# Dick Cheney you worthless mound of excrement **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 31, 2005, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157 "2005-05-31T01:31:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/21 "2005-05-31T03:32:08Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > Just to nitpick, Guantanamo Bay IS US territory, the same as an embassy in any other country. It’s a holdover from before Castro and we’ve maintained it for political rather than military reasons, basically to be a pain in Castro’s backside. _While on the one hand the United states recognizes the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba over the above described areas of land and water, on the other hand the Republic of Cuba consents that during the period of the occupation by the United states of said areas under the terms of this agreement the United states shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control over and within said areas with the right to acquire (under conditions to be hereafter agreed upon by the two Governments) for the public purposes of the United States any land or other property therein by purchase or by exercise of eminent domain with full compensation to the owners thereof._ Series 418, Article III, Treaty of 1934 ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/22 "2005-05-31T03:38:57Z")
To say Guantanamo Bay is sovereign Cuban territory is to redefine what sovereign means. Cuba has no right to exercise any form of control over the territory in question, they cannot make the U.S. leave, and they can’t use the land in any way shape or form for themselves. If they infringed on the territorial lines their soldiers would be shot and killed. A treaty can use the word “sovereign” but that doesn’t change the innate definition of sovereign (just like Saddam could call his government democratic.) Anyways, for the U.S. to leave the U.S. _and_ Cuba have to agree on the move. As for the OP, this thread is redundant. Dick Cheney is the Vice President of the United States, no need to call him worthless, it’s assumed with the job title. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/23 "2005-05-31T03:40:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Cheney said. “Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment. But if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who has been inside and been released … to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated.” And if they actually _are_ being mistreated, they should qualify their allegations with an “…I’m serious.” ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/24 "2005-05-31T03:42:01Z")
Good points about the Guantanamo lease, Martin Hyde. It’s certainly not like any lease I ever had with a landlord. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/25 "2005-05-31T03:57:02Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > To say Guantanamo Bay is sovereign Cuban territory is to redefine what sovereign means. > > A treaty can use the word “sovereign” but that doesn’t change the innate definition of sovereign Maybe it will if they keep using the term that way? > [@](#): > > Iraq Is a Sovereign Country > Iraq Fact of the Day > > At 10:26 am in Baghdad on June 28, 2004, Iraq again became a sovereign country. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040628-8.html](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040628-8.html) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/26 "2005-05-31T04:04:10Z")
Eh, two instances over a 70 year period probably won’t change the definition. ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/27 "2005-05-31T04:22:31Z")
> [@imthjckaz](#): > > William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, when told of what Cheney said, replied: > > In other words, Cheney just doesn’t get it. Oh, I think he does get it, quite well. Unfortunately, his It ain’t anything that would be a sustainable sense of a world for the majority of people. It’s an It, though. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/28 "2005-05-31T04:33:23Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > A treaty can use the word “sovereign” but that doesn’t change the innate definition of sovereign (just like Saddam could call his government democratic.) That’s sort of the point. On paper Gitmo is Cuban territory, but in every other sense of the word it belongs to the US. Thus it’s a good place to keep people in a legal limbo, as opposed to within the US proper where US courts would have a say, or in a US base in a country where we are on better terms with the locals (say Germany or even Afganistan itself) where we’d have to listen to the local courts/politicians. If Castro says we’re illegally detaining people on the other hand, no one will take him seriously. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/29 "2005-05-31T04:43:45Z")
But if Guantanamo were under amphibious assault by Gabon or Upper Volta, wouldn’t Cuba have the legal right, under international law, to bring its entire military force to bear? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/30 "2005-05-31T05:02:18Z")
> [@](#): > > The reason the detainees are not here is obvious. Who wants them in the United States? It’s like deciding where to put a landfill. Nobody wants garbage anywhere near them. After 9/11 nobody wanted terrorists anywhere near them, so Gitmo became the default. That a good number of them have turned out to be innocent doesn’t change the fact that we are holding some real scumbags down there, and I have no real problem with that. Actually, the reason those prisoners are at Guantanamo is obvious–and was explictly chosen by the administration–but they are not the reasons you gave. When Guantanamo was chosen for the site of the detention facility, the administration argued that the prisoners were not prisoners of war (and so they were not protected by the various Geneva and Hague conventions on warfare to which the U.S. is a signatory), and that, since they were not on “U.S. soil” they were not guaranteed the rights of due process that criminals in the U.S. are guaranteed. This has not been a secret; it has been the exact position argued by the U.S. government. So far, the courts have gone along (mostly) with this transparent fiction. Guantanamo was established explicitly to avoid complying with every U.S. or International law regarding the treatment of either prisoners of war or of accused criminals so that the government can do whatever they wish with the detainees without fear of hindrance by any mere law. ---
