The Afghan Taliban detainees - Lawful or Unlawful Combatants

Are the Taliban Lawful or Unlawful Combatants?

  • Unlawful

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Lawful

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Neither Combatants or NonCombatants

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
CSmaster said:
pretty inhumane huh?
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No.

Once more, these are not simple criminals, and those laws in place to deal with domestic criminals do not apply to those detained in Camp X-Ray. Do you honestly believe that we committed the time, effort, and funding necessary to transport and maintain these prisoners, who amount to a very very small handful of the total number of the enemy captured in this war, as Pershing has pointed out, without some extremely solid information on what terrorism these specific individuals had been involved in?


bulldog, your information on BCT is outdated, and I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone, particularly in the military, who doesn't agree that such distinctions of abuse are outlandish.
 
Redneck said:
bulldog, your information on BCT is outdated, and I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone, particularly in the military, who doesn't agree that such distinctions of abuse are outlandish.
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Can you back that up with sources? Something that repudiates the substance of the two articles I posted. I have looked and have been unable to find anything that states the issues raised by Col. Hackworth have been addressed. And I do know people in uniform now who would disagree with your assessment of abuse distinctions. One in particular is the commanding officer of a basic training company at Fort Jackson, SC. I have emailed asking her to join the forum but even then it will be her opinion and unable to be backed with the sources required here for posters to provide to support their claims.
 
Re "stress cards":

https://airdefense.bliss.army.mil/adamag/March2001/AIT.htm
Look about a third of the way down the page. The following paragraph also addresses the DS-Recruit relations.


Opinions do not need to be backed up with sources, so long as they are presented as what they are, rather than as fact "because I said so."

And in my own opinion and from what experience I do have, I have yet to talk to anyone in uniform who believes that verbage amounts to unbearable abuse (thus the "hard pressed").
 
I can't access anything .mil from my current locale (do a search on my ISP addy and you will understand) something I discussed with Sherman before but I will trust you, take your word for it and thank you for clarification on the opinion-sources thing. Roger the "hard pressed".
 
Redneck wrote:
Do you honestly believe that we committed the time, effort, and funding necessary to transport and maintain these prisoners, who amount to a very very small handful of the total number of the enemy captured in this war, as Pershing has pointed out, without some extremely solid information on what terrorism these specific individuals had been involved in?
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Yes, that´s true. But the dilema is if they are lawful or unlawful combats. The taliban soldiers are lawful because they represented the Taliban Goverment ( this talibans were the same that US supported to fight against USSR). The people that took arms spontaneously to fight an invasion and respected customs of war are also respected by GC. You will say that they do not respect them...Ok, US does? remember ammo with uranium, fragmentary bombs...
 
Fragmentary munitions are perfectly legal. Infact, that's how most hand grenades work. Fragmentary only means that upon detonation the shell breaks apart spraying the area with pieces of metal.

Also, depleted uranium munitions are for use only on armored targets, I can't think of any logical reason for someone to fire an ADPU round at a person.
 
once more,

even ppl like Saddam can have a trial,

why not these ppl in Gitmo,

if U.S does not want to give them fair trial and live up to its own principle,

than stop telling others to do so
 
PershingOfLSU said:
Edit: There are other problems with trying them as well. Almost all information that would be used in a conviction is classified. Why? Because if you reveal sensitive intelligence information, then even though the terrorists already know it because it's about them, they can get an idea of your intelligence network. Worse yet they may notice connections that lead them back to spies. The natural extention of this is that unless we want to essentially forfeit what few human resources Clinton didn't scrap, we would have to hold any trials in secret. Secret trials handing out guilty verdicts would cause even more trouble then just holding them. Expecially lwhen the sentence is death. Another worry is that you hold a trial, the person is found innocent, and they proceed to go back to Al Queda and extoll the virtues of the American intelligence network.
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I hate to repeat myself. But as you apparently aren't actually reading answers to your questions.
 
innocent until proven guilty,

dude, you are not listening to yourself,

if you don't treat them like POW, than treat them like common murderers,

yet you don't treat them like common murders,

than what the heck are you going to do with them?

lock them and torture them like you are Stalin or Saddam?

tell me, in the Watergate case, why Americans are not afraid to seek truth despite the fact that they are revealing top secrets


if U.S tries to cover up some evil secrets of their own, (like peeing on Koran), they better have a fair trial now and stop those wrongful action
 
Because frankly, I put the lives of Americans above these terrorists right to a trial.

