Grim, I was simply calling attention to the seeming lack of any kind of a balanced opinion in your post. I don't pretend to know enough about Gitmo to make an informed comment on it, but as for the 'enemy combatant' thing, that seems pretty questionable to me, and you don't even pay it any attention.

It's nice to see that you can extrapolate from what little I said that I am diametrically opposed to every position you have. Good insight.

It's nice to see that you can extrapolate from what little I said that I am diametrically opposed to every position you have. Good insight.

Yes, we all know how a question like I asked is so unbalanced. Where did I say I thought you opposed my position I just asked what are acceptable methods of torture?

If you really want to chat about 'enemy combatants' be my guest, but you do know there is a difference between a war criminal and prisoner of war?

What opinion was unbalanced the DU rounds? Well I guess that could be an opinion based on fact or the Sodium Whatenthol, of course sleep deprivation is just plain awful. Speaking of that does anybody know where to look up what the Geneva guidelines say about torture at all?

Though when fighting against foreign soldiers to that foreign terrain what do you classify them as? I have yet to hear anybody living right now in the United States, right here on US Soil be called a 'enemy combatant', John Walker Lindh was on foreign soil attacking the US or its Afghan allies. Though before I go further into the subject I would rather hear first what are your thoughts on the subject.

PLINKO!

"Did the US ever actually approve the Geneva Conventions?" Yes, just not the additional Protocols. We signed and ratified the Geneva conventions so they have the same legal effect as federal statutes.

Reply #14 By: cactoblasta - 10/20/2004 6:53:06 PM Well, I would call his claim about depleted uranium bombs ignorant - that's why I said it showed ignorance. Depleted uranium bombs would be a ecological disaster. The US military couldn't justify that, despite their incredible PR machine

Actually it's not ignorant. It's stupid! There is no such weapon as a DU bomb! DU is used in cannon/mortar rounds as armor piercing!

Drmiler: "We signed the conventions but the second set was never ratified by the US. So it's non-binding! Do your homework before opening mouth and inserting foot."

Using weapons such as Agent Orange, The unprovoked invasion of Iraq and The abuse of prisoners ARE violations of the Geneva conventions and we DID sign them. The only part we didn't sign were the additional protocols which have no bearing on the use of indiscriminate weaponry, the treatment of POWs, or the act of engaging in aggressive war. So I suggest that before you berate others, you do a bit of homework yourself.

Champas Socialist : "One of the funniest things about writing articles like this one is watching the right wingers get their knickers in a twist over the silliest little things and completely missing the point of the article, as though their little nit picks somehow justifies what successive US Presidents have done."

I think you hit the nail right on the head.

Reply #20 By: T_Bone4Justice - 10/25/2004 8:19:19 PM Drmiler: "We signed the conventions but the second set was never ratified by the US. So it's non-binding! Do your homework before opening mouth and inserting foot." Using weapons such as Agent Orange, The unprovoked invasion of Iraq and The abuse of prisoners ARE violations of the Geneva conventions and we DID sign them. The only part we didn't sign were the additional protocols which have no bearing on the use of indiscriminate weaponry, the treatment of POWs, or the act of engaging in aggressive war. So I suggest that before you berate others, you do a bit of homework yourself.

Agent Orange? How far back did you have to dig for that one? Actually this is a defoliant. It was never intended nor was it used exclusively on human targets. Nor was it ever used as a primary weapon. You call it and unprovoked attack.... Wanna bet they get away with it? The abuse of prisoners has been *dealt* with by our military. So that also is a non issue as far a the conventions are concerned. The conventions would come into play if we stood back and nothing about the abuses.

"Political prisoners are not covered under the Geneva convention" Anyone caputured in the Iraq theatre is not a political prisoner, they are POWs. As such, the Geneva conventions apply. The administration itself declared this so I don't see how the characterization of Iraqi prisoners as "politcal prisoners" applies.

Reply #4 By: cactoblasta - 10/20/2004 10:02:41 AM I don't know if Agent Orange was used as just a defoliant. It was used on areas right next to civilian villages and used over water sources used by the locals. Sure it was designed to be a defoliant, but the mass use of it suggests that Bomber Command at least (who might be expected to know something about where it's used even if the government doesn't) wasn't particularly concerned about possible civilian loss of life or contamination.

