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KrazyHorse
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Macedonia
May 2001
time: 00:29
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
That doesn't affect competence. That is simply a legal opinion that al Qaeda is not a qualifying combatant power or a qualifying organization or militia of a combatant power, such that membership therein created a general presumption of POW status, beyond the initial presumption afforded all captured persons.
That's no different than determining that members of Mad Mike Hoare's Wild Geese captured in the Congo were unlawful combatants, because it was an irregular mercenary organization which didn't give a damn about the customs of war.
There is precedence for such determinations, based on determining the legal status of a group or organization.
The Taleban, OTOH, was found to be a militia of a qualifying combatant, and thus most Taleban members were presumptively POWs on the basis of their membership. |
The point is that the decision was not left to the board; as I recall, it was issued by the Prez (or at least some branch of the administration). And the tribunal was ordered, as I recall, to follow that guideline.
Again, which makes a laughingstock of its competence.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:29
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quote:
Originally posted by elijah
I spent months researching it, and am finishing a book on the topic. I would postulate that my knowledge of Islamic fundamentalism is greater than yours  .
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Postulate away.
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You seem to be misunderstanding my arguments, perhaps you should actually read my posts before you assume that I am supporting Al Qaeda because I understand them in a relativist manner.
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I did. First you summarize (apparently coincidentally) their claim that they attacked us in relation to our foreign policy. Foreign policy is not the issue, the capability to engage forcefully (i.e. to contest the overthrow of secular arab governments) is.
Then you did the cutesie kill this, that, blah blah blah and justify it in the name of Islam as your summary for their ideology.
If you're not ignorant, I can't be blamed for your ability to disguise that fact. 
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It is becoming increasingly clear the Guantanamo bay is an exploitation of a legal loophole... hence they do it on Cuban soil, not US soil, so apparently the constitution doesn't apply.
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Read ex parte Quirin. We can run military tribunals and shoot 'em here, the legal precedent has already been examined. Gitmo is more of an ideal security situation. No worries about sympathizers, guards, these guys getting loose and going anywhere, or revenge crazed rednecks taking them out.
Considering some of the prison location you Brits have, you're not in much position to *****, unless you're the sort who thinks being a murdering ******* entitles you to a free stay in a 4-star resort.
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They declare these people "unlawful combatants", even though they give no evidence of that, except reports of the general manner of capture that cannot be corroborated.
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And your point is? That's what the Geneva Convention requires, and that's what we adhere to.
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They justify incarceration and conditions that are easily classified as torture for the sake of international/homeland security.
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Three square meals a day, no pork or non-appropriate food, nice tropical breezes (hey, people pay to go to Cuba for vacations), a little thingy on a pole so they can point themselves towards Mecca, calls to prayer at the appropriate times of day, medical care. ****ing paradise.
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They exploit legal loopholes to do this, but they cannot get away from the fact that these men are human beings first and thus deserving of all human rights affordable to them, until they are found guilty of a crime... yet thus far they havent been charged.
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Unlawful combatants don't count. The simple fact that they're alive means they're lucky.
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When they are, they will face an unfair trial and a high possibility of the death penalty. They are presumed guilty before innocent, and that is unnacceptable.
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Since you're such an expert on the makeup of the tribunals and the procedures to be used, perhaps you'd care to enlighten us with your knowledge? 
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These men represent little or no tactical threat, and cannot be deemed otherwise without evidence.
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What part of taken prisoner as members of an unlawful combatant organization fighting in a foreign country, and sworn to jihad against infidels don't you understand? Of course they represent no threat now, because we have their asses locked up.
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A bunch of mindless, hand-wringing drivel...
Rant over.
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How about we give them back their weapons and move them into your neighborhood, and you deal with 'em, tiger. 
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:29
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quote:
Originally posted by KrazyHorse
It was found not to be a lawful combat organisation by the US admin.
The point is that the decision was not supposed to be up to them, but rather up to the tribunal. Which is the very heart of what competence is. Otherwise the Prez would be allowed to issue an order that only people of a certain height were lawful combatants and the board left only the decision of who fell in that guideline. |
The US is a high contracting party to the GC. The tribunal needs merely be composed of personnel of a combatant force which is a signatory. <-- Period. They are not magically put under international authority, or transported to some magical world where every day is a brand new day, and every issue arises in a vacuum. The guidance on al Qaeda's status came from legal experts on the subject, who were also part of the government (i.e. combatant power, high contracting party, competent, etc.) and the legal finding on status was endorsed by the chain of command.
