Prison inmates committing suicide now an act of warfare on the US

POSTED BY: Khyron
UPDATED: Friday, June 23, 2006 10:01
VIEWED: 9568
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SIMONWHO

Monday, June 12, 2006 10:09 PM

What's the difference between an illegal combatant and an innocent detainee?

Well, according to Pentagon officials asked this question, you better hope never to find out. And stop being unpatriotic, asking questions about the way they do things. If you're not for us, you're against us. Bring them on. Mission accomplished. Help, vision impaired, I can not see. Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate...

... said the Pentagon spokesman.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Monday, June 12, 2006 10:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
And of course the final words of the movie, which came not from an actor but from the President of the United States:
"Why are we proud? We are proud, first of all, because from the beginning of this Nation, a man can walk upright, no matter who he is, or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend—or his enemy; and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot there without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the habeas corpus act, and we respect it."

I thought that was such a great quote, right from Ike, but no one else liked it I guess.

PIRATENEWS

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 1:01 AM

Or it was retaliation from the guards for the prisoners staging an attack last month. Guards go psycho just as much as the prisoners. Homicidal "hangings" are the most popular method of faking suicides in US prisons.

Caught on Tape - US Copsters Torture US Citizen to Sign Consent Form in USA:
http://wms.scripps.com/knoxville/siler/siler.mp3
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/9797.php
http://piratenews.org/KnoxNews-com-torture-archive.html
http://piratenews.org/tortured-by-copsters-in-tn.html
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/piratenewsrss/message/247

Note that these 5 copsters punched him, kicked him, beat him with a baseball bat, burned him with cigarettes, threatened to rape his wife, put a loaded gun to his head and threatened to shoot him dead, and if that weren't enough they hooked a battery charger to his genitals. This guy was tortured in his own home, no arrest, no trial, no appeal. The copsters said they were going to kill him, plant a gun on him, and testilie that they shot him trying to escape.

What they do in Gitmo is far worse, with dozens of deaths of people with no criminal charges filed against them, no lawyers, no trials, no appeals. Citizens from over 50 nations are in Gitmo.

And Islam forbids suicide. Just because the Pentagon says something you automatically believe it's true?

"You can't stop the signal!"
-Mr Universe, Pirate TV

FIREFLY SERENITY PILOT MUSIC VIDEO V2
Tangerine Dream - Thief Soundtrack: Confrontation
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/8912.php

KHYRON

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 2:47 AM

Thanks for the helpful answers. The difference between the two in a conventional war is now clear to me, but when it comes to the so-called war on terror, aren't terrorists the enemy? So if somebody is accused of being a terrorist, then that makes him a (lawful) enemy combatant, one targetted by the war and thereby upon capture he's a POW. Right? Unless the war on terror is against not people but the idea of terror, in which case, wtf?

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
If most of the world recognizes the current Afgani or Iraqi governments as legitimate, and those governments declare the insurgents do not represent a valid resistance, are they then unlawful combatants, due no POW rights under the Geneva Convention?

This seems to be a pretty big loophole in the Geneva Conventions. So all a country has to do to be able to do with the combatants it captures as it wishes is to declare war on an idea or an act (such as terrorism), and not on the carnal manifestation of that idea (i.e. terrorists)? And who defines a valid resistance? In the eyes of the invader, no resistance is valid. Or do the Conventions expect the leader of the invading forces to respond along the lines of "Oh well, they do have a good point for resisting. After all, we did murder their mothers and rape their children, so what the hell, we'll be nice and let the Geneva Conventions apply by acknowledging their resistance as being valid".

You're absolutely right, Geezer, lawyers will be loving this.

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

KWICKO

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 3:20 AM

Khyron wrote:

Quote:
So all a country has to do to be able to do with the combatants it captures as it wishes is to declare war on an idea or an act (such as terrorism), and not on the carnal manifestation of that idea (i.e. terrorists)?

