[vmarks]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:

I've been aware of terrorists, witnessed their acts, and dealt with the impact of the necessary security to guard against them since I was old enough to read the news. That's part of growing up around military bases. I am no more frightened or anxious or willing to suspend my ethics or the principles of justice this country is founded on now than I was 20 years ago.

One thing has changed for me, though, in the last 2 years. I'm actually starting to fear that the terrorists can win. Not because they will overthrow my government or successfully kill everyone who disagrees with them, but because my country might actually be willing to sacrifice what makes it great out of a sense of pathetic victimhood or senseless revenge. When I watch my countrymen sacrifice democracy and justice at the alter of military expediency, I am watching terrorists finally succeed in changing the world when I never thought that was possible before. Hell, it seems US politicians care more about the fanatical ravings and ceaseless threats of some lunatic fringe half a world away more than it cares about the rights and opinions of it's own citizens.

Well, lock all the doors, bar all the windows and for god's sake shoot to kill. No need for the Islamist Hordes to overrun us, we're doing a fine job of conquering ourselves.

I have to second this. There's not much to add.

T_F, well said.

[Troll]

Originally posted by vmarks:
I have to second this. There's not much to add.

T_F, well said.

Third that. Coming from a country that fell down this slippery slope, I agree. Very well said.

[christ]

Amen - well done t_f for finally hitting the nail on the head.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Well, since I don't support the assassination policy that leaves me free to give suspected terrorists the rights afforded all other accused prisoners. After all, if I have a case against them, I don't really have much to fear from a fair trial.

Thank you!

That is what I have been saying for the last 2 pages. Yours is one of the two positions that you can take that is coherent. It is a completely ethical, coherent position, and I think rationally arguable under international law. I don't have any problem with that.

I'd argue with it from a policy point of view, but not ethically, or legally (or at least, I think it is in the ballpark, just as you said yesterday that the Bush Administration's legal argument is in the ballpark).

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Thank you!

That is what I have been saying for the last 2 pages. Yours is one of the two positions that you can take that is coherent. It is a completely ethical, coherent position, and I think rationally arguable under international law. I don't have any problem with that.

I'd argue with it from a policy point of view, but not ethically, or legally (or at least, I think it is in the ballpark, just as you said yesterday that the Bush Administration's legal argument is in the ballpark).

So you agree that NOT conducting assassinations and, by extension, granting normal criminal proceedings (and the accompanying protections) to suspected terrorists is legally coherent and ethical.

But you don't think its good policy? I'm curious why. I ranted that I thought the reaons might be because you consider the risks too great or the threat too great. If my suspicions were way off, feel free to tell me to stuff.

You and I have gone the rounds on whether the ends justify the mans in regards to the WoT before. I think you know my thinking on it by now. In this particular instance, I fear that the means (assassination and questionable trials) are not only unjustified, but will distort the ends rather than reach them.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
So you agree that NOT conducting assassinations and, by extension, granting normal criminal proceedings (and the accompanying protections) to suspected terrorists is legally coherent and ethical.

But you don't think its good policy? I'm curious why. I ranted that I thought the reaons might be because you consider the risks too great or the threat too great. If my suspicions were way off, feel free to tell me to stuff.

You and I have gone the rounds on whether the ends justify the mans in regards to the WoT before. I think you know my thinking on it by now. In this particular instance, I fear that the means (assassination and questionable trials) are not only unjustified, but will distort the ends rather than reach them.

To your first question: yes.

To your second question: basically yes. If you are going to fight the W.o.T., then you should do so to the best of your ability using all weapons. You don't fight a war to lose, nor do you fight a war ineffectively when you could fight it effectively. I don't believe that police forces are a sufficient means to address an organization as dangerous as al-Queda. Before 9/11 we had the excuse to be a bit naive about what their capabilities are and what they are capable of. Now, I don't think we have any such excuse.

I guess it could come down to this. Suppose we adopt the policy of not using the military, and only relying on police and the courts. Suppose then it isn't enough to prevent a really big attack. I mean a really big attack, say with bio agents, a dirty bomb, or a nuke. Which president would stand up and say he deliberately did less than he could have done to defend this country because he didn't think it would have been ethical to do otherwise? Or more to the point, which president would stand up in advance and say that in no circumstances would he use the military to avert even a certain attack?

