Did George W Bush commit war crimes to the american standard

[gumboot]

Ahem...

"No coercion may be used on prisoners to secure information to the condition of their army or country."

1. Terrorist detaineees are not prisoners of war. They are, at best, nothing more than 'enemy combatants', undeserving of Prisoner of War status, which is considered an honorable status, in and of itself. In fact, real Prisoners of War may not be interrogated at all, except when suspected of having committed crimes.

A detained enemy combatant is by definition a prisoner of war. Further, the Geneva Conventions state that any detainee whose status has not been determined by a tribunal is to be treated as a POW until such time as their status is determined. POW status is not an honourable status. It is the default status of all detainees.

The argument against POW status only applies for non-Afghani detainees (or non-Iraqi in the case of Iraq) because the Laws of War forbid third parties from engaging in the conflict. However a competent tribunal must determine their status as an illegal combatant first, at which point they are to be tried and either convicted or released.

POWs, by contrast, can be detained until hostilities cease.

Further, you are wrong that POWs cannot be interrogated. They can. But you cannot use coercion of any kind. It is not illegal to interview them and ask them questions.

2. Terrorist detainees are not interrogated "to obtain information to the condition of their army or country", since they do not have an army or a country. They are interrogated for the purpose of extracting information which might save the lives of the people the terrorists intend to slaughter.

They are interrogated to obtain information to the condition of their army, which comprises their fellow combatants/terrorists. Using coercion to do so is illegal.

 

[gumboot]

And nothing would have been done with out the political pressure. It also did not do anything to those in charge.

Ah, yes it did. The commanding officers at the prison were punished. The senior officer most responsible was only charged on minor crimes, but that was because his interviewer forgot to read him his rights, so the court dismissed the charges. Not because the military didn't go after him.

 

[Toontown]

A detained enemy combatant is by definition a prisoner of war. Further, the Geneva Conventions state that any detainee whose status has not been determined by a tribunal is to be treated as a POW until such time as their status is determined. POW status is not an honourable status. It is the default status of all detainees.

The argument against POW status only applies for non-Afghani detainees (or non-Iraqi in the case of Iraq) because the Laws of War forbid third parties from engaging in the conflict. However a competent tribunal must determine their status as an illegal combatant first, at which point they are to be tried and either convicted or released.

POWs, by contrast, can be detained until hostilities cease.

Further, you are wrong that POWs cannot be interrogated. They can. But you cannot use coercion of any kind. It is not illegal to interview them and ask them questions.

They are interrogated to obtain information to the condition of their army, which comprises their fellow combatants/terrorists. Using coercion to do so is illegal.

You are using the Geneva conventions to assign a status to terrorists which should not apply to terrorists. The Geneva conventions apply to wars between countries, in an obviosly failed attempt to make war between countries more humane and civilized.

As long as you insist on doing that, there is no basis on which we can agree on the general subject of treatment of terrorists.

 

[rustypouch]

It's interesting how some people can justify torture.

 

[bikerdruid]

It's interesting how some people can justify torture.

what's a little water up the nose, between enemies?

 

[Toontown]

It's interesting how some people can justify torture.

It is far more interesting how some people would allow thousands of innocents to die in terrorist attacks, citing deep-seated fears that Western civilization will devolve into tyranny if a few terrorist kingpins get water poured up their noses.

My position is simple: It is asinine to apply rules to situations for which said rules were never intended to be applied.

But something tells me that so simple an explanation won't get through. So I'll add an analogy:

Applying the Geneva convention rules on the treatment of POW's to terrorist detainees makes as much sense as applying the rules of basketball to football. You end up with a lot of empty football stadiums and herds of huge linemen lumbering up and down basketball courts, trying to remember they're not supposed to knock the other guys on their asses.

And also a lot of dead people who didn't need to die to protect the noses of terrorists from the dreaded water.

 

[Complexity]

They committed crimes and war crimes in my opinion.

 

[Toontown]

They committed crimes and war crimes in my opinion.

And that 'opinion' is just that - an opinion, nothing more. Anyone else can have an equally valid opinion.

I, for example, would consider it an inexcusable crime against humanity to fail to extract as much information as possible from Khalid Sheikh-Mohammed.

 

[rustypouch]

It is far more interesting how some people would allow thousands of innocents to die in terrorist attacks, citing deep-seated fears that Western civilization will devolve into tyranny if a few terrorist kingpins get water poured up their noses.

My position is simple: It is asinine to apply rules to situations for which said rules were never intended to be applied.

But something tells me that so simple an explanation won't get through. So I'll add an analogy:

Applying the Geneva convention rules on the treatment of POW's to terrorist detainees makes as much sense as applying the rules of basketball to football. You end up with a lot of empty football stadiums and herds of huge linemen lumbering up and down basketball courts, trying to remember they're not supposed to knock the other guys on their asses.

And also a lot of dead people who didn't need to die to protect the noses of terrorists from the dreaded water.

Wow. So do you constantly live in fear, or does the thought of hurting people make you moist?

 

[Toontown]

Wow. So do you constantly live in fear, or does the thought of hurting people make you moist?

