"Taxi To The Dark Side"

[Mr. Shaman]

Yeah....right.....We don't support torture.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/torture-in-amer.html

 

[BigRob]

Yeah....right.....We don't support torture.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/torture-in-amer.html

This all assumes that at the time we legally believed that the Geneva Conventions covered the people who were captured.

Protocol III of the Geneva Convention is what would cover these groups, but the United States never signed that part and objected to it, thus making the US not bound by it.

Of course you can hold people to a standard of legality that did not exist at the time if you would like, but it makes no difference in actual reality.

This is not to excuse a few instances where we did cross the line, but those instances have been dealt with already, and the soldiers who did it prosecuted.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

This all assumes that at the time we legally believed that the Geneva Conventions covered the people who were captured.

Protocol III of the Geneva Convention is what would cover these groups, but the United States never signed that part and objected to it, thus making the US not bound by it.

Of course you can hold people to a standard of legality that did not exist at the time if you would like, but it makes no difference in actual reality.

This is not to excuse a few instances where we did cross the line, but those instances have been dealt with already, and the soldiers who did it prosecuted.

I guess we're gonna find-out how few-instances there were....along with all of the other talking-point justifications for torture.

 

[BigRob]

I guess we're gonna find-out how few-instances there were....along with all of the other talking-point justifications for torture.

I think a pretty big "talking point" is the fact that we are not a party to the protocol of the treaty that would give these people POW protections.

I think legally this is a hard argument to get around, especially at the time it was going on.

You can argue back and forth about the morality of it, but morality does not really translate into rule of law, until a new law is passed.

 

[Mr. Carpenter]

Of course you can hold people to a standard of legality that did not exist at the time if you would like, but it makes no difference in actual reality.

They can try to, if they want to look really silly, but that falls under Ex Post Facto. You cannot prosecute someone for doing something that is now illegal, if it was legal when they did it.

You're also absolutely correct that GCIII doesn't apply to any of the tango's, they weren't in uniform, they don't have a chain of command, or any of the other requirements. They chose to be "unlawful combatants", now they can deal with the consequences.