Again it wasn't found out to be a carcinogen until much later. It was used close to villages so the VC couldn't hide there. Kind of hard to hide when ther's no foliage to hide under

Drmiler, "Agent Orange? How far back did you have to dig for that one?"

I didn't have to go far back at all since it was raised in this author's ACTUAL article! hahahahha! I only repeated it since that was the focus of the debate. (Which is ridiculous in and of itself since it misses the entire point of the article). While you can argue that Agent Orange wasn't a weapon per se, you can't argue that all the carpet bombings during Vietnam were not indiscriminate attacks. You can find all sorts of Geneva conventions violations in our past...we have no claim to sainthood. Secondly, the additional protocols, although, not ratified by the Senate are recognized by the U.S. as customary law and therefore binding upon the U.S. The whole point to Champas Socialist's article was to say that we should learn from our past mistakes and not repeat them. And he hit the nail right on the head when he wrote ""One of the funniest things about writing articles like this one is watching the right wingers get their knickers in a twist over the silliest little things and completely missing the point of the article, as though their little nit picks somehow justifies what successive US Presidents have done." You never argue the substantive main point of the argument. You just knit pick at the insignificant details.

Reply #25 By: T_Bone4Justice - 10/25/2004 8:57:52 PM Drmiler, "Agent Orange? How far back did you have to dig for that one?" I didn't have to go far back at all since it was raised in this author's ACTUAL article! hahahahha! I only repeated it since that was the focus of the debate. (Which is ridiculous in and of itself since it misses the entire point of the article). While you can argue that Agent Orange wasn't a weapon per se, you can't argue that all the carpet bombings during Vietnam were not indiscriminate attacks. You can find all sorts of Geneva conventions violations in our past...we have no claim to sainthood. Secondly, the additional protocols, although, not ratified by the Senate are recognized by the U.S. as customary law and therefore binding upon the U.S. The whole point to Champas Socialist's article was to say that we should learn from our past mistakes and not repeat them. And he hit the nail right on the head when he wrote ""One of the funniest things about writing articles like this one is watching the right wingers get their knickers in a twist over the silliest little things and completely missing the point of the article, as though their little nit picks somehow justifies what successive US Presidents have done." You never argue the substantive main point of the argument. You just knit pick at the insignificant details.

I don't pick nits. I take the articles as they come and either debate them or just read them. No the carpet bombings were not indiscriminate attacks. But just how were they to apply the agent to a large area by any means other than carpet bombing? Send guys in with backpacks to spray everything down? Sorry but no matter how you slice it, we were at war. And the bombings were square with the geneva conventions.

The whole point to Champas Socialist's article was to say that we should learn from our past mistakes and not repeat them.

Wrong answer. check the pertinent section of his post below.

Geneva conventions were not intended as guidelines. They are the combined wisdom of a generation who, unlike you, lived with war. You only ever have to observe from afar. Those wise men now roll in their graves.

Actually it's not ignorant. It's stupid! There is no such weapon as a DU bomb! DU is used in cannon/mortar rounds as armor piercing!

Personally I'd rather not call someone stupid until I have no choice. He/she might be a brilliant physicist or a talented poet or any of a myriad things. It is her/his ignorance of military technologies that I wanted to focus on. I think the US was testing depleted uranium as casings for missiles a while back - I don't know if they went ahead with it, but if so mixing that up with DU bombs is an easy mistake to make, even if it is ignorant.

Again it wasn't found out to be a carcinogen until much later. It was used close to villages so the VC couldn't hide there. Kind of hard to hide when ther's no foliage to hide under

I seriously doubt that US command was so ignorant as to consider a toxin to be safe. Any defoliant or pesticide is by its very nature designed to attack organic organisms. Certainly the effects on humans were largely unknown, but it doesn't take a chemical scientist to have doubts about the safety of using such weapons near civilian dwellings. That's largely the reason, after all, that chemical defoliants have almost never been used in forest and jungle clearance in the west. It may not have been malicious, but it was certainly not benevolent, even if it was deemed necessary.

