But there are so many innocent people, and we are so large and powerful and we have so many resources. And yet we’ve imprisoned, tortured and killed relatively few. So I’m wondering, to what do you attribute this appalling lack of victims, relative to the potential number out there? Sloth? Lack of imagination? What?
We typically just kill people instead of taking prisoners, even when we torture them first. You speak as if we don’t have over a hundred thousand corpses to our credit in Iraq alone.
And how do you know how “few” people we’ve tortured and killed since so much was done in secret? How many have been sent to puppet governments to be tortured for us, how many were sent to CIA or military run prisons and then dumped into the ocean? Clairvoyance?
Great DEBATES.
Argumentum ad ignoratium.
Welcome to the real world, where when dealing with people and organizations who do things in secret you sometimes have to make estimates according to what has come to light. We know they tortured people, we know they did it in secret as long as they could get away with it, we know they had secret prisons, we know they handed off victims to third parties. However convenient it would be for right wingers like you and Starving Artist, it is irrational to assume that the publicized cases where clear evidence of wrongdoing has come to light are the only ones. We have no way of knowing how many people were tortured and buried in shallow graves or dumped into rivers or incinerated. Nor are we likely to find out any real details for decades since no one in power is going to seriously investigate the matter or permit someone else to do so.
Off the top of my head there were about 600 (probable) innocents in Guantanamo alone, most (but not all) of which have since been released. Is that an acceptable number to lock up and torture without evidence, then eventually release years later? Or is any number acceptable as long as it doesn’t include anyone in your monkeysphere?
If we capture a Taliban fighter on the battlefield, the laws of war clearly and unquestionably allow the detention of that person for the duration of the hostilities. We don’t have to charge them with crimes, no more than we had to charge Nazis, NVA regulars, or other enemies with crimes.
Great. Battlefield captures made up 5% of the Gitmo detainees. How about the other 95%? What about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? He was arrested in Pakistan. Not a battlefield capture either.
The Brits are paying for this shite
First we have to agree what the battlefield is. In your mind, what defines the battlefield? Is it law? Is it the presence of hostilities? Is it only certain countries that you select for arbitrary reasons? I would like to know how you see this question.
Well you did say
I’m assuming since you talk taliban and battlefield you’re talking about a taliban fighter actually fighting against US/Allied troops in Afghanistan?
Are you going to move away from taliban fighters and battlefield and expand it to anywhere because of the nature of terrorism?
Can you point to even one person who has been tortured and buried in a shallow grave, then?
No? Then may God have mercy on your soul. You know, God? The entity for which no objective evidence exists, but since we have no way to know He’s there, we should assume He is?
Or does your formula only work on stuff you want it to?
Amusingly, the exemplar for both could be “Jesus”.
I’m afraid I have no further understanding of what you consider to be the battlefield, and how you arrive at that definition. Before attacking the position that you impute to me, I am genuinely interested in how you define “the battlefield.”
Does international law define the battlefield? Does US law define the battlefield? Do our actions define the battlefield? Do only major battlefields (e.g., Iraq and Afghanistan) count, and “minor” battlefields (e.g., the Horn of Africa or the Philippines) not count? Why?
Well you were the one that brought up battlefield and linked it with Taliban fighters.
Gyrate replied that a large number of people didn’t fit into the criteria that you yourself defined.
If a person is in a taxi in NY with a dirty bomb in the boot(trunk) he’s commiting a crime. He’s not on a battlefield but is very much part of the “war”. He should be arrested and tried under the legal system of the juristiction he was arrested in. A battlefield POW issue as far as I’m concerned is an area where people are engageing in actual combat with other soldiers. Outside that they are criminals in the same way a common murderer is and should be dealt with the same.
It pains me to cite Margaret Thatcher but I’ve got to admit that she had a point when she said of the IRA
The Brits and the Irish had a policy of internment back in the day and it was as wrong then as it is now.
I agree completely.
We are routinely bombing places in Pakistan. Is that not a battlefield?
Let’s say we are covertly sending in special operations forces to do raids in a country we shall call Pineland, to capture or kill known/suspected AQ bad guys. Is that a battlefield?
We have military trainers/advisers who routinely accompany Fredionian soldiers on their missions to capture or kill AQ bad guys, but our boys don’t do any of the shooting. Is that a battlefield or not?
Congress has passed a law saying that the President may attack AQ and its associates wherever they may be found. Doesn’t that mean that Congress has declared the whole world a battlefield? Why doesn’t that law define what the battlefield is? Is that law unconstitutional?
Heh. Very close, with the only minor quibble coming from the rocky tomb not exactly being a shallow grave.
But props to you… 
The problem is that we’re not following the laws of war.
There is one set of laws explaining how you’re supposed to treat a person you’ve confined because you believe he committed a crime and what rights he has. There is another set of laws explaining how you’re supposed to treat a person who is prisoner of war and what rights he has. I have no issue with the government picking either of these options and following the applicable laws.
The problem is that the government has invented a new category which apparently has no rules. This new invented category - “unlawful enemy combatants” or “unprivileged belligerents” or “people we just want to keep in prison” - has no legal foundation. We have no more legal authority to hold these people than the Iranians had to hold our embassy staff back in 1979.
The sheik should have a trial. Bush should have given him one. Now Obama should.
He’s not a sheikh. Sheikh is part of his name. It distinguishes him from a Bollywood director of the same name.
Not true.
The concept is contemplated in the Geneva Convention itself, where it lays out the criteria necessary to claim POW status.