-
Website
http://www.ChristopherSPenn.com/ -
Original page
http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/06/18/proud-to-be-an-american/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
All Comments
one thing. the article stated that prisoners were threatened with action against their families. that makes the prisoners also hostages.
6 out of a possible 7.
Third Reich Lite.
Remember the video of the cutting (not chopping) the head of certain individuals and the sound it made?
Remember them flying a couple of large air craft in to a tall building or something like that.
I think some people may have been hurt when they did that.
The Geneva Convention does not apply to them.
We need to get as mean as them.
If you have a terrorist in custody and they know where an explosive is and when it will detonate and there is 100 percent chance that 400 children will die in the explosion….
Do you torture him to get the answer to the location?
Or do you ask him politely of cake and coffee if he would be kind enough to tell you?
Please…the soft belly Americans better wake up….
This is not a game with rules…
You're right to say that terrorists do not play by the rules. Terrorists do not owe allegiance to any nation. And they do need to be treated differently, at least in the sense of jurisdiction.
However...
The war crimes the United States is accused of are crimes against lawful combatants - Iraqi military and militants - in an unlawful invasion of a sovereign nation with no ties to terror. Saddam Hussein had no interest in terrorism, and our various pretexts for invasion had nothing to do with truth or justice.
The abuses that occurred were at Guantanemo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Of those abused, none were convicted of terrorism. Zero. Further, Abu Ghraib was a military prison in a sovereign nation that we invaded during a regular military action, and thus would be wholly subject to the Geneva Convention. For what it's worth, Iraq ratified the Geneva Convention in 1956, one year after the United States, and therefore both countries were required by treaty to obey it.
If Osama Bin Laden were sitting in my office with knowledge of a bomb he'd planted, damn right I'd get out the pliers, razors, and tabasco. But he's not, and the people we captured in our invasion were not terrorists.
The most disturbing comment you made though, was this - we need to get as mean as them.
No, we don't. What separates us as potentially good guys, what separated us in the past from those who perpetrated evil acts on the world, was precisely the refusal to do anything in the name of the crisis of the day.
Should we have an effective military? Absolutely. We should have a Leviathan military that shoots with deadly precision. Should we use force to protect ourselves? Absolutely. To not be willing to wage war would greatly endanger our security.
Should we violate our principles, morals, and ethics for political expediency?
That depends on whether you believe in an American way or not. The America I grew up in, the America that Superman defended, the America that the world respected and loved - that America would not.
Black Maltese: While I agree with some of your sentiment and I too am fed up with the America bashing that seems so rampant today, I agree with Matt that your presentation of your argument leaves something to be desired and can detract from your message.
Matt: You need to get over the "stolen election" thing. Seriously...move on.
And, to imply that we deserved what we got on 9/11...that goes WAY too far. Do you really believe that if we help people like Osama, everything would just work out? That's like Obama saying he'll talk to/negotiate with anyone. It will only provide an opening for them.
Christopher: I think you are sharp as a tack when it comes to marketing...politics I depart from you quickly. You say that, " The war crimes the United States is accused of are crimes against lawful combatants - Iraqi military and militants..."
Many of them were actually from Afghanistan, and the first sentence of the article reads, "Former terrorist suspects detained by the United States..."
In addition, I struggle with your railing against practices by the US that are deemed terrible but then act as if Saddam Hussein was a sweet, uncle type figure. If you wanted to see human rights violations, you need only to look to Iraq while he was in power. That tends to get glossed over though. It bothers me that the same people who scream about human rights violations in places like Darfur and Tibet criticize the war in Iraq. Were the Iraqis less important than the people in those other places?
Do I think that the way the prisoners were treated was right? No. I also don't think it appropriate to imply that George Bush was ordering torture as so many people imply. I don't think you should get to make decisions about who should be held accountable for something when you are INCREDIBLY biased against the person you are accusing. Am I against all forms of torture in the situation of gaining information from a suspected terrorist that my protect the American people? Absolutely not. Plus, to say that Saddam Hussein had no interest in terrorism is a little naive.