>Wrong answer. check the pertinent section of his post below.

Well I was going to just sit back and watch you miss the point and continue to laugh at the fact that you are even more uninformed than I, until you told me what the pertinent point I was intending to make. I'm afraid drmiler that TBone understands me a lot better, even if the truth lies somewhere between the two of you.

>Nor was it ever used as a primary weapon. You call it and unprovoked attack.... Wanna bet they get away with it?

I never said the US doesn't get away with it. They have a military presence in almost every country that is part of the UN, so what do you expect? That doesn't justify it.

>The abuse of prisoners has been >*dealt* with by our military.

I'm glad of that but this does not make it a non-issue as you claim. You can't undo these things. It's like saying that the most violent city on Earth (wherever that is) is a good town because it has lots of jails. I am expressing concern at the fact that these things were done in the first place, and that it seems to be recurring pattern, which has caused major problems for a lot of people, not least those people who were the subjects of these US actions. Yeah sure other countries are bad too. Some are worse than the US. That doesn't change what many US Presidents, including the current one, have done.

And by the way, whoever it was that informed me that the President won't read this blog: thanks. I hadn't realised that George Dubya wasn't one of my readers. Guess I got carried away there. But the Vice-President reads me doesn't he? Please tell me he does. I'd be so crushed if he didn't.

Honestly, the whole issue of how to deal with the terrorists at Gitmo is quite a philisophical quandry for me. I'm originally from NY, and was at home, which is about 1 hr out of NYC, when the attacks occured. My gut says that we should shave thier balls off one cm of tissue at a time untill they give us enough info to capture or kill every last terrorist even remotely involved in Sept. 11 or in any terrorist acts. However, the higher functions of my brain also realize that this would be in effect coming down to thier level, and that would make us no better then them. What's the 'propper' way to interrogate them? I'm not sure.

As for the enemy combatants thing, I honestly think it is just a matter of time, espetially if Bush gets re-elected, that you will start seeing people who take out a few too many of the wrong books at the library (since they track that now, too) being labeled an enemy combatant. I see this administration doing everything it can to do end-runs around the Constitution at every chance it gets. You can't censor books, but you can put some on a 'watch list' of books not sanctioned as 'good' by the gov't. You can't hold an American citizen without charges and deny him access to council, but you can declare him an enemy combatant, and then none of the old rules apply. You can't stop women from having abortions, but you can claim that when a pregnant woman is killed it counts as a double-murder. Not Kosher.

Reply #28 By: Champas Socialist - 10/26/2004 2:23:36 AM >Wrong answer. check the pertinent section of his post below. Well I was going to just sit back and watch you miss the point and continue to laugh at the fact that you are even more uninformed than I, until you told me what the pertinent point I was intending to make. I'm afraid drmiler that TBone understands me a lot better, even if the truth lies somewhere between the two of you. It's like saying that the most violent city on Earth (wherever that is) is a good town because it has lots of jails. I am expressing concern at the fact that these things were done in the first place, and that it seems to be recurring pattern, which has caused major problems for a lot of people, not least those people who were the subjects of these US actions. Yeah sure other countries are bad too. Some are worse than the US. That doesn't change what many US Presidents, including the current one, have done. And by the way, whoever it was that informed me that the President won't read this blog: thanks. I hadn't realised that George Dubya wasn't one of my readers. Guess I got carried away there. But the Vice-President reads me doesn't he? Please tell me he does. I'd be so crushed if he didn't

Then you should maybe rephrase your original post.

BR>>Nor was it ever used as a primary weapon. No one not even the much vaunted UN classified Agent orange as a weapon til after Vietnam. You call it and unprovoked attack.... Wanna bet they get away with it? I never said the US doesn't get away with it. They have a military presence in almost every country that is part of the UN, so what do you expect? That doesn't justify it.

Did I say it was justified? No, i didn't.

>The abuse of prisoners has been >*dealt* with by our military. I'm glad of that but this does not make it a non-issue as you claim. You can't undo these things.

No it can't be undone, but you missed my point. Since it was taken care of and the people that perpitated the crime were brought to trial, as far as the Geneva Convention is concerned it's a non-issue.