Should the United States have the right to execute War on Terrorism POW's?

[Faeelin]

Do peple STILL believe it's about the evil ameica oppressing country x and helping country y?

Well, I'll clear it up for you.

1) Palestine was originally a BRITISH Mandate. Go complain to them. We can't change the facts that are there now, and carving up the Israeli territory extensively would only result in the destruction of sirael and the peple living there.


2) Do some research, people. Lots of these fringe schools of islam talk about GLOBAL dominatin. Not north american, not mideastern, global. Sheesh. you'd think the Europeans, of all people,w ould know the price of appeasement.

[Dr. Nick]

Well no point in argueing with somebody who believes terrorist are justified in killing civilians. Yet its not ok when we seek to bring them to justice?

Justice. The same justice all Americans are granted. Fair open trial "innocent until proven guilty" trial. In the end, America stands to lose a lot in the face of history if you do it closed and without releasing transcripts or anything as everyone will believe they are phoney. And all that for what? To appease a bloodlusted mob of people demanding executions. I don't know, but it reminds me to the Massachussets of the 1600s.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by faded glory
An army captian killed a few Vietnamese civilians on accident..We treated there prisoners with respect, Vietnamese did not return the favor..

Ya right. And who was the Senator who killed his Viet prisoners during a special ops back in the 60s? And lord knows the Americans never tortured their prisoners, or shot them, or kicked them out of helicopters. And any that did get killed, well, it was just an accident, so sorry, our mistake. Oops, we did it again. Sorry.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by El Awrence


And all that for what? To appease a bloodlusted mob of people demanding executions. I don't know, but it reminds me to the Massachussets of the 1600s.

I fully agree - this does remind me a lot of the Salem witchhunts - or McCarthyism.

The guy who masterminded the first WTC attack was tried in open court - that seemed to work okay. What's the difference here?

[Tingkai]

While I agree, in principle, with those advocating trial in open court, I don't think it will make much difference for the terrorist suspects.

No American jury is going to give these suspects a fair trial. The jury will look at the suspect and see an Arab, who doesn't speak English, who believes in a different religion and who dresses differently. All of that will equal guilty in their minds. The suspect will have to prove they are not a terrorist and that is an impossible task. (you can't prove a negative).

[The ANZAC]

Ie; 'you' are no better than 'them'. Convictions without and beforehand a fair trial is just what 'they' did when they flew a couple of planes into centers of economic and military power.

Well, they are getting an attorney, a "jury," and to know what they did. And it won't be pig farmers in Afghanistan who are going to be tried: only the high-command, light Nuremburg.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Tingkai
While I agree, in principle, with those advocating trial in open court, I don't think it will make much difference for the terrorist suspects.

No American jury is going to give these suspects a fair trial. The jury will look at the suspect and see an Arab, who doesn't speak English, who believes in a different religion and who dresses differently. All of that will equal guilty in their minds. The suspect will have to prove they are not a terrorist and that is an impossible task. (you can't prove a negative).

Another very good point - which suggests the International Court of Justice in the Hague would be a better option for the trials. It would have a lot more international credibility.

[DinoDoc]

I'll break this up for you, Horsie.

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Another very good point - which suggests the International Court of Justice in the Hague would be a better option for the trials. It would have a lot more international credibility.

1) The ICJ doesn't have jurisdiction in this matter. If thier absolutely must be an international tribunal it would have to be established by the UN Security Council.

2) You've yet to deal with the objection I raised earlier about the realistic ability of an international court to deal with the shear number of possible defendents.

3) How do you propose the US deal with the problem of sharing intelligence intercepts with non-American personel in an international court in the midst of an ongoing conflict?

4) Why doesn't a Nation-State's right to self-defense carry with it the expectation that it will be able to try the war crimes that come out of attacks upon its territory and citizens?

[DanS]

Tingkai is full of sh*t and it's not at all "a good point"--it's false wisdom. They would take their charges seriously as they have in the past in terrorism trials. Y'all act as if we haven't done this before. We've even had trials regarding the first World Trade Center terrorism act.

The only thing the Geneva conventions state regarding this is that you can't have different punishment for acts committed by detainees than the general populace. So the US is in the clear on this. If we execute Timothy McVeigh for terrorism, we can execute OBL for terrorism.

Chris: it doesn't matter whether the enemy is a signator or not. You are bound by the conventions if you are a signator.

[Alexander's Horse]

No he does make a good point - its very hard to get a jury for any highly publicised crime.

[DinoDoc]

Assuming that this was going to a civilian court...

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
No he does make a good point - its very hard to get a jury for any highly publicised crime.

We got one for in the McVeigh case, the first WTC attack, etc. after all so why couldn't we get one in this case?

[DanS]

AH: he accused Americans of being racist, anti-muslim, and anti-Arab. He has no idea what he's talking about, especially with regard to how it would play out in a jury.

[KrazyHorse]

So its ok to blow 4,700 people up in buildings

Revised down to ~2800 as of last estimate.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Captured war crimminals get the worst of all legal worlds. The captor can apply to full rigor of any of the applicalbe legal regimes: war crime; international crimes such as piracy; POW, civilian crime; UCMJ, without being obligated to choose among them. You can imprison then as a pow idefinately without charge until a repatriation agrrement is is established or the conflict is entirely over. You can question them about anything militarily relevant without aloowing them an attorney. You can try them before any court which has jurisdiction, civilian, military, international tribubunal, using whichever one gives the prosecution the most advatage. All the legal chooses belong to the captor. A POW has no greater defenses or immunities to crimminal prosecution than any other prisoner, and has several disavatages to boot, such being imprisoned indefinately, having all communications monitored, not being entitled to consular visit while a POW, and not attorney to support while being questioned (giving his name, rank, and serial number until blue in the face)
You can do to them anything you can do to any other crimmianl suspect/defendant, and a great deal more. Thats the law whether you like it or not.

[Alexander's Horse]

It also seems you can get your local allies to torture them for information and then pretend you have clean hands