Translation: you have no answer. Only a false dichotomy to serve as a pointless fig leaf.

 

[rustypouch]

Translation: you have no answer. Only a false dichotomy to serve as a pointless fig leaf.

Hey, you're the one getting jollies from the idea of torturing people.

It's something I cannot understand. Hurting potentially innocent people for information they *might* know disgusts me. Besides, information from torture is suspect, at best. People will say what they think the torturer wants to hear to make them stop.

How can you justify hurting people for useless information? Or they don't count because they're brown?

 

[Toontown]

Hey, you're the one getting jollies from the idea of torturing people.

It's something I cannot understand. Hurting potentially innocent people for information they *might* know disgusts me. Besides, information from torture is suspect, at best. People will say what they think the torturer wants to hear to make them stop.

How can you justify hurting people for useless information? Or they don't count because they're brown?

A common leftist trick is to lure the opponent into accepting a false premise. In this case, there are three false premises hard at work, topped off with a false dichotomy.

1. The three terrorist kingpins who were waterboarded were probably innocent of any wrongdoing.

2. No useful information was obtained.

3. Toontown gets 'jollies' from the idea of torturing people.

Feel free to present convincing evidence of (1), (2), and (3) instead of attempting to slip them in as uncontested premises.

But don't expect me to respond to any more of your deceptive gibberish.

 

[Virus]

Hey, you're the one getting jollies from the idea of torturing people.

It's something I cannot understand. Hurting potentially innocent people for information they *might* know disgusts me. Besides, information from torture is suspect, at best. People will say what they think the torturer wants to hear to make them stop.

How can you justify hurting people for useless information? Or they don't count because they're brown?

Do you really care that much about three terrorists having water pored up their nose? I don't.

 

[Toontown]

what's a little water up the nose, between enemies?

Nothing, really, considering that they could have been shot in the gonads on sight instead of being captured, and no amount of pseudo-legalistic mumbo-jumbo would have had any effect whatsoever.

Not that capturing them was doing them any favor. They're better off dead. They had their shot at the monkey life, and they flunked miserably. But they've learned how to better their circumstances substantially. It's called talking. Singing like a tweety bird. Providing actionable intel.

 

[leftysergeant]

I, for example, would consider it an inexcusable crime against humanity to fail to extract as much information as possible from Khalid Sheikh-Mohammed.

Then you endorse a crime. We are not allowed, by law, to torutre criminal suspects, either, for damned good reasons.

That it does not work as advertised is the least of them. Whoever authorizes waterboarding should be in jail himself.

 

[bikerdruid]

Providing actionable intel.

that has been shown to be wrong.

 

[gumboot]

You are using the Geneva conventions to assign a status to terrorists which should not apply to terrorists.

I'm not assigning it to terrorists. I'm assigning it to combatants detained by the US during their occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Anyone captured as a "terrorist" outside these conflicts is simply a criminal, and should be processed in the normal way criminals are processed.

The Geneva conventions apply to wars between countries, in an obviosly failed attempt to make war between countries more humane and civilized.

The Geneva Conventions apply to international armed conflict such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As long as you insist on doing that, there is no basis on which we can agree on the general subject of treatment of terrorists.

I'm not interested in opinion. I'm interested in legal fact. You can think whatever you want. The law cares neither about your opinion nor mine, nor George Bush's.

 

[Toontown]

Do you really care that much about three terrorists having water pored up their nose? I don't.

It is contradictory to suppose that he gives a rat's ass about those mass-murdering bastards, while he professes to be disgusted at the idea of the evil Bush causing people to be hurt.

But hey, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's deeply concerned that their waterboarding risked bringing about the fall of civilization by some sort of wierd slippery-slope-butterfly effect.

 

[gumboot]

Do you really care that much about three terrorists having water pored up their nose? I don't.

I do. Because I believe I live in a civilisation where we value fundamental principles including the rule of law, equality, and democracy. I believe I live in a civilisation where these ideal are not merely a catch-phrase nor a guideline but the foundation principles upon which our entire society is built.

And as such I care very, very deeply about governments within my civilisation which reveal by their actions they do not hold these ideals in the same high regard.

I couldn't care less about the terrorists. They are scum and if they died tomorrow I would shed nae a tear for their loss.

I care very much about my civilisation, and I care very much about adhering to our principles no matter what rather than treating them as an ideology of convenience.

 

[rustypouch]

A common leftist trick is to lure the opponent into accepting a false premise. In this case, there are three false premises hard at work, topped off with a false dichotomy.

1. The three terrorist kingpins who were waterboarded were probably innocent of any wrongdoing.

2. No useful information was obtained.

3. Toontown gets 'jollies' from the idea of torturing people.

Feel free to present convincing evidence of (1), (2), and (3) instead of attempting to slip them in as uncontested premises.

But don't expect me to respond to any more of your deceptive gibberish.

An authoritarian trick is to dehumanize people who are slightly different to justify treating them badly.

I'm curious as to what useful information came from detaining and torturing the thousands of other people detained by the US. I also like how you referred to yourself in the third person.