Institutions and buildings don’t “ask” anything. Who are the people who are asking George Bush & Co. to decide on a permanent approach? Why aren’t the headlines screaming their names?
Are our most out-spoken conservative Dopers remaining silent on this?
When individuals are taken to court, and charged with a very serious felony, and they get off with it, some of them are undoubtedly guilty, but they are set free anyway.
Some of them will certainly go on to commit even more serious felonies.
In 2001 there were 11k gun homicides in the US, some of those were undoubtedly individuals who had been to the courts and found not guilty.
Are we saying here that everyone ever charged with a serious felony should be kept in jail indefinately because some are undoubtedly guilty.
Actually its worse than that, are we saying everyone arrested on suspicion of of serious felony should be held indefinatley without trial, because some are undoubedly guilty, even if we don’t have enough actual evidence?
My apologies to Little Nemo in that she/he said “undoubtedly”, not “undeniably” as I had posted.
Democracy comes to the Middle East.
You all make good points, well worth thinking about, but let me take the contra argument, let us think it through together.
These guys are not criminals. They are Prisoners of War. They are not in jail because they are criminals. We held the Brits POWs for many long years without trial perfectly legally and morally correctly. We can and should hold POWs under peace is made.
The Laws of War specifically prohibit one side to put POWs in front of a court. It is wrong to impose ‘Victor’s justice.’ If we do not want the other guys to put our guys on trial, we must not put our POWs on trial.
Paul, with all due respect, the lack of POW status for these prisoners is the crux of the entire 3-year-long argument. The US has decided they’re “illegal combatants” (or something) and they are being denied the rights of POWs as defined by the Geneva Convention. There must be two dozen threads on this subject, dating back to 2002.
Do you want to tell the Pentagon that?
You are quite right, the Americans want to have it both ways. This brings to mind this great quote (from a great book):
From “Flyboys,” Copyright 2003 by James Brady, Page 54…
“Countries avoid a declaration of war so they may claim, “The laws and customs of war do not apply and need not be observed.” Japan never declared war on China. Instead the fighting was euphemized as an “incident.” Chinese troops were not “soldiers” but “bandits.” One of the customs of war Japan was able to flout in this “incident” against “bandits” was acknowledgement that captured Chinese soldiers were prisoners of war. A 1933 army infantry textbook assured IJA officers that when they took prisoners, “if you kill them there will be no repercussions.” In a 1937 directive the army vice chief of staff stated: “In the present situation, in order to wage total war in China, the empire will neither apply nor act in accordance with, all the concrete articles of the Treaty Concerning the laws and Customs of Land Warfare and Other Treaties Concerning the Laws and Regulations of Belligerency.” The same directive ordered, “Staff officers in China to stop using the term ‘prisoner of war.’” As Pulitzer-prize winning historian Herb Blix pointed out, Hirohito himself “supported the policy of withholding a declaration of war against China and ratified and personally endorsed the decision to remove the constraints of international war on the treatment of Chinese prisoners of war.” Thus, Chinese soldiers taken in battle were “denied the status of prisoners of war upon the same pretext and many of them were massacred, tortured or drafted into Japanese labor
The Brit listed above who has been tortured was not a prisoner of war. He was not caught on a battlefield, he was not taken in action. He was removed from his school in Pakistan, shipped to Afghanistan, tortured, shipped to Guantanamo and tortured again. How is he a prisoner of war?
Well, the notion of an enemy combatant not protected by the laws of war is a pretty well established one, affirmed by the Supreme Court during WWII. That opinion, incidentally, was written during a declared war, so I don’t see where that distinction holds any water.
I’m inclined to side with Richard Lugar on this one, that some resolution of the situation needs to be found. Such a resolution, however, should not release genuine terrorists while the conflict is ongoing.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Uh yeah. We’re not sentencing you to life in prison, we’re just going to keep you there that long.
Or not.
The solution would be to try these people–holding them indefinetly does nothing to prevent global terrorism and costs us money.
