The Torture Question
POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Sunday, October 30, 2005 21:30
VIEWED: 10585
PAGE 14 of 16
Quote:No that’s pretty much what I mean. I consider them legitimate interrogation practices, if perhaps overboard. The way you stated it is pretty much precisely the way I look at it. I think they are practices that should be very carefully controlled and only very appropriately administered but nonetheless, I think some of these practices may have value, and should be available to interrogators under very extreme circumstances. You obviously disagree with me on this. You take a more idealist approach, which I think is a very respectable position that you have defended well, and I won’t besmirch you disagreeing with me on this.
Originally posted by canttakesky:
What I do have a problem with is calling those tactics "interrogation." That implies that you find those tactics legitimate, if perhaps overboard. Maybe that's not what you mean, but that's the impression I get as a reader.
And incidentally, I think the military would agree with you more then they would agree with me, so maybe you're the more level-headed.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Yes, thank you for the answer. Now all we have to do is figure out what YOU consider torture and what others consider torture. BTW- I do not consider the desecration of religious items as torture. You might be surprised to find that some international human rights organizations for the most part agree with you on the definition of torture.
Quote:Well, it would take a lot more than you to complete my life! If you could cure my kid, that would be a nice start. But I do appreciate the answer.
Is your life complete now that you know what I’ve already told you?
Please don't think they give a shit.
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Quote:Unfortunately, I don't know what I can do about that, but I am sorry to hear your child is ill.
Originally posted by SignyM:
If you could cure my kid, that would be a nice start.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn Mac Cumhal:
Actually it doesn’t. Unlawful combatants are exempt from right to a trial, except by military tribunal, and once declared unlawful combatants the sentence is often death. And this is a legal distinction set forth in the 1949 Geneva Convention with solid roots going back hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Now I see where you’re coming from. I don't think the legality of the situation is as clear as we're led to believe.
Firstly, I’ve heard the point raised (maybe not here but certainly prior to this discussion) that we defiantly don’t have to extend the GC to these ‘unlawful combatants’ because they are not from a nation that is a treaty ‘sponsor’.
Quote:
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.
Getting past the legalese it sounds like (to me) a treaty ‘power’ must respect the Convention whether the ‘enemy’ does or not.
Quote:
Article 4
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
…
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
These are the requirements that decide if someone is a lawful or ‘unlawful’ combatant.
1) Doesn’t really apply to any of those in the camps, as the Taliban were not a recognised government for Afghanistan. Likewise Al Qaeda doesn’t conform to this requirement.
2) This is the category most often used to prove that the detainees are ‘Unlawful Combatants’. If we were to only try and attach this category then we leave our selves open, though. After all in a sense our own special forces would fail to meet all but one of the requirements for this category.
3) This one works for the Taliban fighters, I think.
6) Could this not fit for other detainees, some of the Taliban and even Al Qaeda fighters?
Beyond that I’m not entirely convinced that some of the detainees are not in fact ‘non Combatants’.
Hence my insistence of the importance of an open trial.
However, you do have a case that, under the GC, the detainees are ‘Unlawful Combatants’. ‘Unlawful Combatant’ is not a legal distinction set down in the GC. In fact UC’s are not once mentioned within the GC. That’s the problem. It’s a catch all case, written in a very different pre-cold war time.
In essence, no one is protected by the GC except for a few exceptions.
It would have been better to extend protection from the GC to everyone, except certain exceptions. But that’s not the case.
Quote:
War Without End: Indefinite Detentions?
The truth is that whether we try them in civilian courts, courts martial, ad hoc military tribNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:By defining minimum criteria for protection under the Geneva Convention, unlawful combatants are indeed set forth.
Originally posted by citizen:
However, you do have a case that, under the GC, the detainees are ‘Unlawful Combatants’. ‘Unlawful Combatant’ is not a legal distinction set down in the GC. In fact UC’s are not once mentioned within the GC. That’s the problem. It’s a catch all case, written in a very different pre-cold war time.
In essence, no one is protected by the GC except for a few exceptions.
Quote:That is indeed the case. unlawful combatants constitute only about 500 of the several thousand detainees
Originally posted by citizen:
It would have been better to extend protection from the GC to everyone, except certain exceptions. But that’s not the case.
Quote:Because the US does not have a policy of torture.
Originally posted by citizen:
Equally how can America denounce other nations for using Torture if America uses techniques going beyond simple Interrogation?
Quote:Why Bush threatened to veto this bill, I don’t know. I don’t completely know what it said or what his justifications were. But nothing McCain could have said in that bill could have been used to legally prevent the use of torture, since torture is already illegal under longstanding US law and treaty. At the very best it would seem to be redundant, at the worst it could have been duplicative. I don’t know.
Originally posted by citizen:
If no one is being tortured why prevent anti-torture laws?
Quote:American servicemen have been tried for war crimes, when they commit a war crime under the law, just like everyone else.
Originally posted by citizen:
Also if there’s no possibility of American servicemen committing ‘War Crimes’ under government orders, what is the point of the American Servicemen's Protection Act? Why prevent American servicemen from being tried for war crimes?
Is America set apart from the International community, above than, better than?
Not privy to the laws the rest of us, and indeed America, hold us too?
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Quote:
By defining minimum criteria for protection under the Geneva Convention, unlawful combatants are indeed set forth.
Well I'm not sure if I agree. Unlawful combatant is not mentioned so how can they be defined?
As I said unlawful combatants are a catch all case for anyone the GC doesn't mention. That's not a definition.
It would be a much harsher world if civil law defined what lawful behaviour was rather than what unlawful behaviour was.