They'll get their trial, and sooner then you think. But to try them in a way which could cost the lives of innocent American is unexcusable.
 
i totally understand ur feeling and hatre of those coward terriosts who stab ppl in the back and hide their evil face behind black masks


however,

the reason i can tell the difference between U.S and some other totalitirian regimes is taht U.S gives ppl (no matter whom, even mass killers in U.S) the right to have a fair trial as a part of basic human rights.

it is really for U.S' benefit to live up to its own principle of giving human rights to ppl, otherwise, all over the world ppl will believe americans are just hypocratics and stop listen to americans, and consequently democratic movement will delay and human rights will not be spreaded.

not a picture waht i want to see (espcially in China, now chinese government can have an excuse of delaying democratic reform).
 
PershingOfLSU said:
Fragmentary munitions are perfectly legal. Infact, that's how most hand grenades work. Fragmentary only means that upon detonation the shell breaks apart spraying the area with pieces of metal.

Also, depleted uranium munitions are for use only on armored targets, I can't think of any logical reason for someone to fire an ADPU round at a person.
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US illegal ammo:
I was speaking about the CBU-87/B Combined Effects Munitions (CEM)
BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bomb (CEB) : http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/cbu-87.htm (Illegal)

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0330-02.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5335.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0709-07.htm
 
winners write the law of war remember..

losers have nothing to say but to listen and obey

and that is pretty much what is happening in today's world
 
Despite their obvious distaste for them, not even Human Rights Watch claims that cluster munitions are illegal. You'll have to read the full article but that isn't too much to ask:

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/cluster-bck1031.htm

Also, this qoute was taken from here off of your own link to Global Security:

"In late 2000 and early 2001, various news reports, mostly European, reported allegations of an increase in leukemia cases related to exposure to DU while serving in the Balkans. Subsequent independent investigations by the World Health Organization, European Commission, European Parliament, United Nations Environment Programme, United Kingdom Royal Society, and the Health Council of the Netherlands have all have discounted any association between depleted uranium and leukemia or other medical problems among Balkans veterans."

This site also has information on depleted Uranium towards the bottom: http://www.uic.com.au/nip53.htm

Lastly, before someone points it out. The Apache round in question is a duel purpose munition that is used against personnel. However having seen its effects, there isn't really enough left of the target for them to have to worry about heavy metal poisoning.
 
Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 18 October 1907

Art. 23. In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden
(a) To employ poison or poisoned weapons;
(b) To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;
(c) To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;
(d) To declare that no quarter will be given;
(e) To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;
(f) To make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges of the Geneva Convention;
(g) To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;
(h) To declare abolished, suspended, or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party. A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war.

Concerning cluster bombs: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2003/0530illegalbombs.htm

Respect weapons with DU: http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/du_uno.html

:shock:
 
The first link merely states that using a cluster munition against civilian targets is illegal. So is using a JDAM. By the very nature of the fact that it's a civilian target attacking it with anything is illegal.

Now, what you meant to say was that using a cluster munition may be illegal in certain cases. For example using it in a built up city were there is a reasonable reason to believe that it can harm civilians due to its large dispersal area. However that doesn't mean it's illegal to use it in an area where there is not a reason to believe that you're causing undue danger to civilians.

You're second link is from 1999. However as I already stated, a United Nations report in 2000-2001 found no association between use of depleted uranium rounds and medical problems among Balkans veterans. The group most likely to be exposed to depleted uranium. Frankly living above a granite deposit has been show to be at least as dangerous unless you actually breathe in the uranium.
 
I will give you a link of serious studies concerning DU, take you time and read it, there are tons of info. I would love if you could give me a link to see the UN study you are talking about. If after reading all this you still belive that DU is harmless....well, I wont have much more info to argue with, but I hope that you will read it carefully.

http://www.idust.net/
 
As I already said, breathing or consuming it is dangerous just like breathing or consuming lead. That's why the United States has ceased to use lead bullets for the military. But outside of depleted uranium shells, there isn't much else capable of piercing modern tanks. Tungsten, although heavy is too brittle to pierce armor as well as depleted uranium. Depleted uranium can be dangerous, however it isn't illegal.
 
PershingOfLSU said:
As I already said, breathing or consuming it is dangerous just like breathing or consuming lead. That's why the United States has ceased to use lead bullets for the military. But outside of depleted uranium shells, there isn't much else capable of piercing modern tanks. Tungsten, although heavy is too brittle to pierce armor as well as depleted uranium. Depleted uranium can be dangerous, however it isn't illegal.
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You've hit a nerve.

Would you like to be one of the soldiers who has to go in after these rounds have been expended to secure the ground? This is quite a cavalier attitude you have with complete disregard for the foot soldier who must breathe and is required to move in because air power does NOT win a war, someone has to be at ground zero to control the area. And if you don your gas mask your chances of fratricide increase to 40%. So the careless use of this ammunition flies in the face of taking care of your troops, legality be damned.
 
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