i've said it before, but never on this blog.

there needs to be another convention in genf by the community of sovereign nations to agree on the treatment of combatants for trans national organizations.

from the perspective of AQ, their 'operatives' are soldiers. they perceive only 2 countries, dar-alislam, and dar alharb. they claim their operatives are soldiers for the dar alislam.

by AQs own definition they should be handled as POWs. but for the sentiments of liberals, and especially lawyers, they want them handled as potential clients in the judicial system.

but a comprehensive agreement would resolve the issue. of course, getting the arab nations to agree.... that's a whole new level of impossibility.

It was Jonah Goldberg who came up with the idea of just throwing open the gates to Guantanamo and letting those guys walk through the jungle to Havana to see what kind of reception they'd get from Fidel.

Kind of like the Mariel boat lift in reverse.

He wasn't entirely serious.

"I'm just amazed when people argue that terrorists should be protected under the Geneva Convention. Just for starters, as mass murderers of civilians, they certainly don't adhere to the rules of it."

Amy, as ex-military, I vehemently disagree. The fact that an enemy does not abide by the conventions is no excuse not to do so ourselves.

There is nothing under the conventions that says we can't imprison these guys. The conventions just guarantee certain processes and standards. They also allow the Red Cross to visit and verify that these standards are met.

By not following the conventions, we allow the enemy to bring us down to his ethical level. If we do not hold the moral high ground in the struggle against terrorists - if we violate our own standards of civilized behavior - we have already lost.

The Geneva Conventions are part of US law. Every officer is sworn to refuse illegal orders. And every officer who knowingly allowed the Geneva Conventions to be violated at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib - all the way up the chain of command - should have been court martialed.

I am tired of hearing this pansy-ass bullshit about holding the moral high ground.

The moral high ground is fucking worthless if you are dead.

The upside of this nations desire to "maintain the moral high ground" has cleared the way for our military to convert would-be terrorists into a far more useful substance. One I like to call "dead motherfuckers".

After all, you can't be accused of torturing the prisoners you didn't take.

ideologically challenged
factionally retarded
less combatantly abled

I think the government's main objection to calling them POWs is that they'd have to be housed in groups (as opposed to solitary confinement), making interrogation much harder. I don't know to what extent I share that objection. We should create a consistent set of rules for treating tranzi POWs and stick to it, and it should be humane. If that becomes the basis for a treaty in the future, so much the better. Ideally it should also be flexible enough to detain people who, for example, volunteer to be "held hostage" by unconventional combatants.

On the other hand, it would be more effective to simply follow the Geneva Conventions and summarily execute non-uniformed combatants as spies and saboteurs.

Amy:

I watched the movie, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know," last night. It really opened my eyes. I was especially struck by the similarity to Communism. I don't know what, but something will have to be done.

There is nothing under the conventions that says we can't imprison these guys. The conventions just guarantee certain processes and standards. They also allow the Red Cross to visit and verify that these standards are met.

The Geneva Conventions permit non-military combatants (i.e., those not in service to a country's military) to be shot in summary execution (no trial). They do not in any way cover how captured non-military combatants are to be treated. The Conventions assume non-military combatants will, in fact, be shot. We are exceeding the standards of the Geneva Convention.

By not following the conventions, we allow the enemy to bring us down to his ethical level. If we do not hold the moral high ground in the struggle against terrorists - if we violate our own standards of civilized behavior - we have already lost.

The Geneva Conventions are in no way the gold standards of morality and ethics. They are an international agreement designed to protect soldiers captured in war. By imprisoning non-uniformed enemy combatants, we are not stooping to the moral level of the terrorists. Unlike them, we don't behead our prisoners and we don't indiscriminately murder civilians.

If the Geneva Conventions are the standard we should apply in all cases, we should shoot all enemy combatants instead of transferring them to Guantanamo and providing them with food, shelter, and medical care (and, yes, questioning them about their terrorist activities).

The Geneva Conventions are part of US law. Every officer is sworn to refuse illegal orders. And every officer who knowingly allowed the Geneva Conventions to be violated at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib - all the way up the chain of command - should have been court martialed.

For violations of the UCMJ, those involved in Abu Ghraib should have been (and most were) court-martialed.

Officers in the US military are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution. They are not sworn to obey legal orders or to disobey illegal orders.

And, since the Geneva Conventions do not cover armed non-military combatants, there was nothing illegal about imprisoning them.

Correction: The Geneva Conventions are an international agreement on the conduct of war. That conduct includes the treatment of enemy soldiers captured in the course of that war (POWs).

We should not house these people at Gitmo; we should simply shoot them and get it over with.

Conan, sorry, but part of my oath was in fact to obey the orders of those appointed over me. Small point though.

The Geneva conventions do NOT cover non-military combatants at all. Pretty simply because the were originally envisioned and layed out by predominantly European cultures who did not field irregular untis.

That is the reason I advanced the idea of a further Convention to address the new phenomenon not widely used in Western war. I'm sure there are some ideas and tactics due to come from the far east as well. We just haven't seen them yet.

It's time they were addressed.

When I was in GTMO, the predominant sentiment among the guards I knew was to simply set them free. Point top the south and say Jamaica is that way MF! Start swimming! And of course they wanted to chum the water as well.

the sooner the west realizes that this isn't a gentleman's war, and those conventions can't by definition apply to it, the better. the biggest issue is policing. Sure you pick off a guy launching rpg's at you, it doesn't matter that he doesn't wear some kind of uniform. you pick up a guy that has been financing previous guy and has connections worldwide to terror orgs. well, now you have aiding and abetting, but as a citizen of where? how much proof do you have? for this you have to figure out what to call them, and where to hold them. gitmo may be not what we intend as the highest form of jurisprudence... but our jurisprudence wasn't written to deal with non-national religious zealots that want to take over the world... we should figure out a way to address that.

Conan:

Officers in the US military are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution. They are not sworn to obey legal orders or to disobey illegal orders.

Not exactly. Officers in the US Military are obliged to not follow unlawful orders. E.G., if a officer appointed above me ordered me to attack a target, and that order violated the Geneva conventions, I was obliged to not follow that order.

++++

All of this brou ha ha isn't really all that hard.

Step one: is the person a combatant; that is, committed to an organization or cause whose goal is the violent destruction of a nation state).

Step two: if yes, was that person a lawful combatant as defined by the Geneva convention.

Step three: if yes, then we must abide by the Geneva conventions for lawful enemy prisoners of war.

If no, then there are precisely zero legal constraints we might do with that person. One might argue that it is morally more attractive not to shoot someone we have removed from the battlefield, but there is no legal sustenance for that point of view.

"By not following the conventions, we allow the enemy to bring us down to his ethical level. If we do not hold the moral high ground in the struggle against terrorists - if we violate our own standards of civilized behavior - we have already lost."

Bullshit. These people are not going to go back to the middle east and say "gee, those infidels are swell! They gave me 3 squares and a cot. I think I'll go back to peaceful farming." The British tried the whole gentleman war thing during the revolution. Didn't work so well for them, against people who were not playing by those rules. Nor will it work for us. We need to grasp the inherent difference in fighting the islamists and fighting a country, and get on with it.

...sorry, but part of my oath was in fact to obey the orders of those appointed over me. Small point though.

Not exactly. Officers in the US Military are obliged to not follow unlawful orders. E.G., if a officer appointed above me ordered me to attack a target, and that order violated the Geneva conventions, I was obliged to not follow that order.

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs, but my point was about the admittedly subtle difference between "obliged to" and "sworn to."