Reading Popehat...
Reading the comments too.
I want to comment there, but I'm a bit intimidated by the company.
About Gitmo...
We have a serious problem.
They were captured under arms.
If they're POW they sit in a prison camp until the conflict is over. For as long as that may be regardless of how many elections we have and who wins them. Geneva and Hague agree and was reinforced after WW2 when we got huffy about the Soviets NOT releasing German POWs.
If they aren't POW then they are non-entity and can be disposed of as we will. You may notice that not a single German was at Nuremburg for what happened to partisans?
The traditional method is to summarily to shoot them. Other methods have been employed to cow the local populace, but killing them outright is acceptable.
Keeping indefinitely in a decent by American standards prison is far less than death, so it's got to be OK.
Torture is another matter, but that's got little to do with holding people who were captured under arms.
Well given there is no military uniform or chain of command for Iraqi or Afghan insurgent fighters, they are in total violation of the conventions, so the point is good, but moot.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't moot the point, that just means there are no POW. It means we don't have to take prisoners at all. It means we don't have to have trials, ever. It means we can hold them forever.
ReplyDeleteAnything less than killing them outright, which is allowed, is a boon stemming from our bountiful kindness.
PS: the rules about persons found under arms without uniforms really assume that summary executions are what's going to happen after a brief interrogation.
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