NEWS: Finally, Justice!

POLITICS: Finally, Justice!

It was only a matter of time before President Bush's flouting of international precedent caught up with him. As it turns out, the thorn in his side is American-made.

Despite what many would have you believe, the rest of the world is quite relevant. The United States can't just make up the rules as we go along, though it's certainly not for lack of effort on Bush's part.

This could explain why Bush was so vehemenently opposed to joining the International Criminal Court; what's good for the goose might turn out to be uncomfortably good for the gander.

That bastard has whats coming to him.

I love a good judicial bitch-slap.

The judge will likely be overturned. His opinion reads more like a political diatribe than a reasoned legal argument.

Guess what, noone is applying the Geneva Convention to American soldiers in any case. Heard about any Iraqis or terrorists following it lately? Unless beheading is in the Geneva Convention.

The Geneva Convention was written for a conventional war, where combatants wear uniforms and fight each other openly. There is nothing inconsistant with saying that terrorists are a diffferent beast.

Following rules that noone else will abide by isn't noble, it's stupid. It gains us no advantage, and only makes us look like fools.

The "opinion" of the other world governments, with a very few exceptions, amounts to hypocrisy in support of their own agenda. Each and every one of them ignores the so called "international laws" when and where it gives them an advantage. They simply use our desire to be "liked" by other countries as a wedge against us.

The reason Bush, and by the way, many intelligent people, don't want us subjected to an international criminal court is because it would really be an international kangaroo court. Any time other nations disagreed with an action we took to protect our interests, they'd threaten us with prosecuting our soldiers.

Everyone wants to bring down the big guy on the block, even if he has done nothing to them, its unfortunately human nature. Why make it any easier?

Your right to sit here and rag on the government exists only because that government takes steps to protect the interests of this country, and its prosperity. Some of those steps can be personally distasteful, but completely necessary for the good of the people the President, Congress, Senate, and Judiciary are sworn to protect. The fact you have the free leisure time to post here is a measure of that freedom and prosperity. You're entitled to your opinion, but I think the very fact you are still free to express it is the most important evidence that you are wrong in this case.

It's certainly fine to disagree with the government, but I think your idea that we are required to bow to the will of the rest of the world is a policy that could only lead to disaster.

Oh! Oh! Oh! FUCK YES!

IMPEACH HIM! HANG HIM! STRING HIM UP BY HIS NUTS!!!

I've been telling EVERYONE that prick was a fucking war criminal, and now the indesputable proof finally arises!

Here's proof of Bush's own order to "brush aside" the Geneva Convention (note his signature at the bottom);

Proof Positive He's a War Criminal!


Actually, check out the whole website that link came from. It's dedicated to all kinds of internal memos and letters and stuff about the Bush Administration and their stance on torture, detainees, the Geneva Convention, et cetera.

Click Here

Don't forget that the grand old man of Republican foreign policy, Henry Kissinger, would also be subject to the ICC's power for his direct role in the coup of the Allende government in Chile in the 1970s, if the U.S. joined.

Blah balh blah, this was is different blah blah blah , basic human rights are too much trouble blah blah.

This is not bowing to the will of the rest of the world, it's abiding by the international treaties we signed and have enjoyed the protections of for decades. You like to bring up the beheadings, I notice that sanctioning brutality and abrogation of rights hasn't exactly stopped them, has it?

I don't think that terrorists not holding to the Geneva Conventions is guaranteed to stop the US from doing so. Possibly.

If we do the same things as the terrorists, wouldn't we lose any moral authority we have? Why do we have to fight in an utterly conventional way, in any case? Maybe if we stopped lobbing bombs in the general direction of the middle east, and stopped using the CIA to mess with their political structures, terrorists wouldn't target the US. Europe is much closer .

The events of the 11th of September, 2001 should have been a different kind of wake up call for the US. I would have rather we left the middle east largely alone (I understand that there are necessary steps that have to be taken) and focused on protecting our own country. Some restructuring of the military and redistributing and we could use them to protect key American assets. This would make America safer, as opposed to wars and raids which simply create more potential terrorists. You can't fight ideas with bullets, to quote one of the best computer games ever.

We don't seem to want to be "liked" by other countries, at least not lately. I think it might be a good idea to be "liked" by other countries though, it's kind of helpful when you need to go fight wars, or when resources are scarce and you need to find new ways to use them. I think, historically, being part of a coaltion of countries is actually quite good. As for the nonsense about how we shouldn't follow rules because they won't...duh. We won't either, even if we agree to. The difference is that we will all be held accountable for the things we do which are wrong. It's a safeguard, and a sensible one.