It really is a moral philosophy question. If you could prevent a hundred innocent deaths, would you take a guilty life if there was no other way to avert the innocent deaths? If a hundred isn't enough, what about 1000, 10,000, 1,000,000?

So what do you think, Immanuel Kant, or Jeremy Bentham?

[Logic]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
You don't fight a war to lose, nor do you fight a war ineffectively when you could fight it effectively.

A couple of nukes over Bagdad would have been very effective. Would you therefore support that as well?

[thunderous_funker]

I don't understand the notion that if we don't adopt a policy of assassinations and dodgy trials, our only recourse is to rely on the police.



Why can't the US military continue to conduct military operations against hostile states or states who harbor hostile groups? Both are perfectly within our rights.

Are targeted killings our only military option?

I might as well say that most effecient military operation would not consider the lives of civilians or civilian infrastructure. So if we're not willing to take terrorism "serious enough" to just carpet bomb large sections of the globe, we might as well deploy the Boy Scouts to walk terrorists across the street safely.

Why all the extremism? Why are the hyperbole?

Surely there are reasonable uses of military power and unreasonable (even if they are ruthlessly effecient).

[Troll]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
I don't understand the notion that if we don't adopt a policy of assassinations and dodgy trials, our only recourse is to rely on the police.

Exactly. This is what I raised in my "bullsh1t" post. The US has not so far conducted any assassinations of Al Qaeda leadership. So far, but for the breaches of the GC in Guantanamo and the fact that they didn't wait for UN support for the Iraq invasion, they have fought this war pretty much straight down the traditional lines. As I pointed out, Bush has put into force almost word for word the plan I would have brought to the public save that he had a little rant about waging war against terrorism.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
Exactly. This is what I raised in my "bullsh1t" post. The US has not so far conducted any assassinations of Al Qaeda leadership.

What? Yes it has. Two examples: the US used a Predator Drone in Yemen last Fall to assassinate the person responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole. Also, Clinton fired Cruise missiles at al-Queda bases in Sudan. He didn't get OBL, but that was his intent.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
I don't understand the notion that if we don't adopt a policy of assassinations and dodgy trials, our only recourse is to rely on the police.



Why can't the US military continue to conduct military operations against hostile states or states who harbor hostile groups? Both are perfectly within our rights.

Are targeted killings our only military option?

I might as well say that most effecient military operation would not consider the lives of civilians or civilian infrastructure. So if we're not willing to take terrorism "serious enough" to just carpet bomb large sections of the globe, we might as well deploy the Boy Scouts to walk terrorists across the street safely.

Why all the extremism? Why are the hyperbole?

Surely there are reasonable uses of military power and unreasonable (even if they are ruthlessly effecient).

The US could continue to attack states that harbor terrorists. That isn't the dilemma. The dilemma is that the main objective is the terrorists themselves. That means if you use the military to attack people directly, the only people you can use the military to attack directly are ones who are lawful targets for a military attack -- combatants. You can't deliberately attack non-combatants. To do so is a war crime.

So if you want to go after terrorists and you rule out the military, what does that leave? The police.

Oh, and I agree that there are unreasonable uses of the military. Nuclear weapons, for example. Those would be unreasonable. But there you are going to a Just War Theory argument about proportionality. How many theories can we cope with?

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
The US could continue to attack states that harbor terrorists. That isn't the dilemma. The dilemma is that the main objective is the terrorists themselves. That means if you use the military to attack people directly, the only people you can use the military to attack directly are ones who are lawful targets for a military attack -- combatants. You can't deliberately attack non-combatants. To do so is a war crime.

So if you want to go after terrists and you rule out the military, what does that leave? The police.

The military can't capture or arrest anyone? News to me. Hell, I thought the military had been conducting "police actions" for decades.

And why shouldn't the police be used? All the terrorist caught in this country have been nabbed by police agencies. In fact, the same goes for terrorists in Europe for decades. Not to mention Pakistani police activity. Our Saudi.

The real policy question presented here is not whether or not we can legally use military forces to pursue terrorists, (who would challenge that notion?), but what kinds of operations they should be conducting. Should they lob missles at them? Should they shower Hellfire on them in civilian areas? Should they capture them?

I doubt even human rights groups would find fault with the US military if a terrorist got shot by the military while resisting or eluding arrest. Shootouts happen.

