SwiftVets.com

[dusty]

Well....well....well. Now the Supreme Court wants to apply Geneva Convention rules to the ununiformed terrorists who aren't affiliated with any specific country or military.
How can this be?
Another travesty of justice if you ask me. I don't think we need to take anymore prisoners if this is going to be the case. Shoot em when you find em or let em go. Or put them in prisons in the country in which they are captured and let them deal with em.
I'm flabergasted.

Dusty
_________________
Left and Wrong are the opposite of Right!

[Anker-Klanker]

This turned out to be a very puzzling decision, and not one of the SCOTUS's finest moments IMHO. How they could determine that Geneva Convention rules should apply to terrorists is beyond me. It should also be noted that Justice Roberts had to recuse himself.

What I've read on some blogs this morning suggests that the SCOTUS decision actually contradicts other articles and provisions of the Geneva Convenition (since I'm not a student of the Geneva Convention, I can't comment more on this aspect). If so, though, this would suggest that the decision was not based on finely honed legal interpretation of law and treaties, but rather on that old liberal "FEEL" principal.

BUT there seems to be a silver lining in all this. Originally, the administration did not want to hold tribunals for Gitmo detainees. The idea of holding such tribunals was a concession offered to all the outraged liberals who were objecting to us holding "quasi-" POWs without benefit of trial. In this morning's SCOTUS decision, though, the SCOTUS reaffirmed the administration's right to imprison (or hold) the GITMO detainees until cessation of hostilities. Thus, the decision, in effect, returns the GITMO detainees status right back to where it was before the tribunals were offered as a concession. In that regard, the administration apparently won big time!

I think it will take some time for all the implications of this decision to be understood, and I still think it was not the finest hour for our liberal SCOTUS justices.

[four-niner delta]

New rule on the battlefield: No quarter! Kill 'em where they stand.

I've had it with all this damn theory about the constitution. Why don't we just let 'em go right now, bring 'em here and play "pattycake". Let's see how long it takes these people to kill as many Americans as possible, "theoretically of course". Between the NYT and now the Sup Court, what's going on in this country?!!
_________________
Gary Armitstead
Burbank, CA
U.S. Army Vietnam 1966-67 Mekong Delta
Mobile Riverine Force
A Co. 3/60 9th INF DIV

[Schadow]

Various outlets report that Senators Kyle and Lindsey Graham are introducing fast-track legislation to repair the travesty. Hopefully, someone in the House is doing the same.

Surely, we can't have the most recent promulgator of military tribunals, Franklin Roosevelt, patron saint of Democrats, besmirched by saying retroactively that he broke the law by executing persons convicted in such tribunals.

Since none of the Gitmo prisoners have been so tried, this should be solvable.

Geneva rights? Beam me up, Scotty!

Schadow
_________________
Capt, 8th U.S. Army, Korea '53 - '54

[Anker-Klanker]

[rparrott21]

Did it apply to the 2 soldiers killed last week...

[Anker-Klanker]

[Leeman]

I swear if i had anything to say about the situation.. I'd set them free in Massachussetts. !!!
_________________
Leeman

"We are all Ghost now"
"But once we were men"

from an unsigned diary recovered from Cabanatuan Camp

[minnie presley]

this is a sad day for america, the terrorists all over the world will be dancing in the streets tonite, thanks to our liberial justices, I am about to explode, what are they doing to this country, the enemies have more right than our troops, what can we do about this, I rthink all decent americans need to stand up and be heard, also we need to make sure dems pay a price in november, after pelosi statement today

[Anker-Klanker]

I'm not sure I made my point in an earlier post. The actual text of the Geneva Convention can be found here:

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

If you go to Part I, Article 5, you will find the text I quoted earlier:

[JN173]

Anker;
You are quoting the 3rd Convention that relates to the treatment of POW's. There are 3 other Conventions and 2 "Protocols" that may be the basis for Stevens' comments.

My reading of Convention III clearly excludes the inmates in Gitmo as POWs.

I believe Convention IV "Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War , 12 August 1949." to be a more likely grounds for the SCOTUS ruling.
_________________
A Grunt
2/503 173rd Airborne Brigade
RVN '65-'66

[Anker-Klanker]

Thanks, JN173, but I don't think the Fourth Convention applies at all. It is clearly written to protect true civilians, i.e., the Jews of Europe, the Chinese civilians when Japan overran China, etc.

Fourth Convention text:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Human_Rights/geneva1.html

Whatever the formal legal status of the Gitmo detainees is, they, I believe, were detained because they were thought to be combatants - which is what the Third Convention applies to (if the Geneva Convention applies at all). The issue that I thought was at the heart of the matter was whether all the detainees were, in fact, being detained correctly as real combatants (or, i.e., were they just swept up as "innocents" among combatants). And that issue is specifically what the Third Convention, Article 4 addresses - i.e., how to resolve whether they were, in fact, combatants or not.

I think - no, I know - that a large part of this problem is that no one seems to know what the specific issue was that brought the case to SCOTUS and resulted in this morning's decision. I know darned well that the media - TV and press - and much of the blogosphere don't. Everybody seems to be operating and opining on what they "think" rather than facts.

Guess I'll just shut up and watch this circus since I can't do anything about it anyway...

Addendum. It's Article 44, of the First Protocol, where the trouble lies. Quoting from the Wikopedia version:

[JN173]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2487638612433437293&q=Veterans

[greasepaint]

this issue is troubling.

it is one thing for,
a military tribunal to decide if a person
was an illegal combatant, or not.

something else entirely, for a military tribunal,
with nothing from Congress,
to start rendering verdicts and punishments,
on whoever they please.