrote:

resedit wrote:

I'm not an expert on Geveva Convention.

You don't say…

At any rate, how about reading up on the things you comment on before shooting your mouth off? It would lend a sense of coherence to your arguments.

.tsooJ

You are no expert either, probably no one who posts here is, so kiss my flatulent ass.

At least go and give it a read. And quote the treaty instead of conservative columnists.

What facts have I not addressed?

Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. Furthermore, "There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law,"

That's not the way non-uniformed combatants have ever been treated in any war.
That's also not what the geneva convention specifies.

And there is no doubt to their definition according to Article 4.

Article 4 is so specific because guerilla warfare where militants are not uniformed and then sneak into the local population of civilians is dangerous to civilians and leads to atrocities such as what happened frequently in Vietnam.

As such, military's that use that blatantly illegal technique get no protection.
The geneva convention was written the way it was written explicitly to discourage types of warfare that put the civilian populations at risk. By demanding that the enemy combatants be treated as POW's - you are neutering the very reason behind the Geneva convention being so specific. A military no longer has to follow the rules to benefit the rules. You are thus putting civilian populations at risk and giving an inherent advantage to military's that do not follow the rules.

resedit wrote:

What facts have I not addressed?

Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. Furthermore, "There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law,"

That's not the way non-uniformed combatants have ever been treated in any war.
That's also not what the geneva convention specifies.

And there is no doubt to their definition according to Article 4.

Article 4 is so specific because guerilla warfare where militants are not uniformed and then sneak into the local population of civilians is dangerous to civilians and leads to atrocities such as what happened frequently in Vietnam.

As such, military's that use that blatantly illegal technique get no protection.
The geneva convention was written the way it was written explicitly to discourage types of warfare that put the civilian populations at risk. By demanding that the enemy combatants be treated as POW's - you are neutering the very reason behind the Geneva convention being so specific. A military no longer has to follow the rules to benefit the rules. You are thus putting civilian populations at risk and giving an inherent advantage to military's that do not follow the rules.

Res, let's just look at this a second.

Article 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.

That right there sets the standard. It covers pretty much everyone who's not a member of the belligerent country. In other words anyone captured by American soldiers is automatically covered unless otherwise stated.

Here are the lists of people not covered:

Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are.

Okay, what this means is, if you're fighting for a State that's not bound by the Convention then you're not protected by it. This is a reference to WWII, where Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union really took the gloves off with the prisoners they took. It's one of the big reasons why we hated them so much. But since it's talking about a State, it doesn't apply to non-uniformed militia. Next.

The provisions of Part II are, however, wider in application, as defined in Article 13.

All right, let's jump over to Article 13:

Article 13

The provisions of Part II cover the whole of the populations of the countries in conflict, without any adverse distinction based, in particular, on race, nationality, religion or political opinion, and are intended to alleviate the sufferings caused by war.

Okay, so Part II mostly talks about being kind to civilians. It also, incidentally, states very clearly that all wounded combatants are to be cared for no matter what.

Now, back to Article 4:

Persons protected by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of August 12, 1949, or by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of August 12, 1949, or by the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August 12, 1949, shall not be considered as protected persons within the meaning of the present Convention.

Well that's very simple, it only means that you're not covered by this Convention if you're already covered by another one.

I see nothing in there bout uniforms. Care to point it out for me?

What is so particularly bad, is that administration that instituted the treatment that is at question, has consistently claimed the moral and ethical high-ground.

Unless, they only apply that to family values and abortion, and the devil takes the hind-most on all the rest.

Dude. Coming to a black site near you:
(via boingboing)

Taras sez, "British local authorities are queuing up to connect their CCTV cameras to a national system which tracks cars by their registration plates. Any camera, if high enough resolution, can be adapted to work with the software. The Information Commissioner is concerned, as ever, but under-resourced and basically powerless. People who have taken part in anti-war rallies are already having their cars stopped by Anti-Terror Units for no good reason and being questioned under threat of arrest."
John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.
It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a "marker" on his car. That meant he was added to a "hotlist".

This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.

"I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?"

All these niceties you like. What is and what is not allowable, reasonable, legal, etc.

Don't mean smurf when it's us. That is the elephant in the room.

You can volunteer if you like; but it won't be like the 'journalists' you cite. It will be real.

Stop it now. Or, be willing to be tortured later.

I think that the relevant point is, rather than snarking at another forum member, is that the acceptance of torture as a legitimate and useful means of interrogation presents the danger that our own citizens could eventually suffer directly from it.

If we make exceptions for one class of people, what's to stop us from making it for another? We already tend to classify drug dealers and users in a different way from other criminals.

resedit wrote:

That right there sets the standard.

The standard was set when they defined what a POW was and when they defined what a civilian was.
It was not defined that a captive is one or other. If captive meets requirement for POW they are POW. If captive meets requirement for civilian they are civilian. If Al Queda / Taliban were playing by the rules, they would qualify as POW's and be treated as such. They were not playing by the rules so they do not get the protection established for those who play by the rules.

It must be nice to just invent laws, not only in letter but in spirit as well.

DBAJ

Well, I'm disturbed by res' opinion, too, but I still consider him a member of the group and don't think we should be speculating on torture methods for him.

That said... :: waterboards res ::