I confess to ignorance about the international court, but it seems extraordinarily unlikely to me that other countries will capriciously attack US soldiers who did nothing wrong (note the last 3 words of the sentence).

This is true, but here is a sad fact for you, every big guy in history tripped and fell flat on his face at some point, maybe if we still had friends to help us up, it would be easier to deal with (I'm fighting analogy with analogy here, so bear with me). The US's days of pure supremacy are limited, China is quickly becoming a rival of economoc and military power--it isn't yet, but it may be soon. Wouldn't you want China to be accountable to these rules, even if it tries to get around them (which, by the way, essentially all people do when faced with a law which restricts them in some way).

I think flouting a higher authority is what leads to disaster, unchecked power makes it easier for corruption. I find it interesting that you utterly trust our government officials and the oathes they've sworn but do not trust at all the rulers and ambassadors. I recognize that they have foreign (I'm punny) agendas, but then so do the people who are ruling your own country. Do you think big business gives out hundreds of millions of dollars for political campaigns and expects nothing in return? To these sorts of people, money is as important as it gets, they would not invest that much without expecting a return. You don't trust foreign governments, I don't trust any.

[Edited on Nov 09, 2004 10:53AM]

this goes to the supreme court where what happens? wait for it... thats right, OVERTURNED (8-0 is my guess)... and then what?

you're asking the US government to admit their president is a war criminal... no matter what party or whoever is in power, the government backs their own country first...

same deal that happened for the war in kosovo where ppl were claiming clinton was a war criminal... nothing came of it then too...

Tell me something...

If this is slapped down by a higher court - will that, too, be "Finally, Justice!" and can we look forward to another Rottenart news item covering THAT?

I'm guessing "No." Because this has less to do, really, with the Geneva Convention than with Rotten's political opposition to (and personal hatred of) Pres W .

As far as the GenCon itself, isn't observance of it restricted to prisoners taken from regular, uniformed armed forces of recognized, signatory goverments?

Even then, it's not a blanket protection for those governments who ARE signed on, is it? I believe that, for example, spies and undercover saboteurs do not enjoy equivalent protection to regular soldiers who are POWs.

Or, as Jonah Goldberg put it:

The liberal punditocracy seems to think it's an obvious fact that the Geneva Convention should apply to the war on terrorism, even though the plain text of the Geneva Convention applies as much to the war on terror as it does to the battle between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.

Set phasers to 'kill,' Scotty!

[Edited on Nov 09, 2004 11:10AM]

That was an accident, right?

I mean, I agree with about half of what you're saying in the rest of the post, but.. please.

Simply put, no. The obligation is on the signatory holding the captive. What the Bush administration is doing is asserting that as we never recognized the Taliban as a legitimate government, its fighters are "irregular" and have abrogated the law of war and thus their rights under the Geneva conventions. This is a totally specious and self serving interpretation endorsed by absolutely no one outside the administration. Lets keep in mind folks, most of the people in Cuba are not al Qaeda, or from Iraq. They're the soldiers of that other war everybody forgot about, and a whole bunch of people swept up in our dragnet.

Y'all, go read Chain of Command by Seymour Hersh. It will turn your stomach.

Don't hold your breath people. This story will fire up the citizens of other countries, but the American general populace will never even hear about it. I hate the Weasel as much as the next liberal, but there's no way anything will ever become of this. Sad but true...

hey i have that book. maybe i should read it.

*waits for BBCWorld News to end so he can start reading*

[Edited on Nov 09, 2004 by skinwalker]

" . . .weaken the United States' own ability to demand application of the Geneva applications to Americans captured during armed conflicts abroad."

Same reason why Kerry was a better choice, cause who is in charge, UNFORTUNATELY, is the reflection of us as a nation. I don't want anyone thinking I'm like FUCKWAD, I mean Bush. I also dont want to be tortured in a country I may randomly visit and having them say, "Well, if you did why shouldn't we?"

yeah, he's wrong for detaining them. release them back "into the wild" so they can join up with the others and attack our troops. :retard:

You do understand that this case is all about the government actually having to prove that they have some reason for detaining them, right?

Thats it. Thats all this case says. The US government cannot simply declare "This is a bad guy we're going to lock him up for however long we want because we says so." We rounded up thousands of people for no good reason. We paid bounties to mercenaries and drug runners for whoever looked suspicious. I don't think that its too fucking unreasonable after two years for the government to maybe have to come up with a reason for keeping these guys in a chain link cage half a world away from were we snatched them.

you're missing the point. my dislike of W notwithstanding, we can't just run around doing whatever we feel like doing, whenever we feel like doing it. like reprobate said, these were trials to determine whether it was justified to be holding them...TWO OR THREE YEARS AFTER THEY WERE CAPTURED! suppose you had been accused of being an enemy combatant and were locked away for two years without so much as being charged. you bet your ass you'd have your lawyer on the phone! why should these people be any different? because we're americans, we get preferential treatment? bullshit.

as far as us not joining the criminal court, well, it might make it a little harder for us to invade sovereign nations while killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process.

all men are created equal except for the brown people across the globe, eh?