I think you've hit the nail on the head. And now, because you're so astute, you've actually become a threat to the war effort, and will be thusly treated as an enemy combatant. Please turn yourself in at the nearest "guest camp". :)

The problem with declaring war on an *idea* or concept is that it pretty much does away with all the established rules of warfare. Of course, that's only a problem if you're not on the "right" side, right?

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."
- Laurens van der Post

CITIZEN

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 10:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
Thanks for the helpful answers. The difference between the two in a conventional war is now clear to me, but when it comes to the so-called war on terror, aren't terrorists the enemy? So if somebody is accused of being a terrorist, then that makes him a (lawful) enemy combatant, one targetted by the war and thereby upon capture he's a POW. Right? Unless the war on terror is against not people but the idea of terror, in which case, wtf?

The Bush Administration likes to cherry pick. They take the 'enemy Combatant' thing as if they were fighting a conventional war but then excuse their own actions that break the Geneva Convention because those actions don't really break the convention because they aren't fighting a conventional war.

When it suits them the war on terror is conventional, with the enemy being some undefined nations regular military, uniforms and all. When it doesn't suit them, it isn't.

Of course when these Unlawful Combatants capture American Soldiers and mistreat them it's a terrible thing, but since they are unlawful combatants and they are not protected by the Geneva Convention, they aren't bound by it either. So surely it's okay for them to mistreat American Soldiers for the same reasons its okay for American Soldiers to mistreat unlawful combatants?

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
"I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall'." -- Eleanor Roosevelt.

GEEZER

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 1:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
Thanks for the helpful answers. The difference between the two in a conventional war is now clear to me, but when it comes to the so-called war on terror, aren't terrorists the enemy? So if somebody is accused of being a terrorist, then that makes him a (lawful) enemy combatant, one targetted by the war and thereby upon capture he's a POW. Right? Unless the war on terror is against not people but the idea of terror, in which case, wtf?...This seems to be a pretty big loophole in the Geneva Conventions.

The Geneva conventions apply to war between nations and in some cases intra-national civil war. They weren't written considering war against a stateless, violent, multi-branched organization attempting to impose its political ideas by terror.

The Geneva conventions were also written (I believe) with the implied understanding that everyone would at least pay lip-service to the rules. I'm not sure that when they were created, that anyone would have considered the possibility of al-Qieda as a major world-wide player.

Quote:
So all a country has to do to be able to do with the combatants it captures as it wishes is to declare war on an idea or an act (such as terrorism), and not on the carnal manifestation of that idea (i.e. terrorists)?

Oh, a lot more complex than that.

Lets say Ali is a ben-Laden lieutenant who taught the 9/11 hijackers how to cut throats with box-cutters and sent them off to die. When the US invades Afghanistan, he picks up his AK, goes to kill the infidel, and gets captured. Right next to him is Jalil, a simple farmer who also picked up his AK and went to fight the infidel.

We know that the area where they were captured is rife with al-Qieda terrorists, so it's a good chance they are. When questioned, they both respond "I'm a simple farmer, infidel dog." If no more evidence is available, what do we do - charge them both with terrorism, let them both go, or hold them until we can develop more info? Considering the number of Afghan and Iraqi combatants we captured, the 800 or so sent to Guantanamo because we either knew they were terrorists or needed to make sure doesn't seem that excessive.

Quote:
And who defines a valid resistance?

In the current situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's the duly elected governments of those countries.

Quote:
In the eyes of the invader, no resistance is valid.

Possibly, but they could still consider the resistance to be lawful combatants, as Jalil, above, would be. Iraqi regular army forces were treated as lawful combatants, even though they sometimes broke the Geneva rules by such acts as using civilians as human shields.

Quote:
Or do the Conventions expect the leader of the invading forces to respond along the lines of "Oh well, they do have a good point for resisting. After all, we did murder their mothers and rape their children, so what the hell, we'll be nice and let the Geneva Conventions apply by acknowledging their resistance as being valid".