**Author:** ![fushj00mang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d26b3c/32.png) [@fushj00mang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fushj00mang)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/31 "2005-05-31T05:19:20Z")
Does anyone really take Amnesty International seriously? When there is something (however big or small) it becomes a huge issue. Whenever there is nothing, they make an issue. To quote from their press release, dated 13/May/05 titled USA: New Amnesty International report on USA’s “war on terror” detentions: > [@Amnesty Int'l](#): > > A year after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal broke, the conditions remain in place for torture and ill-treatment in US custody to occur. While the US government is pursuing a public relations exercise to persuade the world that what the Abu Ghraib photographs revealed was a small problem that has now been fixed, thousands of detainees in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and secret locations elsewhere remain at **risk** of torture or ill-treatment. (bolding mine.) Risk? Wow, there’s an off chance that these guys may get beaten, tortured, etc. Risk indeed. Not that its happening after the abuses that actually did happen were uncoverd and the guilty punished, but there’s still the possibility… To further quote (from the same press release): > [@Amnesty Int'l](#): > > The report includes an analysis of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, executive bodies which the administration is hoping to persuade a federal court to accept as a substitute for judicial review…and the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, facing execution for his alleged role in the attacks of 11 September 2001 which sparked the so-called “war on terror”. Hmm…I was unaware that folks who wern’t US citizens were subject to the protections granted by US law. In fact, ain’t that what the hoopla about illegal immigrants is all about, getting them the protections of the law so they aren’t abused? As far as the second part, it shows the thought process behind A-I’s workings. Moussaoui faces execution for his alleged role in the attacks on the WTC? The ones he wanted to plead guilty to? The ones he did plead guilty to? The guilty pleas which were thrown out by US courts because they could get that fucking terrorist piece of shit the chair? Alleged my ass. I’m not suprised that VP Cheney dismisses Amnesty Internationl out of hand. They’re biased, ignorant, and all around anti-American (I do note anti-American as opposed to anti-Bush or anti-Administration, as they further accused the US government under Pres. Clinton of ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment because cable TV was taken out of FPC Norfolk.) Did the fucker who penned that Gitmo was a ‘gulag’ note the lack of slave labor, the fact that they are not forced to grow their own food or starve, the fact that they get better medical treatment than they did in their own home countries, and that GitMo (if not for being a Marine base and a detention facility) would actually be a pretty nice spot (not that it is right now) as opposed to…say…Siberia? Now, an orginization which should (IMO) be allowed in to view the detainees and would (again IMO) give a fairly unbiased report would be the Int’l Red Cross, Star, and Crecent. Then again, those jokers are pretty anti-American too (thinks back to their censorship of CWO3 Mike Durant’s personal letters back in '93, as well as the way they accused US Marines as ‘war criminals’ during Operation Restore Hope.) Anyway, keep 'em in Gitmo. Better there than Levenworth. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/32 "2005-05-31T05:35:11Z")
The following aarticles address the issue of what the Administration claimed when it established the off-shore prison camp in Cuba. The first article is hostile to the administration position, but I do not see that he misrepresents the Administration position: [GUANTANAMO AND THE RULE OF LAW: Why We Should Not Use Guantanamo Bay To Avoid The Constitution By ANUPAM CHANDER](http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020307_chander.html) > [@](#): > > But the Bush Administration chose to make none of these arguments. Rather than arguing the merits of the claims, the Administration simply denied the right of the detainees to any constitutional protection whatsoever. It argued that the Constitution provides no protections at all to aliens in Guantanamo Bay, since, according to the Administration, they are not in the United States, but rather in Cuba. [WHAT IS AN “UNLAWFUL COMBATANT,” AND WHY IT MATTERS: The Status Of Detained Al Qaeda And Taliban Fighters By MICHAEL C. DORF](http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20020123.html) > [@](#): > > Accordingly, so long as the al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are held at Guantanamo Bay and thus not deemed to have entered the U.S., their only route of appeal would appear to be within the Executive Branch. Put more bluntly, they will have only the procedural recourse the Administration allows them. ---