[Edited on Nov 09, 2004 by rottenart]

The version written before WWII was only considerred binding between 2 signatories to the GenCon. That's why the US treated German POWs strictly by the book and Japanese POWs were not. The US treatment of Germans degraded after the end of hostilities because the German government legally ceased to exist after the arrest of Furhrer Admiral Doenitz, Hitler's apointed succesor.

There have been several verisons since then. These have varying definitions of combatant but all require a signator to honor the terms in any military conflict. To be considerred a lawful combatant the fighter must have some obvious indicator for the opposing combatant to recognize them.

For regular forces the uniform meets this requirement and is confirmed by an ID card that is formatted to a GenCon standard. For irregular forces a partial uniform ( overshirt or jacket) or an armband with ID marks (ex US Army, PFLP, Militia or a standard color pattern) are technically acceptable. Protection for non-regulars is not automatic even with partial uniform or armband because it may not have the appropriate markings or the enemy may not recognize ther cause as military but declare them "bandits." Once the fighting is over irregulars involved in insurrection have been considerred criminals and subject to trial, or granted amnesty which is also granted only to criminals.

This is a synthesis and simplification of years reading military history, war correspondence and the "popular press." It's only what I believe to be true and should be taken with a grain of salt.

We are at war. Period. Doesn't matter what KIND of war, or who it's with. That's why the Geneva Conventions apply to our behavior. And as Reprobate said, most of the people being held in Guantanamo Bay are not "terrorists", whatever that means, they are just people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And we are preventing them from being tried, holding them unlawfully, and if the ACLU is to be believed, torturing them horribly.

I just hope that this Means that the aussies stuck there get some rights. Their families havent had any contact with them at all and yeah. It must be terrible for them.

Despite what they did, theyre still people and they still have basic human rights. Fighting for the taliban cant change that. And fighting for them prior to 9-11 doesnt have to mean that they were involved in any aspect of planning it, or that they even knew prior to it happening.

I think the U.S government is forgeting that these people cant be trated like animals - even though they did a lot of terrible things. And that no matter how much they want to - they cant just toss aside the eneva convention becasue its incovenient.

If it is as you say, then your point is well taken.

However, on the larger subject, I think there is a real and relevent difference between the soldiers of a regular army and something like al Queda.

Checking over the various iterations of the GenCon, it struck me how the focus was on minimizing or (hopefully) avoiding civilian casualties and the destruction of what is called "cultural property."

The idea seems to be that if we must have wars, then at least set them up so that soldiers fight other soldiers in some controlled way so as to minimize the civilizational damage caused by the conflict.

But all of this falls apart when dealing with a terrorist-type enemy that deliberately targets civilians and for whom "civilizational damage" is the whole point. This kind of conflict is not "soldiers fighting soldiers" and does not deserve the same considerations.

So, as far as Repro's point that the folks in question should enjoy due process of law unless it can be reasonably shown that they're al Queda or something similar, then I would agree.

***

That said, you guys with the "brown people" comments really need to grow the fuck up. I mean, come on - that's a tired line even for the "No Blood for Halliburton!" crowd.

(It also fails to take into account that the most important and costliest wars fought by the USA were against primarily-Caucasian enemies.)

[Edited on Nov 10, 2004 by Hetzer]

And we are preventing them from being tried, holding them unlawfully, and if the ACLU is to be believed, torturing them horribly.

If the ACLU is to be believed, placing a Christmas Nativity scene in front of the local post office is nothing less than a harbinger of the New Inquisition.

Not that the ACLU is all bad, but they do overreact sometimes.

Despite all the dicta about the US position in the world and the Geneva convention thats what this ruling is all about. Its a procedural due process and executive authority case, it really has nothing to do with international law. The question is, does the executive have the authority to declare by fiat that an individual is outside the protections of US treaties and enumerated civil rights. This judge says no, at least not the way it was done. The judge hasn't even ruled on the legitimacy of the "Enemy Combatant" designation, merely that the executive branch cannot both declare that designation and determine who fits it by kangaroo court proceedings with no real opportunity to defend against it. Basically the administration is asserting that not only are these people so bad that they don't get basic civil rights, but they are so bad that we can't even afford to prove how bad they are, so you're just going to have to take our word for it. That's a power that no civilized government should ever have.