[Winstonm]

Quote

in conflicts between a signatory (eg, the US) and a non-signatory (Al-Queda), the signatory shall remain bound by the convention(s) until and unless the non-signatory "no longer acts under the strictures of the Convention."

I appreciate you making this available. To me it only further supports my contention that a War on Terror is impossibly vague to be legally binding. It is actually being used as an excuse.

19 guys fly hijacked planes into two buildings, causing great destruction and many deaths. The 19 guys are part of an organization, but are from different countries.

This act can only be one of these:
1) A crime
2) An act of war

For U.S. response, we want it all ways: for response purposes, it was an act of war so invading other countries is justified, but when it comes to capturing the enemy, we want to claim terrorism and thus invalidate use of the Geneva Convention.

The only war we should be able to declare is a War on Al-Qaeda. And if we are in a war specifically with the enemy al-Qaeda, then the GC would apply as written above.

[hrothgar]

This discussion regarding the Geneva Conventions is all well and good, however, you might want to take a gander at The UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The convention is located at http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
(And, in case you had to ask, the US is a signatory)

The following article contains an interview with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture

http://www.salon.com...09/04/25/nowak/

[Winstonm]

The U.S.C. addresses torture also:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_s..._I_20_113C.html

Other U.S.C. references:

The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 (MEJA)
18 U.S.C. §§ 3261 - 3267

The War Crimes Act of 1996
18 U.S.C. § 2441

The Torture Act of 2000
18 U.S.C. §§ 2340, 2340A, and 2340B

[kenrexford]

Here's a completely different thought.

In the case of piracy, we have something called letters of mark, allowing private citizens to take out the bad guys, because strange conditions call for strange actions. In other words, because at sea you can't skip over to the local police precinct, you do what you have to. Generally, admiralty and maritime law is funky in many ways.

My proposal is to actually re-define certain organizations and membership therein and then pass case-specific laws, just like with piracy.

My personal proposal would be to follow Assyrian law as to al-qaeda. But, there might be some debate on this. At least we could reach an agreement and live with it.

"The Assyrians used excessive brutality and military might rebels to show that it was pointless to rebel against the ruler. Ashurnasirpal, an Assyrian king who put down a rebellion using terror tactics to the fullest, documents one such case. He writes, “ I built a pillar over against his city gate, and I flayed all the chief men who had revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skins; some I walled up within the pillar, some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes, and others I bound to stakes round the about the pillar; many within the border of my own land I flayed, and I spread their skins upon the walls; and I cut off the limbs of the officers, of the royal officers who had rebelled (Riley, 47).” The only time the Assyrians used ruthlessness and excessive brutality was in putting down rebellions. In fact, there are indications that the king insisted on very strict discipline in the matter of treatment of prisoners-of-war. One royal letter to an Assyrian administrator dealing with provisions for such prisoners actually warns the official: “you shall not be negligent. If you are, you shall die. Where the military action recounted was a matter only of conquest and not of putting down a rebellion, there is no mention of mass atrocities; the reference in such cases is only to the taking of prisoners, with no indication of executions or mutilations (Saggs, 262). Often times, the Assyrian army would deport the people they had just conquered. The objective was not so much punitive as to benefit the Assyrian empire both economically and in terms of security (Saggs, 263)." From http://www.echeat.co...say.php?t=26809

I like that approach, personally. Normally, very nice to our POW's. However, in certain well-defined circumstances, known to the world, we might skin the captured terrorists and wrap our new airplanes with their skins. Sounds about right to me.

Heck, if it worked for Ashurnasirpal, it might work for us. Now, ours would not be "rebellion" oriented. But, perhaps the terrorist problem (no official government, no abiding by rule of law of war by the other side, beheadings and the like) calls for unique treatment.

I mean, maybe some Americans might want a slightly lesser approach, and I'm flexible. Maybe instead of skinning them we chop their heads off (less painful) and mount them on our electric or hybrid car hoods as hood ornaments. Something. Any ideas?

[blackshoe]

hrothgar, on Apr 25 2009, 01:04 PM, said:

(And, in case you had to ask, the US is a signatory)

A signatory, but the Senate has not ratified it.

Edit: It seems I was mistaken. The link posted upthread, which claims to have last been updated in 1997, says that the US has not ratified the treaty. However, wikipedia claims it was ratified in 1994.

It seems this treaty obligates the US to establish laws against torture, and to enforce them. It is apparently in the latter that we have fallen short.

I think an objective investigation is warranted, and I think that if such an investigation were conducted and it found grounds for prosecution, then prosecution should be carried out. But the problem lies in identifying and appointing an objective investigator. Certainly that would not be Congress — "Congress" and "objective" are mutually exclusive terms, particularly in this case.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Any ideas?

We crush their bodies and use the collected fat dripping to light a beacon shining brightly from the city on a hill and then we force all the world's population to bow toward the light 3 times a day and invade any country where the person lives who refuses to comply, whether or not that person is a citizen of that country.

Yep, that ought to do it - we only have to get China and Japan to buy our bonds to pay for us being Top Gun, which I'm sure there want as much as we do.

[PassedOut]

kenrexford, on Apr 26 2009, 06:46 AM, said:

Any ideas?

They could be raped repeatedly and then eaten alive on world-wide television. (I hope you are not serious either.)

[Winstonm]

You want waffling? You Can't Handle Waffling! Here's waffling for you:

Quote

At a Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Capitol on Thursday, President Obama called for “fighting the silence that is evil’s greatest co-conspirator.”

On the same day, Obama decided to oppose creation of a truth commission to vigorously investigate and expose U.S. torture crimes

[kenrexford]

PassedOut, on Apr 26 2009, 10:00 AM, said:

kenrexford, on Apr 26 2009, 06:46 AM, said:

Any ideas?