What makes most of us uncomfortable is the idea of military operations where missles or bombs are lobbed at cars or building because it is "believed" that it "might" have "suspected" terrorists inside.

Surely the lines being drawn here are not new and are not particularly arbitrary.

[christ]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
...It really is a moral philosophy question. If you could prevent a hundred innocent deaths, would you take a guilty life if there was no other way to avert the innocent deaths? If a hundred isn't enough, what about 1000, 10,000, 1,000,000?

Or, more pertinently,

"If you could possibly prevent a hundred innocent deaths, would you take away the rights of someone who may or may not be guilty, even if there was no guarantee that this would avert the innocent deaths?"

My answer is no.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
That isn't the dilemma. The dilemma is that the main objective is the terrorists themselves. That means if you use the military to attack people directly, the only people you can use the military to attack directly are ones who are lawful targets for a military attack -- combatants. You can't deliberately attack non-combatants. To do so is a war crime.

It seems to me that you're straying from your argument quite substantially here.

My understanding of your argument was that there is a War on Terror. Anyone who is a terrorist (apparently your target) is a combatant in that war and can be killed in the course of combat just like a soldier in a conventional war can. So, on your argument, you can attack terrorists because they are combatants.

Now you seem to be saying that terrorists are civilians. Are you still playing devil's advocate and presenting OUR argument that terrorists outside of a conventional war must be treated as civilians?

As for your pointing out the assassination, I stand corrected and may I apologise to vmarks for calling Israel names a few weeks ago. I said Israel was the only state that did this and that even apartheid South Africa had had the decency to put its terrorists through a kangaroo court before executing them. I stand corrected.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by christ:
Or, more pertinently,

"If you could possibly prevent a hundred innocent deaths, would you take away the rights of someone who may or may not be guilty, even if there was no guarantee that this would avert the innocent deaths?"

My answer is no.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is precisely my point.

[Logic]

I'm going to post this again since I have yet to get an answer to these questions(from two of my previous posts):

You have gone on and on about how terrorists have been treated as unlawful combatants in the past but not once have you showed an example, not once. Name a few incidents were their rights have been stripped, were the country in question has used the GC as the legal backup for their arguments! The nations/incidents I can think of are Cuba, China, SA, Iraq, Israel, Turkey and the Taliban regime. Name one nation in the civilised world that has done this before.

So Simey, care to offer some proof of how other nations have treated terrorists as unlawful combatants and taken away their human rights as a result?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
The military can't capture or arrest anyone? News to me. Hell, I thought the military had been conducting "police actions" for decades.

And why shouldn't the police be used? All the terrorist caught in this country have been nabbed by police agencies. In fact, the same goes for terrorists in Europe for decades. Not to mention Pakistani police activity. Our Saudi.

The real policy question presented here is not whether or not we can legally use military forces to pursue terrorists, (who would challenge that notion?), but what kinds of operations they should be conducting. Should they lob missles at them? Should they shower Hellfire on them in civilian areas? Should they capture them?

I doubt even human rights groups would find fault with the US military if a terrorist got shot by the military while resisting or eluding arrest. Shootouts happen.

What makes most of us uncomfortable is the idea of military operations where missles or bombs are lobbed at cars or building because it is "believed" that it "might" have "suspected" terrorists inside.

Surely the lines being drawn here are not new and are not particularly arbitrary.

I don't think anyone is saying that using the military prevents the use of the police. The legal prohibitions are all the other way around -- preventing the use of the military when you could use the police. The prohibitions would be humanitarian law, and (within US borders) the Posse Comitatus Act. But we don't need to worry about that.

I think you are right also that a shootout with the police or military is OK either way. The reason it is OK with respect to the military is oneof intent. What constitutes a war crime isn't the killing of non-combatants per se. It is the intent to kill them. If you go to arrest someone, the intent is not to kill them. If you get into a shootout, that doesn't change the intent.

No, the real problem is when you set out to use the military to kill those you believe to be non-combatants. Like Clinton did with his Sudan attack, or the Bush Administration did in Yemen. All I have been saying is that you have two ways out. Either you say (or believe without expressly saying) that your combatants, or you don't do the attack. You can't have it both ways.

