Not really; it says that prisoners should come before “competent national tribunals;” it doesn’t spell out what those tribunals should look like, who runs them, or what the standards of evidence are. In point of fact, I agree with xtisme that there needs to be a quicker resolution to these cases; but I also know that they damn well aren’t going to release people they expect will go back and attack US forces.
Yep, they did, and thus the Nazis were wholly within their legal rights to execute them, just as western nations executed many illegal combatants they apprehended. That’s the law of war, and it’s done that way to protect innocent people as much as possible. If illegal combat is not treated very harshly, you are encouraging those tactics which blur the line between civilian and soldier, and thus encouraging exactly the sort of “kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out” type of conflict the human race spent a few millennia evolving out of.
The road to hell is thus paved.
No, I was referring to during the war; I find it hard to believe that faced with the need to eliminate a civilian who they thought to be aiding the Nazis, the resistance would hold back because they didn’t have the right to wax him without trial. I’m not very familiar with Norway, but that is exactly what the resistance did in the rest of Europe. Yes, they also were “illegal combatants;” they are heroes as opposed to villains because of their motives for fighting, not their tactics.
Actually, law and order are almost always brought about exactly because someone arises who can’t be fucked with; the monopoly on the use of forceby those in power is pretty much a prerequisite for a developed state. Only after its been established by brute force who is in charge – i.e. after the war – can civil society be developed.
That was intended as a “well, of course you’re not saying that, so let’s find a reasonable middle ground;” but it appears you really are saying that … iyou’re seriously suggesting that combat troops are supposed to gather fingerprints in a war zone. With all due respect, to call that “laughably naive” fails to do it justice.
First, your “we are the absolute worst” is simply a really poorly constructed straw man. No one has claimed in this thread that the U.S. is the worst violator of human rights and my particular response was to your absurd attempt to declare that a measured response by a country who had been held captive for several years in some way invalidated a citizen of that country from commenting on a particular instance of immoderate action by the U.S.
However, to address your tortured analogy in this post, I will note that Pearl Harbor was not a one-time event for which we took excessive vengeance. Simultaneous with the attack on Peral Harbor and in the weeks following it were attacks on numerous U.S. holdings or locations defended by U.S. forces, Philipines, Wake, and Guam, for example. In adddition, the Japanese actually declared war on the U.S. although bad timing by their transmission and their decoders created a situation in which the declaration was delivered after the first attack rather than simultaneous with it. (A simultaneous declaration and attack would clearly have been just as treachorous, but it would have left less room for people who have never studied history to declare that all our actions were simply predicated on vengeance for the attack.)
It was not a strawman, it was a comment on your tendency to overlook things right in fron t of your face, my dear. As further evidenced by your going at length about Japanese actions, while still insisting that 9-11 was an isolated event. What about USS Cole, African embassy bombings, Khabar towers? What about Al Qaida declaring war on US in 1998? They didn’t try to time their attacks with declaration of war. They declared war far in advance and then proceeded to attack US military and civilian targets. It was not their fault we refused to take them seriously. And to prove how serious they are, they perpetrated the greatest massacre of civilians on US soil on 9-11-2001. Isolated event, forsooth.
The very title of this thread is “How Gitmo is a gulag”. What do you think that implies, pray tell?
How measured? How long did their “high treason trials” lasted? How you know there were no cases of miscarriage of justice and conviction of innocent people? How is their 60% impisonment rate is more “measured” then ours 80% release rate?
Comment, they may. Call US a GULAG, they should be ashamed to.
We did not begin taking and holding people without trial (or kidnapping people in their own country to be held outside our country to avoid dealing with them legally) until triggered by the WTC/Pentagon attack. So the Cole and other events (including the first WTC attack) are irrelevant to the case you initially made.
As to the fairness of the post-WWII trials in Norway, if you would like to assert that they were unfair, present some evidence. It was your claim that their mere existence invalidated criticism, yet you have shown no evidence that they were not fairly held. The very fact that they had a nearly 50% rate of exoneration and only a few executions speaks much better of them in their situation than our 12,000 held-without-trial numbers, given that they were actually occupied, suffering harsh reprisals.
I didn’t make any case. You said that our actions were in response to a single event.
Excuse me, it was you who described those trials as “measured” response, so it is you who must provide proof for your description. I merely questioned how much you know about those trials. Do you know how many innocent people were convicted there? How many people were denied justice?
On my part, I was using strictly numbers from AI report and hildea post, and I found statistical differences staggering: 60% incarceration there, 80% release here.
You know, I could swear I have written this several times in this thread already. Trial. Trial. Trial. When you arrest someone, you hold a trial, to determine their guilt or lack thereof, to decide upon a punishment according to the relevant laws for the jurisdiction. If you hold them imprisoned indefinitively, you’re pissing on a major human right, one of the foundations of a free society. You could stuff them with gourmet halal food, give them wireless broadband, swimming pools, and blonde Swedish masseuses, and you’d still be violating their most basic human rights.
Hold trials, dammit.