**Author:** ![fushj00mang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d26b3c/32.png) [@fushj00mang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fushj00mang)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/33 "2005-05-31T05:42:24Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > …and so they were not protected by the various Geneva and Hague conventions on warfare to which the U.S. is a signatory… According to the 3rd Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1949, and as ammended in 1964) the USA is in violation of Article 3, Paragraph 1, Sections A and C. > [@Geneva Conventions](#): > > Art 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions: > (1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: > (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; > (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; That is IF the individuals held (and abused) fall under the definition and prerequsites of a POW as defined in Article 4, which they do not according to Paragraph 2, Sections A-D (eg, all of them.) Namely, since they do not meet the definition of a soldier, militaman, or resistance fighter under the Geneva Conventions, why should they receive the protections of the Conventions? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/34 "2005-05-31T05:47:58Z")
> [@fushj00mang](#): > > Now, an orginization which should (IMO) be allowed in to view the detainees and would (again IMO) give a fairly unbiased report would be the Int’l Red Cross, Star, and Crecent. Then again, those jokers are pretty anti-American too I guess Europe is too, here is the European parliament, months before AI appeared with the latest resolutions: [sub]lets see if I made the direct link work:[/sub] [http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2004-0050+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=3&NAV=S&LSTDOC=Y](http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2004-0050+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=3&NAV=S&LSTDOC=Y) > [@](#): > > Thursday 28 October 2004 Final edition > Guantanamo > F. whereas EU institutions, Member States and public opinion are concerned about conditions at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base and have called for the detainees to be treated in accordance with the rule of law, regardless of their nationality or origin, > > 1. Reaffirms that, in the face of the threat of terrorism, one of the prime duties of democracies is to protect their citizens with resolve, to fight terrorism firmly and tenaciously and to detect and dismantle any terrorist networks;\*\* strongly reaffirms that this fight cannot be waged in breach of international law and at the expense of established basic, shared values such as respect for human rights, the rule of law and the relevant Geneva Conventions;\*\* > 2. **Notes with satisfaction that some detainees have been granted increasing entitlement to private conversations with independent lawyers; insists, however, that every detainee should be treated in accordance with international humanitarian law and tried without delay in a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal, in application and demonstration of the very values we stand for ;** > 3. 3 Reiterates the recommendations it made to the Council on 10 March 2004 as regards the legal consideration of detainees held in Guantánamo Bay and the possible impact on the EU-US partnership; > 4. **Calls on the US administration to allow an impartial and independent investigation into allegations of torture and mistreatment for all persons deprived of their liberty in US custody;** Bolding mine. _It is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else._ ~Theodore Roosevelt Or to the vice-president… ---
**Author:** ![Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3ab097/32.png) [@Khan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khan)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/35 "2005-05-31T05:48:42Z")
> [@fushj00mang](#): > > Namely, since they do not meet the definition of a soldier, militaman, or resistance fighter under the Geneva Conventions, why should they receive the protections of the Conventions? …and if they’re not on American soil nor subject to American legal procedure, what, then, is to be done with them? Are they or are they not in limbo? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/36 "2005-05-31T06:22:21Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > But if Guantanamo were under amphibious assault by Gabon or Upper Volta, wouldn’t Cuba have the legal right, under international law, to bring its entire military force to bear? I’d think they’d have the right to fight off the general invasion as long as they could do so without sending any form of munitions/weaponry across the line into the U.S. controlled territory and without sending any troops into the U.S. controlled territory. ---
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/37 "2005-05-31T06:22:49Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > But if Guantanamo were under amphibious assault by Gabon or Upper Volta, wouldn’t Cuba have the legal right, under international law, to bring its entire military force to bear? With Burkina Faso (the country formerly known as Upper Volta) being a landlocked country, I seriously doubt their amphibious assault capability. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/38 "2005-05-31T06:24:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Namely, since they do not meet the definition of a soldier, militaman, or resistance fighter under the Geneva Conventions, why should they receive the protections of the Conventions? Of course, they fail to meet the definitions because the U.S. has the big guns and has chosen to redefine the definitions deliberately to exclude them. (By any defintion aside from the deliberate misconstruction of the U.S., the fighters picked up in Afghanistan were at least resistance fighters. By the U.S. definitions, every member of a non-uniformed militia between 1775 and 1781 was an unlawful combatant who deserved any abuse the British chose to heap upon him). However, granting that the U.S. has sufficiently won the semantic game so as to pass its actions through its own courts, I would think that there is still the issue of the ethics of the situation, in which we are deliberately abusing (holding without trial or communication) people on the flimsiest excuses, people who are often guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time or of being opponents in personal feuds with persons that the U.S. has paid to act as snitches, as well as the practical issue that we are creating enemies that we did not need to create so that the children and grandchildren (or nephews and grand nephews if we kill them) of these prisoners will quite probably hold the U.S. in contempt and animosity for a generation or more. Had these persons been guilty of crimes, why is the administration afraid to prosecute them in a real court with normal legal protections. If these persons are not criminals, why is the U.S. afraid to give them the protections due to POWs? Guantanamo is the best recruiting argument that al Qaida could create. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/39 "2005-05-31T06:26:19Z")