Now, this point I only bring up because of other political statements you have made here and on Twitter before. I don't understand how you can be so appalled by how someone is treated when they are suspected of terrorism but not bat an eye to the practice of killing them before they have a chance to make that decision....or any decision for that matter.
It's a little frustrating to see politics so regularly mixed with marketing in many blogs. I understand that this is a personal medium and people are allowed to make their personal beliefs known. But, when someone is viewed as "internet famous" and seen as a reliable source of information and then makes political posts with half-truths and biased agendas, it does little to serve the rest of us.
You make some good points - for Saddam, I'd rather he be processed as Dr. Thomas Barnett recommended in his TED talk - a public, transparent process for eliminating politically bankrupt states, whether it's Saddam, Kim Il Jong, Robert Mugabe, etc. Let's establish a process like the IMF where we can restructure governments that are openly hostile to the rest of the world. By doing so, we can reduce the need to whip ourselves into a frenzy AND still achieve the ends that American policy deems important.
Check out Dr. Barnett's talk:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/33
Couldn't the federal government have at least taken the moral road of Afghanistan, Chad, Zimbabwe, and other nations that have not expressed an opinion on ratification? Why flat out refuse to sign? Even Kazakhstan signed it.
In the first Guantanamo Bay case to be reviewed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Muslim known as a Uighur, undermining the basis for his more than six years in detention.
Parhat never fought against the United States and the government concedes there's no evidence he ever intended to. He has been held for six years because he is linked to a Chinese separatist group that the military says has some ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. And it comes to light, he never was an instigator against the U.S.
I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of these.
However, from a legal point of view, the administration is not guilty of a war crime. These charges are predicated on the notion that iraqi insurgents, al qaeda operatives, and everyone else affected by the administration are protected by the Third Geneva Convention. GCIII classifies combatants as "lawful" and protected if they fulfill all of these conditions:
* that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates
* that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance
* that of carrying arms openly
* that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war
I would bet that most contemporary insurgents or al qaeda operatives violate one or more of those conditions. In a historic sense, they are similar to saboteurs and spies. This classification has been called "unlawful combatant"; many critics of the Bush administration question if such a category CAN exist. If you argue that it doesn't, than you equate anyone that doesn't fulfill those criteria to the civilians and "protected persons" covered by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Spy = Saboteur = Innocent Civilian. That's rather absurd.
Once you accept the category, the next question is how to treat the "unlawful combatants". Under the GCIII, they can be prosecuted as normal criminals, instead of "protected persons".
Recap: when a legal combatant kills a person in war, it's not murder, it's war. If a terrorist, spy, etc. kills, then it is murder and a common crime.
How the American legal systems deals with Enemy Prisoners of War (EPW) that have committed a common crime is too long a topic to discuss here. There is hundreds of years of precedent and it is still evolving. Some parties want to treat such EPW's in the exact same procedural way as US citizens. Other parties think this unprecedented protection is unnecessary. The bottom line: the national law is murky, even if the international law is clear that normal legal code applies. There may be a violation of the law here, but not a WAR CRIME.
The Bush Administration interpreted these issues without building consensus. Politically, this has proven to be very damaging. I fault the administration for not anticipating these complexities and sharing the decision making in order to build consensus. That is a political mistake, it's not a WAR CRIME.
After some initial legal and political difficulties by the administration, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. If the administration doesn't adhere to the law, then they are guilty of violating national law, not international law.
Finally, I fault the US government and the international community for not calling a Fifth Geneva Convention to address the complexities of combat between nations and international non-state actors such as Al Qaeda. Some argue this is unnecessary; however, I think building an international consensus would defuse the situational politically and diplomatically.
I blame the extreme accusatory rhetoric on the lowest form of marketing: Creating a Disease so you can Sell the Cure.
Just how horrible the current economic situation, diplomatic situation, security situation, etc. etc. is our modern day HALITOSIS. Electing the OTHER GUY is the Listerine. It happens every election cycle....
In truth, things aren't so bad... and things won't be that different no matter who is elected president.