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Old 06-01-2007, 02:51 AM   #176
Crazyhorse1
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Re: Let's impeach the president.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha View Post
"Prisoner of war" is a term of art. POW status is not afforded to unlawful enemy combatants. Once a person is deemed an unlawful enemy combatant, they are denied POW privileges (e.g., the right to a trial by a neutral country). Under U.S. law (which, by the way, governs U.S. court proceedings), the President is delegated the broad authority to determine whether someone captured in Afghanistan or Iraq is an unlawful enemy combatant. Whether you disagree with U.S. law or not, it is what it is and the detention and trial of unlawful enemy combatants captured in Iraq or Afghanistan is not illegal. Air America radio might say otherwise, but they're simply wrong.
Prisoner of war is not a term of art, but it is a loose term. POW is not so much a status as a classification and matters in a practical sense very little to the Geneva Conventions accept as a general term. Bush's PR has many believing otherwise but the Conventions protect any prisoner of any opposing force of any kind, including all alledged terrorists and insurgents or any people no matter how they are dressed (with the exception of spies, who represent themselves as non-combatants, and can be tried and punished). No government can torture or mistreat any combatants, lawful or so-called unlawful, and that includes using kangaroo courts to sentence prisoners for crimes. To classify a person as a terrorist requires a fair trial, which has stopped Bush thus far from trying Gitmo prisoners (since there is no evidence). The Conventions were meant to stop all torture and mistreatment of prisoners of international war. They do not allow the mistreatment of torture of anyone at all, including terrorists and suspected terrorists.
In relation to international law and agreements, it doesn't matter what laws are created by our government. The U.S. signed the Geneva Conventions and the Geneva Conventions make world leaders,including our leaders, who are sworn by oath of office to uphold international agreements, guilty of war crimes if they allow or institute practices that violate the Conventions. Further, the U.S. has signed other international agreements outlawing torture and mistreatment of prisoners.
Further yet, international agreements, including the Geneva Conventions, do not give the U.S. the right to classify prisoners as it sees fit at any given time. Each agreement does its own classifying. It would be absolutely pointless and absurd for any international agreement to let the various counties that sign the agreements change the definition of torture when they wanted to and at any time classify prisoners as they wished. A minute's thought would tell you that any such absurdity would defeat the whole purpose of the agreements.
Bush and his minions live in an Alice in Wonderland world in which any rediculous argument can be thought of as true by masses of people if it is only repeated enough times on Fox news. Bushies are constantly trying to remake reality.
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