[achtung]

Originally posted by redmenace
No, I am against ambiguous standards. Times have changed. When you have wackos out there that are not affiliated with any nationality. How do you treat them? What needs to happen is that the Geneva Convention should be re-written in a clear and unambiguous manner.

Art 4 covers all conflicts not covered by Art 3 which are all conflicts of an international character. It defines who is a prisoner of war and, therefor, a protected person under GCIII. Those entitled to prisoner of war status include:

# 4.1.1 Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict and members of militias of such armed forces
# 4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfil the following conditions:

    * that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
    * that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (although this is not required under Protocol I);
    * that of carrying arms openly;
    * that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
# 4.1.3 Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
# 4.1.6 Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
# 4.3 makes explicit that Article 33 takes precedence for the treatment of medical personnel of the enemy and chaplains of the enemy.

Does that clarify anything? nationality doesn't matter you still treat them humanely.  As long as they are part of the group your fighting against they fall under the geneva convention.  As far as I can tell terrorist organizations (though crazy) are still a group of armed forces.  About people that they just went and got of the street or lone suicide.... I mean attempted suicide bombers they technicaly don't apply.  If it were up to me though I think any of em that took any sort of active role in killing innocent people deserve what they get.  And I still have a hard time seeing how misttreatment of a book is considered misttreatment against the prisoners.

[Genryu]

Originally posted by redmenace
accuracy in reporting is a important. not being almost true.

Gimme my twenty

Edit : WTF ? redmenace, do you only hear yourself speak ?
*follows vyper and karajorma*

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by redmenace
Believe it or not same hair splitting is used all the time in liberal causes. So don't act like you guys are taking a high road either.

"Heh... you tell 'em, Marl."



Seriously, dude: no.

[redmenace]

* that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
* that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (although this is not required under Protocol I);
* that of carrying arms openly;
* that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Al Quada doesn't follow those requirements.

[redmenace]

Originally posted by Blaise Russel


"Heh... you tell 'em, Marl."



Seriously, dude: no.

Umm, yes.

And I did not just now say that they were bastards. But they still ****ed up. It is like if I got on the witness stand and told a bold faced lie that was still partly true I should not be found to have pergured my self? In essence that is what you are saying G.

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by redmenace
Umm, yes.

No. It's no wonder that everyone started to leave the thread when you began talking about 'the Left'.

So, Fritz, I look you square in the monocle and say: nein!

[redmenace]

I criticize leftist dogmas that I know Kara and vyper suscribe to since, IMO they follow the same perverted hair splitting I am using.

[karajorma]

I take exception to being called dogmatic. I've arrived at every opionion I hold independantly.

[redmenace]

I didn't call you dogmatic but simply some of your political opinions.

But honestly, that was offensive and I am sorry.

[karajorma]

Fair enough. Apology accepted.

[Janos]

Originally posted by redmenace
* that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
* that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (although this is not required under Protocol I);
* that of carrying arms openly;
* that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Al Quada doesn't follow those requirements.

Of course, everyone at Gitmo is an Al-Quaeda operative, because they have been prov... oh shi

[redmenace]

fine a person that is not a al quada member should, according to the geneva convention recieve a fair trial and access to a lawyer etc. But show me a taliban that
meets this requirement
* that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
* that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance

[karajorma]

Rather interestingly one of the brits who was held there for two years was "captured" in an afghani prison cell where he was being held on charges of spying for the United Kingdom

Anyone want to explain what he was doing there?

[vyper]

*eats secret plan to invade USA*

[Bobboau]

I'd rather have total war than double standards

[Unknown Target]

So you guys are saying that it's ok for us to torture them, as long as they tortured us first?
Wow, it's like preschool all over again. He stole my toy, so it's ok for me to steal his toy too.

[Bobboau]

double standards

[Nuclear1]

Look, even I'm against al Qaeda and what they do, but I still believe in at least humane treatment of POWs.  What if an American soldier or civilian was being held by al Qaeda?  Wouldn't Christians go nuts if al Qaeda denied the prisoners their own religious rights, or if our people were being inhumanely treated, wouldn't there be some anger in America?

Double standards... just because America happens to be one of the most powerful nations on Earth, it doesn't mean that we have some God-given right to torture prisoners and insult other religions.  While this only a small part of the armed forces doing this, it still doesn't make it right -- desecrating a holy book of another religion, while it might be sacred to some people, is just plain stupid -- hell, the Newsweek article itself got people killed.

We can't simply torture members of al Qaeda simply because they killed American troops, no matter how great our anger or animosity towards them.  We condemned the NVA for the same actions when our troops were in their camps -- American troops and pilots killed NVA troops, so they Vietnamese were in the same shoes.  

Being the most powerful military nation on Earth just didn't us the right to bypass law -- the US has done things in the past that would lead many in our military to be tried as war criminals (Asian Orange, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fireboming of Tokyo), but we've always been immune because of our high stance in the world.  We've done unethical things in the past, yet we only get off with a slap on the wrist (ala Nicaragua).

Red, I agree with you on a lot of other issues, and I see where you're coming from on this issue, but listening to what you're saying just makes me see exactly what I've described above.  We can't torture al Qaeda in the manner of desecrating their religion (or at any extremes).

[Swamp_Thing]

Let´s add a little tidbit to the discussion:

The last Amnisty International report on Human Rights compares GITMO to a soviet gulag. And a gulag is just a step short of a nazi concentration camp. So that should tell us how´s life on GITMO like...
I still can´t phatom how stupid the White House must think we are, to try and sell us the crap that a guard´s urine "somehow" blew into a vent and onto a prisioner. Don´t they have toilletes in GITMO?

[Bobboau]

we're prety much expecting inhumane treatment from them, there already is anger, so much so that I doubt there is much that would be able to raise it much higher.

America is the most powerful nation on earth, so they are expected to treat the most vile people ever to live as kings, AlQueda on the other hand is a band of terrorists so no one cares if they behead people or what have you.
double standard.
maybe if we saw some outrage over stuf they were doing we would care.

"I still can´t phatom how stupid the White House must think we are, to try and sell us the crap that a guard´s urine "somehow" blew into a vent and onto a prisioner. Don´t they have toilletes in GITMO?"
from what I read that didn't sound like they were excuseing the person it sounded like they were describeing in detail what he did, I doubt you'd ever hear the phrase "pissing on him" an any offical document. when I read that I read "a gaurd pissed on an inmate through an air vent" I didn't for a minute think anything else untill you posted this.

now the newsweek article made mention of a specific event, if that event did not happen, then thtey were wrong, even if they guessed close.