Your height example is absurd. There was a specific legal question, i.e. the status of al Qaeda as to whether or not it was a type of resistance or regular or irregular militia force that would grant it's members presumptive POW status. That is an entirely separate issue from classification of individuals, and properly determined by legal authority of the US, or any other power who had taken prisoners and was a signatory. Answering a very specific legal question created by criteria set forth in international law is entirely different than pulling an arbitary criteria out of your ass.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:29
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quote:
Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Why apply through chain of command? Why not just put legal experts on panel that makes decision?
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Military tribunals work through chain of command. Assimilating civilian DoD lawyers and Navy/USAF JAG lawyers into an Army tribunal is a pain in the ass, and accomplishes no specific purpose. And if you do it your way, you have to make a separate determination as to the status of al Qaeda or Taleban or whoever, as a combatant organization for each individual, in addition to then determining the status of those individuals. That's ridiculous.
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Smacks of prejudicial interference by US admin (which is not a member of panel). |
Doooooodooooodooooodoooooh... we enter... the KrazyHorse zone. The US administration, more specifically, the office of the President of the United States, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, is the convening authority for the tribunal.
And so prejudicial that the same panel of legal experts ruled that the Taleban was a lawful combatant organization, as an organized irregular militia of a combatant party, despite it's loose to non-existant structure in the field, it's laxity of uniforms, concealment of weapons, propensity for being lax with the laws and customs of land warfare, and the lack of legitimacy of the Taleban as a "government." IF this panel had been prejudiced in any way, they could have easily taken a "hang 'em all" approach, but did not. Not wrt distinguishing the status of the Taleban and al Qaeda, and not wrt the status of indivuduals, most of whom, even the al Qaeda, "Afghan Arabs," and volunteer Pakistani jihadi, were never transferred to Gitmo.
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KrazyHorse
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Macedonia
May 2001
time: 00:29
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Military tribunals work through chain of command. Assimilating civilian DoD lawyers and Navy/USAF JAG lawyers into an Army tribunal is a pain in the ass, and accomplishes no specific purpose. And if you do it your way, you have to make a separate determination as to the status of al Qaeda or Taleban or whoever, as a combatant organization for each individual, in addition to then determining the status of those individuals. That's ridiculous.
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It's not ridiculous. It's what insures some semblance of individual attention and decision-making for each prisoner.
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Doooooodooooodooooodoooooh... we enter... the KrazyHorse zone. The US administration, more specifically, the office of the President of the United States, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, is the convening authority for the tribunal. |
And? It's a kangaroo court if the admin is allowed free reign as to what standards the board will apply. Having the Prez alone decide which were which would have been laughed out on its face. Instead he bootstrapped himself to get what he wants.
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And so prejudicial that the same panel of legal experts ruled that the Taleban was a lawful combatant organization, as an organized irregular militia of a combatant party, despite it's loose to non-existant structure in the field, it's laxity of uniforms, concealment of weapons, propensity for being lax with the laws and customs of land warfare, and the lack of legitimacy of the Taleban as a "government." IF this panel had been prejudiced in any way, they could have easily taken a "hang 'em all" approach, but did not. Not wrt distinguishing the status of the Taleban and al Qaeda, and not wrt the status of indivuduals, most of whom, even the al Qaeda, "Afghan Arabs," and volunteer Pakistani jihadi, were never transferred to Gitmo. |
I'm quite sure that some of the Taliban should not have been considered POWs. But that's the problem when you've got one panel of legal experts drawing up exactly two categories to deal with a couple of thousand prisoners from diferent situations, and then another panel dropping the prisoners into those two categories...
Each case merited individual review. They didn't get a sufficient amount of it. Given the amount of manpower that the US has applied to Gitmo to keep the prisoners so far, I'm sure they could have spared a ten man panel of lawyers for a month or two.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:29
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quote:
Originally posted by KrazyHorse
And by the way, in case somebody thinks I'm US-bashing here, I hold my government as culpable as that of the US for turning over prisoners to the US prior to their treatment as POWs being guaranteed... |
The principle reason for not classing al Qaeda *******s as POWs is not triability or conditions of imprisonment. Gitmo meets the minimum standards for EPW confinement - they are fed adequately, they have been seen by representatives of authorized international humanitarian organizations, they receive medical care, and they have a degree of shelter adequate to the climate.