> [@Frostillicus](#): > > My God, is there anyone out there who actually still believes that the US is NOT a violator of human rights? Never underestimate the Power of Denial. ---
**Author:** ![fushj00mang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d26b3c/32.png) [@fushj00mang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fushj00mang)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2005, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157/40 "2005-05-31T06:59:38Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Of course, they fail to meet the definitions because the U.S. has the big guns and has chosen to redefine the definitions deliberately to exclude them. (By any defintion aside from the deliberate misconstruction of the U.S., the fighters picked up in Afghanistan were at least resistance fighters. By the U.S. definitions, every member of a non-uniformed militia between 1775 and 1781 was an unlawful combatant who deserved any abuse the British chose to heap upon him). > > However, granting that the U.S. has sufficiently won the semantic game so as to pass its actions through its own courts, I would think that there is still the issue of the ethics of the situation, in which we are deliberately abusing (holding without trial or communication) people on the flimsiest excuses, people who are often guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time or of being opponents in personal feuds with persons that the U.S. has paid to act as snitches, as well as the practical issue that we are creating enemies that we did not need to create so that the children and grandchildren (or nephews and grand nephews if we kill them) of these prisoners will quite probably hold the U.S. in contempt and animosity for a generation or more. In response to your first point: This is NOT the US definition of a uniformed or non-uniformed militia. This is the definition of the 3rd Geneva Convention, led by the US, USSR, UK, France, and China (the Nationalists, not the Communists) and signed by 143 nations. It was again reaffirmed in 1964 by 147 nations. Since you do not seem to know how the Convention defines a militaman, let me quote you the article and paragraph, in its entirety. > [@3rd Geneva](#): > > 1. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions: > (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; > (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; > (c) that of carrying arms openly; > (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. Section A: Mmmm…perhaps they do have a command structure. We keep hearing about the capture or elimination of al-Quaeda leaders, so I guess those guys pass this check. Section B: No…nope. No uniform, no patches, no recognizable signs. Hell, you did see that American soldiers wear a full-color US flag on their BDU’s now, to fit this rule, right? Not that the terrorists we’re holding would have recognized their rights as POW’s. “Insurgents” fail this check. Section C: Carrying arms openly? Nope. Drive by shootings and planting IED’s which kill civilians does NOT constitute carrying arms openly. Hell, one of the newest tactics they’re employing is dropping an IED through the floorboards of a vehicle at night so they don’t draw suspicion by stopping. Terrorists fail this check. Section D: Conducting the war in accordance with law and custom of war? Ok…beheadings. Kidnappings. Deliberately killing civilians. Fighting from protected sites (mosques, clinics.) Deliberately misusing protected symbols (running guns and ammo in ambulances.) Not only do they fail, but they lose a point for lack of ingenuity. And no, in the American Revolution, by the Convention’s definitions, the forces that faced the British were either soldiers (those of the fully constituted Contenental army which wore standardized badges of rank and standardized uniforms (although they varied from regiment to regiment)) OR they were an organized militia, again wearing the same standardized badges of rank as the Contentinal army did, and wearing standardized accuterments which marked them as members of their State militias. To address your second paragraph, you state that we should apply our own ethics to these situations. Let me give you an anectode. Back in '99, I was taking a class in self defense in which we were addressed by our instructor (an American of Israeli birth) named Uzeil Goldberg. He asked “Two people are locked in mortal combat. One is being choked to death. What do you do?” Everybody went over the litany of “knee to groin”, “rake eyes,” etc. He replied with “Wrong. You die. You should have kept choking them.” In a time of war against an enemy who knows form and follows no rules, we must do everything in our power which is resonable to destroy our enemies. The fact that these people could (and IMO should) have been tried at drumhead and executed by some wet behind the ears lieutenant in the field, but instead find themselves sitting in Gitmo or at Bagrahm AB, shows that we are doing everthing within reason to take them down. They could be dead. Instead, they await trial for an extended period of time. Do you want us to start doing the unthinkable opposite? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-you-worthless-mound-of-excrement/306157.md?page=3)