McCain Is Wrong Here - Again
After the circus today, I promise that I will not - ever - vote for John McCain for president. I further promise that I will do every, single thing I can possibly do to help get him defeated. I have not followed every nuance of the bills that Bush proposed versus the one McCain and pals pushed out of committee, but I have the broad concepts at least.
McCain is out of line here. This is the same man who cheerfully brought suppression of political speech into law. Now he appears to be intent on securing full legal rights for terrorists. He also wants to codify that it is perfectly ok to kill these people but under no circumstances can you laugh at them or make them feel in any way degraded, embarrassed or upset.
Answer these questions: Should someone who beheads people, uses civilians as shields and detonates terror bombs among civilians be accorded the same legal rights as uniformed soldiers? Should soldiers in uniform be held to the Geneva Conventions while the others get a free pass?
No talking points allowed (I will delete comments that use them). Justify your answer.
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A Blog For All — Thursday, 14 September , 2006 @ 8:21 pm
By Donna, Thursday, 14 September , 2006 @ 8:03 pm
Well, Gaius, I can see that you are upset. I cannot relate to your question because it seems like your question pre-supposes that detainees are the same persons as those who do the atrocious things listed within your question. I believe the legislation is trying to determine how detainees are to be interrogated to determine whether they are in fact, terrorists or are alternatively, innocent persons.
By SunBeltJerry, Thursday, 14 September , 2006 @ 8:21 pm
Answer these questions: Should someone who beheads people, uses civilians as shields and detonates terror bombs among civilians be accorded the same legal rights as uniformed soldiers?
Yes, AFTER we’ve captured them and identified them as Al Qaeda. At that point, we should have enough evidence to have them tried in our own military tribunals (even under the tribunals that Powell envisions) AND, if they get off, can’t we have them tried for violations of the GC conventions (civilians as shields, terror bombs among civilians)? I think the real answer is to have more interrogations ‘in the field’ before anyone’s been ‘captured’.
Should soldiers in uniform be held to the Geneva Conventions while the others get a free pass?
Since we are at war with Al Qaeda, and they’ve declared war on us, I think we should treat them as uniformed combatants, even if they aren’t in uniform. I assume that our current rules of engagement are within the GC but still allow us to target someone who isn’t in uniform, or who is holding citizens hostage with a bomb.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, Thursday, 14 September , 2006 @ 11:23 pm
“Since we are at war with Al Qaeda, and they’ve declared war on us, I think we should treat them as uniformed combatants, even if they aren’t in uniform. I assume that our current rules of engagement are within the GC but still allow us to target someone who isn’t in uniform, or who is holding citizens hostage with a bomb.”
A couple of problems: First, they don’t seem to be “holding citizens hostage with a bomb”; they just blow random civilians up wherever the opportunities arise. As far as on the field of combat, anyone firing on an American soldier will get return fire. The problem is–and one I’m having a harder and harder time trying to figure out–we are not engaged in combat with cosignees of the Geneva Conventions. We have absolutely no obligation, after taking some jihadi combatant prisoner, beyond squeezing him for intel and hard as necessary and then killing him right there and then, according to the Geneva Conventions, precisely because he was not wearing a uniform.
Giving that brand of SOB the rights afforded by GC, or to common criminals under the US justice system, is obnoxious to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, who go out of their way to abide by rules like the GC while their opponents have no such restrictions, but who scream–or their “civil liberties!” defenders will– for their protection once they have been captured.
McCain just kissed 2008 goodbye.
By larwyn, Friday, 15 September , 2006 @ 1:22 am
Hope all remember that this insanity is due to SCOTUS and the Liberal
Internationalists.
I watched the broadcast of the House Armed Services Committee on CSPAN last night. Chairman Duncan Hunter is fighting the DEMs on the
issue of Classified Documents and having our agents testify in court.
The agents/military personnel would thusly be identified.
Now, we have had 3 years of who outed the non covert Valerie Plame Wilson, an impeachable offense per many DEMS. The same DEMS who
want to out CIA agents/MI agents and other personnel to the terrorist on trial.
They want to let the terrorist see Classified Docs in addition to their attorneys. We can only hope the old joke would then be operable:
“I can let you see this, but now I have to kill you!”
Notice that the major get, the #2 or 3 AQ captured in Iraq with the letters
to OBL was “captured” by Iraqis.
It was announced last week that the Iraq government is in charge of the
Iraqi Military. So far, I have not heard of any Liberal Internationalists on
the highest Iraqi court. We have heard that the inmates of Abu Graib
are not very happy with their new landlords now that the US has left.
I doubt that the US will be capturing many going forward if the McCain
side wins this. If potential capture is not in a country who we can trust,
choice will be to let the terrorist continue or to kill him. The latter means
we only get the information from his belongings.
A CIA operative or Special Forces will have to weigh each time there is an
opportunity to capture a terrorist that at subsequent trial his identify will be
exposed, hence the identities of his family.
As you cannot prove a negative, if McCain’s version is passed, we will never know of opportunites passed over.
And while all complain we don’t have enough trained operatives, McCain will insure that for each terrorist tried that (knowing defense attorney tactics) several successful operatives are taken off the board of field work.
Duncan Hunter won’t bend on protecting our personnel or on allowing
Classified materials to be given to the Terrorist.
By jeff, Friday, 15 September , 2006 @ 11:01 am
We all know this is rhetorical question, but still, I’ll take the bait
“Should someone who beheads people, uses civilians as shields and detonates terror bombs among civilians be accorded the same legal rights as uniformed soldiers?â€
All men are equal under law, no matter what they are wearing nor the nature of the crime.
“Should soldiers in uniform be held to the Geneva Conventions while the others get a free pass?â€
Again, all men are equal under the law no matter who remains unpunished.
However, what I think you are trying to ask is this; If those who ignore both international and US law in sprit or in letter, along with moral and ethical norms of the developed world in a violent conflict, is it responsible or logical to maintain these laws and norms? I think that it would make little sense to maintain laws that no one has any interest in following, and society has a way of selecting, over time, which laws stay and which laws go by choosing to enforce some laws and not others. The enforcement of law is the real point of your argument. To enforce the Geneva Conventions against US solders while the Geneva Conventions are not enforced among those how wear no uniform, yet are engaged in an organized and violent conflict, seems the antithesis of logic.
I agree with you one hundred percent. If the US chooses not to enforce the Geneva conventions it would result in logic being restored to the conflict where the opposing force chooses not to enforce the same set of rules. If no one chooses to enforce the law, the law in all practicality ceases to exist. The US would then be well within the norm, and its rights, to behead civilians, use them as shields against attack, refuse to wear uniforms, and detonate bombs among civilians. In fact, I would conjecture that this would be more effective in this particular conflict than conventional military tactics and superior firepower that, obviously, are not working. Also I would suggest that it is completely logical that we jettison all other laws that the enemy dose not enforce in battle, especially those that put us at a distinct disadvantage. By increasing the number of tools our solders and leaders can chose from we increase directly the possibilities of emerging from the conflict victorious, and we are only limited by those laws that either side in the conflict chose to enforce mutually. I think this is exactly what some leaders are working towards, the effort to level the playing field.
After all what is the point of winning or losing if the game isn’t fair?