And I find it hard to believe that the sixteen year olds (who are now 19) are dangerous criminals at all. Does anyone know what has happened to them? (sorry to go OT).
This move by the Bush admin (and I, too want to know the NAMES of the people responsible for this)…I no longer recognize my country. Where is American and all it stood for? How is this not fascistic?
Lots of teenagers are dangerous.
What would we try such a person for? Supporting people who want to nuke us? That is not a crime. Fighting our troops? That is most certainly not a crime.
So we should let them go as they are not criminals? That seems kooky too. (At least some) of these people are soldiers who if released would continue to fight against us. It is a simple fact that in war POWs are kept for a long time.
(My reference to the Brits holding people without trial was to a hypothetical German captured in 1939 and held until 1945. He got no trial as he was not a criminal. Same here.)
If you are here to tell me that 2 16 y/o’s (and I think there was one 15, too), are wreaking havoc on a worldwide scale, please give me details.
Yes, a 16 y/o can be dangerous–they are physically strong (some of them) and can cause bodily harm to others. Yes, they can have access to weaponry and know how to use it. Yes, they often lack judgement and perspective, making them more dangerous with weapons than an adult.
But to think that they have the power and the resources to plot and plan terrorist attacks on a global scale is nonsense. They need money, and contacts, passports and a base(at least one).
Could they be used by terrorists? Of course. Does that mean that we put them in prison for life with no trial, no evidence, no contact with the outside?
No.
Then how long do we hold them? Many of these people were captured in Afghanistan, a country which now has a democratically elected government we recognize. The war is officially over in Iraq as well (“mission accomplished”). The detention of these people can no longer be justified by wartime contingencies.
You don’t have to be so hypothetical. Rudolf Hess was captured in 1941 but not put on trial until Nuremberg after the war.
Zev Steinhardt
Still irrelevant to the current discussion though as (a) these people have been officially catergorised as not being POWs and (b) there is no war.
The juveniles got out last year - they were 13-15 yrs. old.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2004-01/30/content_301598.htm
They were moved to separate quarters in Gitmo and given different treatment eventually after many human rights orgs. protested. However, the USA still holds a large number of children prisoner in its other prison camps.
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?aid=2745
How can the USA ever repay them for the loss of their childhood?
The US isn’t responsible for their loss of childhood. Their childhood was gone when they took up arms against the United States and/or engaged in terrorist activities. The US didn’t make them do that.
Look, I feel for these kids. But I feel for them in the same way that I feel for juvenile delinquents jailed by the state for their crimes. And if we think 16 year olds are old enough to drive cars and get ticketed for speeding, then I think they’re old enough to be held responsible for violating the Geneva Conventions.
(a) They haven’t been categorized as POWs because their actions have made them ineligible for protection under the Geneva Conventions. It would therefore be a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and would encourage future combatants to violate the Geneva Conventions, to give them POW status.
However, their status as POWs has nothing whatsoever to do with how long the US can hold them. Or is it your contention that the US can hold POWs until the cessation of combat, but they can’t hold enemy combatants until the cessation of combat? So if a combatant follows the rules of war, then they can be held indefinitely, but if they violate those rules they must be released immediately?
Am I the only one that thinks that’s a really bad idea?
(b) There’s no war? Are you kidding me?
The “Mission Accomplished” quite clearly referred to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s government. It did not refer to the cessation of our involvment in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it did not refer to the cessation of hostilities against Hussein and Taliban loyalists and terrorists in general. See e.g. Fallujah.
Prejudice. As in pre judice.
Sure, some of them may have taken up arms against the US, in a Geneva-defined “illegal” manner, but how do you know they did? How many mistrials have there been in regular criminal prosecutions in the US? How many more are there likely to be with people picked up randomly in the fog of war?
Indeed, how dare you impugn people who may be innocent and haven’t been tried? Are you parroting Bush’s “make no mistake, these are bad people”?
This is the crux of the issue. The rest of your post is therefore redundant.