Trial of EPW's for violations of the laws of war is (per the GC) by military tribunal of the detaining power, not civilian or international court.
The principle difference is that POW's can only be questioned as to name, rank, identifying number, and date of birth. If the Canadians or any other power had aided and abetted an unlawful combatant organization and terrorist organization such as al Qaeda by preventing interrogation of it's captured operatives, then I would support the US taking any action against that power necessary to secure those prisoners for interrogation.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:29
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quote:
Originally posted by KrazyHorse
It's not ridiculous. It's what insures some semblance of individual attention and decision-making for each prisoner.
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It's ridiculous (and your courts don't do it, nobody does) to take the exact same set of facts (al Qaeda as an organization in Afghanistan), and the exact same set of law, and make thousands of independent determinations of the law. What do you want? Al Qaeda is a lawful combatant organization here, but an unlawful one there? The legal status of al Qaeda as a combatant force in Afghanistan is a single factual and legal issue. The findings on that issue were made by a DoD legal team, not JAG judges, but international and military law experts, charged with making that determination under existing law.
Once that hurdle was cleared, wrt each combatant organization, the purpose of the tribunal is to then determine the status of each individual case brought before it.
quote:
quote:
Doooooodooooodooooodoooooh... we enter... the KrazyHorse zone. The US administration, more specifically, the office of the President of the United States, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, is the convening authority for the tribunal. |
And? It's a kangaroo court if the admin is allowed free reign as to what standards the board will apply. Having the Prez alone decide which were which would have been laughed out on its face. Instead he bootstrapped himself to get what he wants.
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The President did not make any such determination. Bush may be a lot of things (and I'm no fan), but he's not a micromanager, nor has he shown any evidence of deluding himself as being an expert on military law. The orders went down through Rummy to a legal panel to make a determination as to the status of each organization, the panel made their determination (i.e. al Qaeda not a lawful combatant party, or organization or unit of one, but Taleban a lawful combatant party), reported it up the chain of command, where it was endorsed and approved.
The only standards "applied" were applied by a panel of legal experts.
quote:
quote:
And so prejudicial that the same panel of legal experts ruled that the Taleban was a lawful combatant organization, as an organized irregular militia of a combatant party, despite it's loose to non-existant structure in the field, it's laxity of uniforms, concealment of weapons, propensity for being lax with the laws and customs of land warfare, and the lack of legitimacy of the Taleban as a "government." IF this panel had been prejudiced in any way, they could have easily taken a "hang 'em all" approach, but did not. Not wrt distinguishing the status of the Taleban and al Qaeda, and not wrt the status of indivuduals, most of whom, even the al Qaeda, "Afghan Arabs," and volunteer Pakistani jihadi, were never transferred to Gitmo. |
I'm quite sure that some of the Taliban should not have been considered POWs. But that's the problem when you've got one panel of legal experts drawing up exactly two categories to deal with a couple of thousand prisoners from diferent situations, and then another panel dropping the prisoners into those two categories...
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You're misunderstanding the process completely. Classification of the Taleban as a recognized combatant simply means that some of the tests under Section 4 of the GC have been satisfied, by virtue of the nature of the organization. It is then, that individual cases are considered, so for example, a saboteur who is a member of Taleban, captured without carrying arms openly and without identifying markings viewable at a distance, would not qualify for being a POW. However, an unarmed member of the Taleban, taken out of uniform, would be presumptively a POW.
An al Qaeda member, however, would not be a POW, simply because the nature of the organization and it's recognized right to be there fighting made it an unlawful combatant power. Same thing would apply with a bunch of white foreign mercenaries in Africa who operated outside any lawful authority. (a la Mad Mike Hoare's Wild Geese in the Congo)
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Each case merited individual review. They didn't get a sufficient amount of it. Given the amount of manpower that the US has applied to Gitmo to keep the prisoners so far, I'm sure they could have spared a ten man panel of lawyers for a month or two. |
They spared far more, in identifying these people, conducting interrogations, etc. The tribunals were a conclusion at the end of a long evidentiary process. How do you think it is that we managed to decide that some 98% of prisoners processed did NOT warrant continued detention and transfer to Gitmo?
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