They could be raped repeatedly and then eaten alive on world-wide television. (I hope you are not serious either.)

Yep -- looks like everyone got my satire. I was a tad worried it would be taken as serious. Not too many people are in the Assyrian Party these days. LOL

Of course, there was, as there always is, a wee bit of truth intended by the satire.

In a theoretical world, you can have a range of possibilities anywhere from just nice of the GC to just nasty of the Assyrian method.

In the real world, sometimes practical realities place you somewhere in the middle. Hopefully, more toward GC than Assyrian.

However, ANY line except either theoretical extreme is a compromise of philosophy to practicality. Where we draw that line will, therefore, require some degree of "immorality" or "incomplete practicality."

Whereas I believe that a culture such as ours should agree on what degree of immorality is allowed and what is banned, in many very difficult areas of real life (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, supporting the Cincinnati Bengals), it is very dangerous to go back, especially in the face of past acquiescence, and criminalize decisions that were made during a time of crisis. It seems wildly more intelligent to agree on parameters when the crisis is not present.

I also think, FWIW, that it is also a bad time to agree on parameters immediately after a crisis-driven decision. The fact that it is a bad time to do this may not be enough to warrant waiting to make decisions for the future, because crisis, and diminished crisis, makes us think about it. The "bad" part of post-crisis re-evaluation is that the pendulum may well swing too far to the edge of theoretical morality and may forget practicality (as seems to be happening somewhat).

Then again, if you know you will cross the line by two feet, make the line two feet from where you really want the edge to be. If you want people to drive 60 MPH, set the speed limit at 55.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on Apr 26 2009, 03:50 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Apr 25 2009, 01:04 PM, said:

(And, in case you had to ask, the US is a signatory)

A signatory, but the Senate has not ratified it.

Edit: It seems I was mistaken. The link posted upthread, which claims to have last been updated in 1997, says that the US has not ratified the treaty. However, wikipedia claims it was ratified in 1994.

It seems this treaty obligates the US to establish laws against torture, and to enforce them. It is apparently in the latter that we have fallen short.

I think an objective investigation is warranted, and I think that if such an investigation were conducted and it found grounds for prosecution, then prosecution should be carried out. But the problem lies in identifying and appointing an objective investigator. Certainly that would not be Congress — "Congress" and "objective" are mutually exclusive terms, particularly in this case.

FWIW, the following web site as a decent summary of relevent US statutes

http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/2009/04...orture-law.html

As Ed notes, the law on this is pretty clear. The question boils down to whether we are willing to enforce the relevent laws.

[brianshark]

I was reading through this Assault Weapon law thread with interest and all of a sudden it turned into a torture discussion. How did that happen?

I am curious why this particular bill is so unpopular in the US. I can understand the support behind anyone having a right to bear arms, even if I disagree with it. But what demographic majority are desperate to hold onto their assault weapons?

[mikeh]

brianshark, on Apr 27 2009, 11:30 AM, said:

I was reading through this Assault Weapon law thread with interest and all of a sudden it turned into a torture discussion. How did that happen?

I am curious why this particular bill is so unpopular in the US. I can understand the support behind anyone having a right to bear arms, even if I disagree with it. But what demographic majority are desperate to hold onto their assault weapons?

At the risk of going further off-topic: last night I watched part of an episode of The Unit. In this episode, one character's 16 year old daughter had run off to hook up with a 21 year old guy she had 'met' on the internet, telling him that she was 18.

The 'hero' found where they were staying and forced his way into the room at gunpoint. He held the gun in the young man's face and forced him to acknowledge that if he ever so much as spoke to the girl again, he would be killed... the 'hero' was a special forces soldier, much bigger than the unarmed younger man... who had thought that what he was doing was legal since the girl had said she was 18.

I gather that this episode was scripted this way because the writers/producers see this reaction as absolutely NORMAL. And, no doubt, laudatory. There was no suggestion, in the show, that the hero had done anything wrong.

The casual use of guns in US television is astounding to someone not brought up in that culture... the message that all these shows hammer home is that violence, especially gun violence, is not only all right, but a positive and morally appropriate response to any issue, provided that you are using it against someone whose moral values are at all different from that of the audience. Moral right entitles one to kill and maim... hmmm... any correlation to the acts of the US at large?

I suspect that this attitude.. which is so pervasive that no-one seems to comment on it... is part of why it is political suicide to prevent the easy sale of assault weapons.

[hrothgar]

hrothgar, on Apr 27 2009, 05:24 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Apr 26 2009, 03:50 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Apr 25 2009, 01:04 PM, said:

(And, in case you had to ask, the US is a signatory)

A signatory, but the Senate has not ratified it.

Edit: It seems I was mistaken. The link posted upthread, which claims to have last been updated in 1997, says that the US has not ratified the treaty. However, wikipedia claims it was ratified in 1994.

It seems this treaty obligates the US to establish laws against torture, and to enforce them. It is apparently in the latter that we have fallen short.

I think an objective investigation is warranted, and I think that if such an investigation were conducted and it found grounds for prosecution, then prosecution should be carried out. But the problem lies in identifying and appointing an objective investigator. Certainly that would not be Congress — "Congress" and "objective" are mutually exclusive terms, particularly in this case.

FWIW, the following web site as a decent summary of relevent US statutes

http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/2009/04...orture-law.html

As Ed notes, the law on this is pretty clear. The question boils down to whether we are willing to enforce the relevent laws.

Another followup:

http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/854-doj-p...-prisoners.html

The article in question discusses a number of precedents in which the US government prosecuted individuals for waterboarding.

Part of the reason why we might seem to have "fallen short" in procesuting individuals for waterboarding is that the opportunity to do so (thankfully) doesn't crop up all that often...