You’re turning up the flowery rhetoric, which is always a sign that you don’t want to address my points.
Only if you agree to accept my conscience as the arbiter of ALL our laws and regulations.
Or did you mean that you wanted me to accept your conscience?
He went out to war alright, but he did so without a uniform, that he might hide among civilians. Not too brave to me.
I’m not speculating on his bravery. As I said above, I think that is a distinction that may simply not exist in Arab society to the extent it does here - witness Saddam Hussein’s deliberate placement of military organizations in residential areas, for instance. Similarly witness the behavior of Hamas, which launches rocket attacks then melts away into the streets. It guarantees that any reprisal against them will affect civilians, but this isn’t seen as a problem generally, since it helps keep the population sufficiently militant.
It is a clear violation of international law, though, and I think we have to come to terms with that one way or the other. And it would surely help if members of this board would drop their denial in this particular area and note this rather fundamental difference.
Actually this is semantics, because regardless of who you are or what your status is with respect to arbitrary distinctions like “soldier” or “enemy combatant,” every human being has a right not to be tortured, confined without charge or trial, or deprived of counsel. It’s that simple.
Not really. The only people that have those rights are the citizens of certain countries that have enshrined those rights in law. People in other parts of the world…not so much.
And much to my chagrin, he is a Canadian citizen.
And if he was in Canada, this wouldn’t even be an issue, right? But he’s in the custody of the United States, and the U.S. is under no obligation to extend to foreign nationals the same rights that it extends to it’s own citizens (except those rights extended to them either as a courtesy, or by something like the recent the SCOUS decision I mentioned earlier).
Good point. We’ve been living with the idea of these ridiculous Acts so long that I’d forgotten when they went into affect. Still, the spirit of my post stands - going into battle as a combatant, he could reasonably expect to kill, be killed, be injured, or be captured.
ETA: Forgot to add another point that’s picking my ass - I watched another story on Khadr on Canadian news last night, and not once were Khadr’s own actions mentioned. So much for fair and unbiased news reporting.
Au contraire:
Presumably, it would surprise you to know that we are a signatory to the American Convention on Human Rights, which, shockingly enough, prohibits torture- and unlike the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is legally binding:
Well, sure, but he could also reasonably expect to be repatriated at the conclusion of major hostilities to be tried in a Canadian court.
Major hostilities, you will note, have concluded.
That’s a very incomplete presentation of the facts. Yes, we signed it in 1977, but we never ratified it; it thus has no force in domestic law.
I wish it did. I had no idea you were such a big fan of it.
Or did you forget Art 4.1?
No it is not.
Status means quite a lot here. If a person is a POW, then he cannot reasonably avail himself of the services of counsel, since his detention cannot be challenged in any court that I know of. He must simply await repatriation, which may happen at the end of the conflict or some time beforehand by the agreement of the holding power.
One can reasonably expect this process to take years - German POWs in America and Canada had to wait some time for repatriation during WWII. Few of them were tried, few of them were ever represented by counsel. And that wasn’t particularly unjust given their status - trying them would be appropriate only if there was evidence that they were war criminals.
In the case of an unlawful combatant, hearings and representation are absolutely vital because these are not POWs, and as such they are not entitled to the full protections that POWs get, and are able to be tried and punished.
You try to dismiss this as semantics - that is missing very large points. In most cases it is illegal to try a POW or punish him in your country’s judicial system. Not so an unlawful combatant - he must be tried somehow. That isn’t semantics - it is a fundamental difference in how they are treated.
You’re right about ratification, I admit.
That said, you know very well that Constitutional provisions trump treaty provisions in domestic jurisprudence. In any case, we can always ratify with reservation as to Article 4.1.
You’re absolutely right. Unfortunately, we aren’t repatriating them and we aren’t trying them either.
Most likely Scalia. Jefferson is “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” Flowery rhetoric, I know, but still…
Which, if I’m not mistaken, was part of the legal wrangling over habeas that culminated in the Boumediene v. Bush decision that I mentioned earlier, so I’m not sure how this disproves my point.
The kerfuffle over the ruling aside, the text of the statute is pretty clear.
Yes, and that is part of what makes The Patriot Acts so odious. As you say yourself, they aren’t being tried or repatriated.
And why, you may ask, are they not being tried? I assert: because they cannot be found guilty in any fair court, and the embarassment of admitting that is unthinkable.
How many of these odious and evil detainees have been released after we belatedly discovered that they are no more “terrorists” than the Man in the Moon? We offered cash bounties to turn in “terrorists” and took the words of the people we wrote the checks to. What were we thinking?
Several posters herein express unshakeable confidence that this boy is guilty. None, so far as I can tell, have offered any proof but their abiding trust in people who have been shown to be more wrong than right, and more often.
Lets be generous, and assume that you don’t support tormenting children for the sheer joy of it, that you have some basis. What might that be, other than you are told so by people you have no reason to trust?
Sure. But it strikes me as a tad disingenuous to refer to this document as though it’s got some valuable moral guidance that we are lacking… except as to Article 4.1, which is just crazy talk. See what I mean? You can’t drag out a document and suggest by implication that we’re in the wrong for ignoring its provisions, except for the provisions YOU want us to ignore.