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Military...
...ops are covered by the Geneva Conventions. But then you'll tell me that they don't cover terrorists. So, as Bush has renamed the Gittmo folk as enemy combatants, thinking that by NOT calling them POWs he can wriggle around the law, you think that by calling them terrorists (an unproven assertion, as I pointed out) that the geneva Conventions become null and void.
But this is a game of semantics, with no basis in the real world.
The invasion was illegal because no state has the right to invade another state unless there is a clear threat, and it's a move of self-defence. Iraq was never a threat to the US.
Furthermore, the weapons inspectors themselves were pleading for more time, this time last year, as they were getting more co-operation. Plus the then-current inspector, Hans Blix, and the previous inspector, Scott Ritter, were both saying loud and clear that Saddam HAD disarmed. Which, of course, now turns out to be the case.
The entire premise of the invasion was flawed, and the invasion itself was illegal, as is holding people in detention without charge or trial. The US is becoming more and more a rogue state, and millions of people are desperate to see a regime change there.
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on February 3, 2005 at 2:37 AM
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Thanks for the comments, damon, but you missed a key point. This is a military operation, not a criminal prosectution. There is a huge difference in how they are handled, which is what I was trying to bring out.
Thanks also for reminding me of a point I forgot to include, the problem of trying to deal with international terrorism from a criminal justice standpoint. I shall edit the post accordingly.
Thanks aside, please explain how enforcing UN sanctions is illegal. Or were the sanctions for Sadaam to disarm and comply with weapons inspectors themselves illegal?
posted by
WriterofLight
on February 2, 2005 at 7:46 PM
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This is Very...
...eloquently argued. Unfortunately, you're scurrying off down a Constitution / legalese rabbit-hole and not stepping back and looking at the real issue at hand.
And the issue at hand is - Is it right to keep people locked up for over two years without access to lawyers, without access to families, without being charged and without being tried?
And the answer is as plain as an orange jumpsuit - of course it isn't!
You argue that these people are out to destroy Americans and the American way of life. How do you know if they've never been charged with a crime, let alone tried, let alone convicted? You are making that assumption based purely on the fact they've been picked up and dumped in Gittmo - hardly a safe basis for a guilty verdict!
Twelve guys were shipped back to the UK from Gittmo recently under heavy guard. Yesterday, one was released without any restrictions on his movements or activities. Authorities here could find insufficient evidence to keep him locked up.
Hear that? Insufficient evidence. Every legal system in the free world works on the basis of suspicion -> charge -> gathering of evidence -> presenting that evidence in a VALID court of law -> a verdict. If the verdict is guilty, then incarceration is the result.
The problem with Dubya is that he's made a huge leap at Gittmo from suspicion to incarceration, missing out all those inconvenient, time-consuming bits in the middle.
And the problem with that is, like the ilegal invasion of Iraq, it sets a dangerous precedent. If you think that's all OK, then that's fine. Just be warned that, at some stage, a country is going to launch an unprovoked, pre-emptive invasion on another and, in justification, it will cite America's appalling behaviour towards Iraq as an example. Similarly, at some stage, Americans will be imprisoned by a foreign government, indefinitely and without charge, and when America whinges about due process of law and fairness and so on, that government will respond with one word and one word only - Guantanamo.
A super-power means power with responsibility. It does NOT mean trying to operate outside of international law.
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on February 2, 2005 at 5:11 AM
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