Incidentally, I happen to know that the Clinton Administration's official position was that the Sudan Attacks were against combatants, and were therefore justified under his war powers. So factually, the US government has considered terrorists to be combatants since at least 1998.

[Troll]

Originally posted by Logic:
I'm going to post this again since I have yet to get an answer to these questions(from two of my previous posts):[/i]

Well, there is Israel I guess.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
My understanding of your argument was that there is a War on Terror. Anyone who is a terrorist (apparently your target) is a combatant in that war and can be killed in the course of combat just like a soldier in a conventional war can. So, on your argument, you can attack terrorists because they are combatants.

Yes, that is one coherent position.

Now you seem to be saying that terrorists are civilians.

And if followed through fully, that is another coherent position.

What is incoherent is mixing the two by trying to justify the use of military force on terrorists, and at the same time pretending that you are treating them as civilians. I gave the example of Clinton simultaneously issuing indictments, and ordering cruise missile attacks.* It is not possible for someone to be simultaneously a combatant, and a non-combatant. They are either one, or the other.

So where do you come out? Do we put you in the terrorists are always non-combatants corner? Or in the terrorists can be combatants corner?


* I don't mean to pick on Clinton. Feel free to pick another factually similar example.

[Logic]

Originally posted by Troll:
Well, there is Israel I guess.

heh

I meant some nation not notorious for human rights violations

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Incidentally, I happen to know that the Clinton Administration's official position was that the Sudan Attacks were against combatants, and were therefore justified under his war powers. So factually, the US government has considered terrorists to be combatants since at least 1998.

Clinton never said he was fighting a war on terrorism though. So under what banner did he classify them as combatants? Are you saying implicitly he was fighting a war on terrorism?

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by christ:
Or, more pertinently,

"If you could possibly prevent a hundred innocent deaths, would you take away the rights of someone who may or may not be guilty, even if there was no guarantee that this would avert the innocent deaths?"

My answer is no.

I'm quoting this again with the hope that you'll speak to it, Simey.

You agreed that the position I put forth was both legally coherent and ethical, but you defended your position as being better policy.

As I see it, christ's elegant and succint response to what you characterized as the "philosophical question" at the heart of the matter is the precise argument why your position is bad policy.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
Clinton never said he was fighting a war on terrorism though. So under what banner did he classify them as combatants? Are you saying implicitly he was fighting a war on terrorism?

By his actions, yes of course he was. Those cruise missiles weren't delivering summonses, were they? He meant them to kill.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
I'm quoting this again with the hope that you'll speak to it, Simey.

You agreed that the position I put forth was both legally coherent and ethical, but you defended your position as being better policy.

As I see it, christ's elegant and succint response to what you characterized as the "philosophical question" at the heart of the matter is the precise argument why your position is bad policy.

That's fair enough. I have said over and over that is a reasonable point of view. I disagree with it, but I respect it.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
So where do you come out?

Which part of this didn't you understand?

"The war on terrorism is an armed conflict not against any particular person, any particular identifiable group of people. It's an armed conflict against an intangible, a notion a concept - the concept of using violence to coerce. The Geneva Convention applies to "all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them." So there you go. The Geneva Convention does not apply to your War on Terrorism. It applies to the War in Iraq and to the War in Afghanistan and any war within a war, but it does not recognise wars against concepts. Where does that leave us? The Geneva Convention is not the only thing governing the use of force by states. There is ample law dealing with that area and the prosecution of terrorism. I think going into this any further would require me to buy in to the screwed up logic that you can fight a war against a concept. I don't think international law is able to admit something like that yet, so I think any legal argument over that is bound to be absurd. I guess the fallback position is that the war on terrorism must be run within the confines of the laws and customs which govern and have always governed the way states deal with terrorism, i.e. you arrest people, you try them, you sentence them. Sometimes you violate the law and kill them without trial and nobody complains. Basically, until there is international law dealing with this, you treat terrorists as if they were civilian criminals."

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
That's fair enough. I have said over and over that is a reasonable point of view. I disagree with it, but I respect it.

Then I guess that is where I'll leave it. Fair enough.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
By his actions, yes of course he was. Those cruise missiles weren't delivering summonses, were they? He meant them to kill.