Quote:
That is indeed the case. unlawful combatants constitute only about 500 of the several thousand detainees
I was referring to the GC and how it defines who has the protections, when in my opinion it should define who does not have them. In other words everyone is protected, unless otherwise stated.
You raise an interesting point though, what is the classification of these other detainees, and how are they treated?
Quote:
Because the US does not have a policy of torture.
Policy, maybe not. But I would still say what goes on in these camps is torture, or at least crossing the line of acceptable 'interrogation', and whether it's policy or a 'few bad apples' it's not being stopped.
Quote:
American servicemen have been tried for war crimes, when they commit a war crime under the law, just like everyone else.
Then what's the point of the American Servicemen's Protection Act?
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Quote:There are only two kinds of combatants. Those protected by the law and those not. The Geneva Conventions spells out those who are protected; those who are not are unlawful combatants. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out.
Originally posted by citizen:
Well I'm not sure if I agree. Unlawful combatant is not mentioned so how can they be defined?
As I said unlawful combatants are a catch all case for anyone the GC doesn't mention. That's not a definition.
It would be a much harsher world if civil law defined what lawful behaviour was rather than what unlawful behaviour was.
Quote:Tell that to the servicemen who are now serving time for their unlawful treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib. Sounds to me like you just want to blanket the US with the word torture, whether it’s true or not.
Originally posted by citizen:
Policy, maybe not. But I would still say what goes on in these camps is torture, or at least crossing the line of acceptable 'interrogation', and whether it's policy or a 'few bad apples' it's not being stopped.
Quote:Possibly to protect them from people like you who want to accuse them of practicing torture simply because you’ve decided that the interrogation wasn’t “simple?” People who have a political axe to grind against the US or its actions in Iraq who want to impose or punish the US for perceived malfeasance or just political disagreement could use this court to attack the US. But mostly, it’s because I don’t think that Americans believe that our people should be tried under a court that is not sanctioned by a Constitution ratified by the People. When the UN becomes a representative body governed by a constitution ratified and controlled by the people under its mandate then I, personally, will be much more open to extending protection of American servicemen and American civilians to the International Court.
Originally posted by citizen:
Then what's the point of the American Servicemen's Protection Act?
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Don't mean to continue the pile on finn session, because I don't know finn from adam, but I got to argue with the points posted on the page.
Declaring someone an unlawful combatant does NOT make them so. The status of unlawful combatant is a very questionable one to begin with, but also you'd have to show that they were already themselves in serious violation of the geneva convention.
We have little or no such evidence for most of the Iqaqi insurgents. For instance, forces under the command of Al Sadr are far more orderly than forces under the command of Al Zarqawi. Any blanket assertion that we could treat the forces of Al Sadr a certin way because forces of Al Zarqawi behaved in a certain other way is totally bogus.
Even given this, I would support the idea as being a defendable legal position to begin a defense of torture or inhumane treatment. An unlawful combatant, even if determined to by present, is a loose cannon, they are not a rodent.
The reason you might treat an unlawful combatant differently is that he could not be trusted to abide by rules of engagement since he failed to do so in the past. So it would be acceptable to detain him until the end of the conflict, or to make a case for doing so, possibly without due process, because if released he could not be trusted. You might even want to transport him out of the combat zone.
But you can't say "Well, he broke the rules so now we can." In fact this interpretation is beyond absurd. If this were true the result would be that every conflict would descend instantly into utter chaos.
Consider this situation.
A loose cannon operating under US command orders his unit to round up prisoners and torture them in or about Abu Ghraib, and the Iraqis could then use that as a basis for declaring all American forces "Unlawful Combatants."
A loose cannon operating under US command orders his unit to fire on a group of villagers know to be civillians by military intelligence in Vietnam. The VC could then use that as a basis for declaring all American forces "Unlawful Combatants."
A loose cannon operating under US command orders his unit to execute German nationals in WWII...
Etc. You see the point. I could probably dig up an incident in any conflict for any major combatant force.
The idea that somehow the rules don't apply in such a case, and that somehow that case can apply to other individuals who may or may not have been connected to the incident in question is a recipe for rampant chaos and hell on Earth.
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Quote:
Because the US does not have a policy of torture.
This is patently false.
It's not a wrong headed opinion, it's a wrong fact.
The Bybee memo was written into a DoD policy and forwarded to US forces abroad as law.
The US definitely does have a policy of torture.
In order to not have a policy of torture, we would need to accept the McCain/Graham ammendment in its unmodified form.
The modification that has been suggested by pro-torture advocate Richard Cheney is that the CIA be exempt from such a ban. If this modification were included, the US would still have a policy of torture for it's intelligence operatives. The CIA has requested that McCain not accept the Cheney recommendation and that they have no interested in being exempted from the ammendment.
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Quote:These “serious violations” are set forth in the Geneva Convention, and all it takes is a military tribunal to establish that these criteria for lawful combatant status have not been met, and in most cases they are quite easy to establish. Anything “questionable” about it is probably politics, not law.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Declaring someone an unlawful combatant does NOT make them so. The status of unlawful combatant is a very questionable one to begin with, but also you'd have to show that they were already themselves in serious violation of the geneva convention.
Quote:Actually to not have a policy of torture all we really have to do is accept and abide by the Geneva Convention, Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Army Field Manual, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the War Crimes Act of 1996 and/or the Federal Anti-Torture Statute all of which the US has ratified or codified into law and all substantially provide for a prohibition of torture. And this list isn’t even exhaustive; it’s just what I can remember off the top of my head.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
In order to not have a policy of torture, we would need to accept the McCain/Graham ammendment in its unmodified form.
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