Really? Remember, we’re comparing unlawful detention to lawful detention, we’re not comparing taking someone prisoner to shooting them on the spot. Let’s see at the situation in some detail.
Situation: Someone shoots at US soldiers, they pursue the perp, and find a guy with at “Death to America”-T-shirt, holding a Koran and a recently fired rifle. When the soldiers appear, he drops the rifle and puts his hands on his head.
Alternative A: Grab the guy and the rifle. The soldiers take him to a US-run detention center, make a report about what he’s done, leave him there. Keep him imprisoned indefinitively. Interrogate him. Don’t let him communicate with the outside. Keep him imprisoned some more. How long? * shrug * No idea. Who cares?
Alternative B: Grab the guy and the rifle. Stuff the rifle in a plastic bag if you’ve got one. The soldiers take him to a local police station, make a report about what he’s done, leave him and the rifle there. The police inform him about his rights, give him access to a lawyer, interrogate him, try to gather evidence. The local judiciary holds a trial. He’s either found guilty and sentenced to whatever punishment the local law and judge determines for his crime, or (not likely in these circumstances) aquitted.
If alternative B is significantly harder on the soldiers than alternative A, I’m afraid you’ll have to spell out why for me. (Feel free to assume that I’m laughable naive when doing so, from your point of view it’s probably correct ) Alternative B is a lot more demanding on the local police and judiciary, of course. And not just in terms of manpower and security, either. We are, after all, in countries which have brutal, oppressive regimes in their recent past, who’ve little or no experience with fair trials or humane treatment of prisoners. They’d need a lot of help to pull this off. But (to repeat myself) it’s the only way to a future where you can leave those places as something other than chaos or a new oppressive regime.
Heh, now it’s my turn to call your argument naive I assure you, protecting innocent lives was not a Nazi priority during the occupation of Norway. Admittedly, the supposedly arian Norwegians were treated with silk gloves compared to other peoples. But the Nazis wanted to crush the rebellion, and were perfectly willing to kill random civilians in retaliation. It didn’t work. And if the Nazis weren’t able to be brutal enough to crush the resistance, I don’t think you want USA to be able to outdo them.
You’re right, they did. Assasinations, kidnappings, murder. Sometimes, they got the wrong guy. After one of the assasinations, the Nazis retalitated with 34 executions. It was a controversial tactic. But USA isn’t a bunch of loosely organised individuals fighting a hopeless fight against a vastly more powerful occupying power. You don’t need a tactic tried by a desperate group, a tactic which may or may not have backfired more than it helped.
Oh, and New Iskander, if it’s not too much of a hijack, would you mind explaining exactly which part of Norway’s human rights record you’re criticising? We’re certainly not perfect (actually I’ve explicitly stated the opposite in this thread), and there were definitively a lot of problems with landssvikeroppgjøret (including some very questionable legal aspects), but I’m curious as to exactly what part of it you’re talking about. From what you write it seems you have a problem with the raw numbers, but that’s doesn’t make sense, so I assume you’re referring to something else. (Oh, and reread those AI numbers. They don’t say what you seem to think they say.)
Clearly they had a measured response–they actually conducted trials.
60% of the people in the Norwegian people who were tried in court were convicted.
20% of the people we rounded up, we have refused to even bring charges against.
You really have an odd way of looking at fairness.
– Stuff the rifle in a plastic bag if you’ve got one.
– The soldiers take him to a local police station,
– make a report about what he’s done.
– The police inform him about his rights,
– give him access to a lawyer,
– interrogate him,
– try to gather evidence.
– The local judiciary holds a trial.
That sounds like a lot of work there. You seem to assume that Iraq has thousands of trained police officers who aren’t already stretched to their limit. They don’t.
Nope. He’d walk. No proof, eyewitnesses terrified by the rest of the gangs … not a chance in hell.
And this is where we will never agree – the historical pattern is exactly the opposite: first you obtain soveriegnty through combat; which may be bloody and barbaric, and **then ** civil societies can arise.
There has never – not once – in the history of the human race been a war fought under the guidelines you propose.
I didn’t say it was; intent is beside the point. To the extent that they wore identifiable uniforms and did not hide military equipment in orphanages or hospitals, they did in fact mitigate civilian harm.
We’re an occupying power trying to assert control over a well-financed guerilla force. If you don’t think that’s tough, see Vietnam. I don’t buy the notion that the US is supposed to handicap itself because the bettors installed them as the favorite.
She was mking the case that a given tactic might be allowable to “a bunch of loosely organised individuals fighting a hopeless fight against a vastly more powerful occupying power” but not to the mighty USA; and I’m saying the relative power of combatant nation makes no difference whatsoever in regards to their obligations to follow the laws of war, and what happens if they don’t. There isn’t a different set of rules for different sides.
When groups engage in illegal combat – whether we’re talking about WWII partisans or Baathist insurgents – they forefit the protections of treaties such as Geneva. They do not deserve POW status, nor do they have civil criminal status. We may well choose to grant additional rights because we think it’s morally right or simply more in our interests to do so; but that is not the same as an obligation.
