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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

So either they're civilians that have been arrested for crimes or they're prisoners of war. You have to choose and then play by those rules. Inventing new terms ("enemy combatants") isn't going to convince anybody but the most gullible.

The term is "unlawful combatant" and has the meaning of someone on the battlefield out of uniform. In the case of spies, they can be summarily executed perfectly legally - i.e. without breaking the Geneva Convention (which doesn't even apply in this case - it requires both sides to be signatories, and the Taliban aren't).

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Certainly the Geneva Convention doesn't have legal force in this case, but I like to think that one can aspire to high standards of behaviour without the threat of legal sanction. In other words, do we obey Geneva Convention rules because we're forced to, or because it's right?

Well, I agree, we are supposed to be the "good guys".

But in response to "there are pretty strict guidelines on the treatment of prisoners of war" - those guidelines, by their own definition, carry no legal weight in this context. Since the Taliban fighters are not uniformed members of the Army of a Geneva Convention signatory, they aren't actually "prisoners of war" for a start...

I don't disagree with any of the above.

What gets my goat a bit is that you see attacks on Guantanamo for breaking the Geneva Convention (or even, as here, that it is as shocking as the Nazi mass murders!) -- and when it is pointed out that is a non-serious argument, there is never an answer.

I never could stomach propaganda written by people that know better. I like to think "the good guys" should be better than that, too.

Idealists lie, where pathos go in -- integrity go out.

> What gets my goat a bit is that you see attacks on Guantanamo for breaking the Geneva Convention (or even, as here, that it is as shocking as the Nazi mass murders!) -- and when it is pointed out that is a non-serious argument, there is never an answer.

Answering straw men was never a requirement. You made that link, it never was in what I wrote.

As I predicted, not an answer.

>>Answering straw men was never a requirement.

You involved Godwin, I didn't.

Also, as I've written twice and you haven't commented:

All democracies I know of that had terror problems (Germany, Italy, USA, Israel, Great Britain) at least walked a thin line on human rights for the terrorists.

It seems governments would be voted out in democracies if they didn't answer attacks on voters without using all measures.

There is a pattern here. My guess is that the reason is that terror problems are similar to civil wars, which are generally acknowledged to be dirtier than coal power plants.

No, you don't have to like it. I don't either, but I don't compare modern democracies to Nazis.

The only real solution I can see is to work towards more democracy in the world -- and hope the democratic peace theory isn't a fluke...

(Sorry for answering late. It was Friday evening and I try to fake having a life.)

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