That is a non-sequitur. Your implying that the justification follows the act. Because he fired the missiles, he must have considered terrorists combatants in a war. How about he knew it was illegal under international law but he was not likely to face any consequences so he "just did it." Would you then say that maybe this policy hasn't existed since 1998?

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
Which part of this didn't you understand? you treat terrorists as if they were civilian criminals."

That is all you had to say. There, wasn't that easy?

Of course, on Page one I said that this was where we would all disagree. Either you see the war on terror as a literal war, or you do not. All we have done is spend 7 pages to come out exactly where I said we would come out!

And as T_F said, that is where I will leave it.

[Logic]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
That is all you had to say. There, wasn't that easy?

Of course, on Page one I said that this was where we would all disagree. Either you see the war on terror as a literal war, or you do not. All we have done is spend 7 pages to come out exactly where I said we would come out!

And yet you have to offer any proof that shows that the treatment of the detainees in GC are legal, you have yet to answer several questions asked and continue to ignore certain parts of posts that are inconvenient for you. I'll post this yet again to get an answer from you!

You have gone on and on about how terrorists have been treated as unlawful combatants in the past but not once have you showed an example, not once. Name a few incidents were their rights have been stripped, were the country in question has used the GC as the legal backup for their arguments! The nations/incidents I can think of are Cuba, China, SA, Iraq, Israel, Turkey and the Taliban regime. Name one nation in the civilised world that has done this before.

So Simey, care to offer some proof of how other nations have treated terrorists as unlawful combatants and taken away their human rights as a result?

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
That is all you had to say. There, wasn't that easy?

Of course, on Page one I said that this was where we would all disagree. Either you see the war on terror as a literal war, or you do not. All we have done is spend 7 pages to come out exactly where I said we would come out!

No, we were discussing whether the US was violating the Geneva Convention in GB. We showed you that that question can be answered without buying into the War on Terrorism argument. I think 6 pages later you finally conceded that the US was indeed breaching the Geneva Convention at least by not releasing the POW's without delay and also by having denied them some of the rights they were entitled to as POW's.

What you're right about is that on page 1 you stated your desire to talk about the War on Terror and you have done your damndest to get the discussion away from the obvious violations of your government to the vaguaries of this stupid argument about the WOT. In response we've proved your argument to be shaky at best since under the Geneva Convention, the War on Terrorism (a war against a concept) is not a war. It's no more a war under the GC than the war on drugs or the war against illiteracy. So, the people that you're fighting against are not considered 'combatants' under the GC. Shakiness ensues. Finally, the fact that the GC doesn't apply doesn't leave them in a legal blackhole. It doesn't mean that they don't have any rights. It means that they are civilians and that treating them as anything but civilians is illegal.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
conceded that the US was indeed breaching the Geneva Convention at least by not releasing the POW's without delay

On that narrow issue (which we never really discussed) yes I do agree. Any purely conventional POW's should have been released before now.

On the rest of your post, I will let your immature chest beating and feeble attempt to sum up a 7 page discussion from your point of view speak for itself.

Good night, Sir. I won't say it has been fun or impressive, but it was at least illuminating.

[Troll]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I will let your immature chest beating and feeble attempt to sum up a 7 page discussion from your point of view speak for itself.

I won't call you an immature chest beater, but I don't think you can deny that you did the very same summarising thing:

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
"All we have done is spend 7 pages to come out exactly where I said we would come out!"

I think we achieved something. That is the first time I have ever heard you criticise the Bush administration and say that something they've done contravenes a treaty that you admit is binding on them. We also went from your saying that the people at GB have no rights to at least some of them have rights as POW's. Thanks to you, I also got some clarity on the US legal basis for the WoT. I consider those achievements, mutual achievements.

Goodnight sir.

[lil'babykitten]

Hmm I remember Lerkfish posted something I thought quite relevant to this topic a while ago in the 'three pronged approach' thread.

"prong two: quell with extreme prejudice the rights of citizens to protest by removing their access to due process, paving the road for political prisoners, like there used to be in South Africa. Sure, now its "suspected" terrorists, but how long until its anyone who disagrees with the administration? without access to legal counsel, the outside world and being held indefinitely and executed without trial, the US will have the ability to "disappear" citizens who are vocally antiadministration, and there won't be any way to prevent it since it will all be done in secret, with no protections."

Funny how he was bashed for this observation yet this is blatantly what is happening.