Um…I dont think this is what Furt was getting at. Not even in the same universe. Suggestion: Bang yourself smartly on the head. YOu are stuck in a major rhetoric rut there.
So did KGB, by “according to the relevant laws for the jurisdiction”, as **hildea ** puts it, also known as “troika”. There is another GULAG difference for you.
Some people got so disoriented in the echo chamber of “PoW Status and/or Civilian Trial”, they actually convinced themselves that a court trial is the greatest thing in the world. It might appear so from the safety of your own living room, but think about possible negatives. What if you get a “hanging judge”? What if you get hostile jury? What if you are found guilty? What if the judge throws the book at you? What if you are sentenced to Death?
“High treason trials” in Norway produced 60 % convictions. “Troika” trials in SSSR produced almost 100% convictions.
You want to risk all that aggravation to revolt against few quiet months in a detention camp on a resort island? Because that’s all that most people in US custody have to endure.
You misunderstand me. Actually I agree with you, there’s just one set of rules, and it applies to everybody. I’m not defending the assasinations that the Norwegian resistance carried out. I can understand why they felt desperate enough to do what they did, but that doesn’t make it right, or moral. And from a pragmatic point of view, it’s questionable how useful it was.
Yes, it’s a huge burden on the judicial system. I acknowledged that. I asked you whether it caused a significant extra burden on the soldiers. It was my impression that you saw a major obstacle there, but I may have misread you.
And, while it would mean an increased burden on the judicial system, it would be a burden that contributed on building it up. The current systematic violation of law tears it down.
You’ve mentioned several times that US is fighting a war. It just struck me that I’m not sure exactly which war you’re talking about. US has fought and won wars against Afghanistan, and against Iraq. From my point of view, it seems to be busy loosing the peace in both those countries. (What’s worse: The population there are loosing the the peace and their future, too.) When you talk about the current war, do you refer to what’s happening in Iraq right now, or do you refer to the “War on Terror”?
New Iskander, I wouldn’t mind if you ignored me, but as long as you seem to refer to some of the points I’ve raised, I would appreciate it if you’d, you know, read what I write, and perhaps even answer the direct question I’ve asked you. I’ll repeat: Would you mind explaining exactly which part of Norway’s human rights record you’re criticising?
We’re certainly not perfect (actually I’ve explicitly stated the opposite in this thread), and there were definitively a lot of problems with landssvikeroppgjøret (including some very questionable legal aspects), but I’m curious as to exactly what part of it you’re talking about. From what you write it seems you have a problem with the raw numbers, but that’s doesn’t make sense, so I assume you’re referring to something else.
Oh, and reread those AI numbers. They don’t say what you seem to think they say. To be explicit: Your interpretation
Well, “We’re certainly not perfect”, either. Would you compare your country to GULAG? Neither would we. You find it oh so facile to understand and excuse your own shortcomings, but you absolutely refuse to understand what we are going through. I wonder why?
The numbers from AI report are as follows: 70,000 detained during War on Terror, 12,000 presently remain in detention. I think it means 58,000 were released. Now, tell me what you think it means.
It is a burden on both. Soldiers, or police who are engaged in a lot of soldierly work, simply do not have anything like the manpower to send out a half-dozen men to gather the fragments from each and every IED that goes off, and interview the whole neighbohood. Nor, for that matter, do they have the experience or training to do so; the military aren’t policemen and the police are all new – I assume you don’t want them to fall back on the forms of police “investigation” that were normal under Saddam?
Moreover, since the Iraqi and Afghanistani governments are still feeling their way, I think its very probable that in many cases they (and the US) are quite glad not to have to deal with these cases: better to let the US take the bad press for holding guys that they know are guilty but can’t prove in court or who enjoy some popular support.
The principle of “better to let a hundred guilty men go free” is a sound and ethical one in a peaceful, stable nation; it is a suicidal one when it is not a hundred but a thousand, and what they are guilty of is acting to overthrow a nascent government, and when they are likely to redouble their efforts.
I think calling either country peaceful is wildly optimistic. We succeeded in deposing the former regimes; in both cases, especially Iraq, the new governments face armed opposition that in their methods and goals cannot be described as merely criminal. Moreover, both of those conflicts were not independant wars, but campaigns in the broader War on Terror (more accurately, war on Muslim Fundamentalism); you may be one of those who reject that connection, but since both combatant sides have made it, I think it’s pretty self-evident.
Perhaps more to the point, if we’re talking about Gitmo, the vast majority of detainees there were taken during the large-scale combat period. There was not a formal surrender that I am aware of in either case, precisely because that’s the sort of thing that only happens when you are engaged with a lawful opponent. That is another reason why unlawful combatants must be treated harshly: just as they blur the line between soldier and civilain, they also blur the line between peace and war.
) Alternative B is a lot more demanding on the local police and judiciary, of course. And not just in terms of manpower and security, either. We are, after all, in countries which have brutal, oppressive regimes in their recent past, who’ve little or no experience with fair trials or humane treatment of prisoners. They’d need a lot of help to pull this off. But (to repeat myself) it’s the only way to a future where you can leave those places as something other than chaos or a new oppressive regime.