There is no magical USA constitutional fairy while on the Syrian battlefield. You wanted to fight for ISIS and now it time to pay the piper.
https://www.propublica.org/article/uighurs-sold-to-us-milita...
Wow…isn't that a bit of an extreme conclusion to jump to? How do you know they're trying to fight for ISIS?
Just because you were honorably discharged doesn't mean you're right. If you'd summarily executed prisoners, you'd have committed a war crime.
. . . or works in an ideal, happy-path case, at least. Exceptions like this one are far from uncommon. The military justice system in general is pretty far from that in a lot of cases. So are things like FISA courts etc. Whether we should be trying to move closer to that ideal (which, even when practiced perfectly, has its flaws) or not is anyone's guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush
Note that this relates to foreign citizen. The Constitution applying to US citizen in otherwise identical circumstances is even more obvious:
"U.S. citizens designated as enemy combatants by the Executive Branch have a right to challenge their detainment under the Due Process Clause. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld
And US soldiers should, even if there were any ambiguity, err on the side of caution. They are, after all, constantly reminding us how they're fighting for US citizens' freedoms.
They say that often enough to forget, even if only momentarily, that they're really fighting for the enrichment of the military-industrial complex.
Probably the kids who are just in for a few years haven't realized it, but anyone who sticks around longer has seen enough to know. The "your freedoms" people are lying to themselves more than they are to us.
Basically, stop being an asshole. That's a real person you just told has never done anything honorable in their life.
The Geneva Conventions do not apply to wars with non-state actors or states who are not participants to the treaty.
The Geneva Conventions would never apply to traitors on your own side, which is the case here.
Perhaps military people know more about the Geneva Conventions than you give them credit for.
They also cover treatment of civilians, medical units, and infrastructure. Amongst other things.
> The Geneva Conventions do not apply to wars with non-state actors or states who are not participants to the treaty
Yes, they do.
The protections are not as extensive, but the conventions also cover any armed conflict within the territory of a contracting party, such as the Syrian Arab Republic. They also cover occupation of a contracting party's territory, whether armed or not.
> The Geneva Conventions would never apply to traitors on your own side, which is the case here.
The conventions don't make any exception for traitors. They certainly don't allow Syria to take an ISIS fighter prisoner and avoid their convention responsibilities by handing him over to the US.
Once one side breaks it, I don't think treating them like they haven't is proper.
Yes, but the basis of the conventions is treaties between states. Only a state that was party to that treaty would have standing to claim that the treaty had been violated.
Since a traitor would be a citizen of the state who would theoretically be violating the treaty then no other state would have standing to assert a violation.
Isn't he an "unlawful enemy combatant" (does not wear an uniform and carry arms openly, so Geneva does not apply) and not a "traitor"?
OT. There's a famous Vietnam photo of a South Vietnamese executing a man in civilian clothes who is actually a North Vietnamese spy. IIRC that was completely legal.
The Geneva Conventions are a set of ethical standards that should apply to all persons, regardless of the legal application
>The Geneva Conventions do not apply to wars with non-state actors or states who are not participants to the treaty.
Any person that is of good moral and ethical character would apply them to all persons.
>The Geneva Conventions would never apply to traitors on your own side, which is the case here.
Has there been a trial convicting the person of Treason under US Law?
I guess no only to you not believe in basic human rights, you also subscribe to the moronic ideology of "guilty until proven innocent" where the government only has to assert treason, not actually prove it beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of your peers
>Perhaps military people know more about the Geneva Conventions than you give them credit for.
I am not really interested in the legal application of the Geneva Accords, I am interested in the moral and ethical foundation they are based on.
Ethical and moral people believe that the Geneva Accords should apply to all persons at all times regardless of declarations of war or any other factors.
This moronic idea that you should abuse, torture, or treat inhumanly a person simply because they are a "non-state" actor has no place in the modern world, it is an excuse to defend barbarism, barbarism we should be looking to expunge from the world not justify
That is a completely fine and reasonable position as an individual, but that cannot be the position of someone in the military.
If everyone in the military decided how to exercise lethal force on the basis of their own personal morality as opposed to what their civilian government has decided the law is that would be complete chaos.
Any blame here falls entirely on the civilian government which has decided, in accordance with all its laws, that the things you object to are legal and right.
The military is doing its duty under the law to obey the directives of civilian authority.
If you disagree with the law, then by all means object, but object to those who are responsible for making the law.
The alternative is that the military decides the law for itself, which would be a military dictatorship, and I don't think you would advocate for that.
Well I have to go Godwin on that... So you hold the soldiers that put then Jews in the oven blameless for their unethical and immoral actions because "they were just following orders"
That defense never worked in Nuremberg.
The idea that unethical actions should simply be dismissed because you were ordered by someone that claims higher authority to commit an unethical action is absurd to me.
>That is a completely fine and reasonable position as an individual, but that cannot be the position of someone in the military.
The comment we are all replying to is not "someone in the military" but someone that has been discharged from the military and is continuing to support this unethical position.
>the civilian government which has decided, in accordance with all its laws, that the things you object to are legal and right.
They may have decided they are legal, that is all.
Legal and ethical are very very different
>Any blame here falls entirely on the civilian government
Nope, I can blame everyone involved. "Just following orders" is not a valid defense IMO
In the Nuremberg trials only a handful of high political and military officials were charged and convicted.
The individual soldiers who actually carried out atrocities on their orders were never charged.
Many mid-level Nazi officials who were certainly complicit were not charged at all and went on to form the post-war government.
History is not as black-and-white or pleasant as you seem to believe it is.
> Nope, I can blame everyone involved.
In that case, also blame the tax payers, who are the ones who fund all of this.
So you are under the mythical belief that Taxation is voluntarily, when in reality taxation is involuntary theft if you refuse they will come and take it from you, if you resist their taking your property they will put you in a cage and if you resist them putting you in a cage they will kill you.
Taxation is in no way a voluntary act
>>The individual soldiers who actually carried out atrocities on their orders were never charged.
They should have been
I have no problem with summary executions of soldiers caught by the enemy - that is something that happens in war and trying to make rules about it after is just silly.
However given that he has been taken prisoners, we have to play by the book and give him a lawyer. It is not a big issue anyway it shouldn't be hard to prove him guilty.
Murder happens as well, is making rules and laws making murder illegal "just silly"
>I have no problem with summary executions of soldiers caught by the enemy
That is scary, Do you feel the same if an American Soldier was executed by the enemy?
Be better. Not just better at killing.
Like if you send a platoon to get into some taliban fighter’s home and execute him in front of his kids it’s a war crime, but if instead you just flatten the house with a bomb it’s not. Well in option 1 the kids get to live, I’d argue it’s preferable to option 2.
I don't see that this is theoretical. We watched this play out in practice for many years. Turns out that running around executing people really doesn't help. Or maybe we just didn't do it enough? We do seem to be well beyond the point of listening to reality nowadays; maybe we just need to shout ideology louder. Like ISIS.
Winning ultimately will be more about drying up their sources for new recruits so that a war of attrition has some effect.