That would be a pretty unlikely statement for anyone to actually make (unless they were just trying to start an argument), but as to the Conventions expectations, I doubt it.

"If Darwin ain't Happy,
Ain't Nobody Happy"

GEEZER

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 1:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Of course when these Unlawful Combatants capture American Soldiers and mistreat them it's a terrible thing, but since they are unlawful combatants and they are not protected by the Geneva Convention, they aren't bound by it either. So surely it's okay for them to mistreat American Soldiers for the same reasons its okay for American Soldiers to mistreat unlawful combatants?

Tell you what. You let your big dog bark at me, and then I'll cut your head off with a dull knife, and then we'll talk equivalancies.

"If Darwin ain't Happy,
Ain't Nobody Happy"

SIGNYM

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 1:31 PM

Tell you what- I'll roll you around and sit on you while you're stuffed head-first into a sleeping bag until you suffocate. That will end the discussion nicely.

---------------------------------
Don't piss in my face and tell me it's raining.

AMITON

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 2:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
Thanks for the helpful answers. The difference between the two in a conventional war is now clear to me, but when it comes to the so-called war on terror, aren't terrorists the enemy? So if somebody is accused of being a terrorist, then that makes him a (lawful) enemy combatant, one targetted by the war and thereby upon capture he's a POW. Right? Unless the war on terror is against not people but the idea of terror, in which case, wtf?

Well, kind of. I can't claim to be up on all of the GC legalities, and honestly that can be a problem some day since I'm responsible for acting in accordance with them. That could be part of the problem on a small scale, but I'll promise you that the White House legal team isn't as underinformed as I am.

If I understand the scenario correctly, however, the terrorists are not lawful combatants because of the nature of the application of "assymetric" warfare techniques by and large. They are staying in civilian homes and running operations disguised as civilians. It's absolutely critical to the success of their objectives. As such, they are pursuing the "war" from an unlawful standpoint.

Somebody made mention of spies and espionage earlier in the thread, and their activities strip them from the protections of the GC and they become unlawful combatants if memory serves. Similiar situation.

Quote:

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
If most of the world recognizes the current Afgani or Iraqi governments as legitimate, and those governments declare the insurgents do not represent a valid resistance, are they then unlawful combatants, due no POW rights under the Geneva Convention?

This seems to be a pretty big loophole in the Geneva Conventions. So all a country has to do to be able to do with the combatants it captures as it wishes is to declare war on an idea or an act (such as terrorism), and not on the carnal manifestation of that idea (i.e. terrorists)? And who defines a valid resistance? In the eyes of the invader, no resistance is valid. Or do the Conventions expect the leader of the invading forces to respond along the lines of "Oh well, they do have a good point for resisting. After all, we did murder their mothers and rape their children, so what the hell, we'll be nice and let the Geneva Conventions apply by acknowledging their resistance as being valid".

You're absolutely right, Geezer, lawyers will be loving this.

The international legal system is a political game from the get-go. It's all about power and popular opinion. I can assure you that the Nazis would not have been tried for War Crimes if they had won, and I don't think Melsovic would have been either if he hadn't pissed so many people off. Of course they deserved it, and yes those were bad people. If they ran in the right circles and kept their noses clean, however, we never would have heard about the things that had been done, even though I will assure you that state governments and intelligence agencies would have known all about them.

Kind of a parallel scenario. Israel and Taiwan are both States that aren't officially recognized by their neighbors. If wars broke out involving them then I'm sure the court of popular opinion would rule that they had to be treated as normalized and lawful opposition regardless of what the rest of the middle east or China had to say about it respectively. Palestine just recently jumped into that category in the last couple of decades as well. The US confederacy established a government and drafted formal notifications of succession and all the political stuff that goes over my head most of the time. Hell, the American Revolution was pretty much the same thing for that matter.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the difference is contextual, and not as fluidly subjective as is being illustrated. It is subjective to a degree, and it's definitely a slippery slope to be on. There's definitely enough room for the lawyers to argue about the semantics of it all,

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