Blademaster

What is torture? Can you define it? Torture can be a grey area, meaning it is like a candy store for lawyers.

Ray

Thanks Colonel.

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"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Trooth

With regards to treatment of prisoners? Nothing. I am under no doubt that the torturing of Iraqi prisoners is condemned by the US military as a policy, and i also have no doubt that it is a minority that wish to indluge in such things.

My response was that I do not wish lawyers to be the basis for deciding how we should behave in this war of liberation. We have our principles and we should stick to them. I was disappointed with "unlawful combatants" for example.

Officer of Engineers

I don't know what the current usage of "unlawful combatants" is but under the GC, these are terrorists not party to the conflict using terrorist tactics, not the laws and customs of war. If you're not an Iraqi and you're beheading civies, you're a goddamned unlawful combattant.

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Chimo

Trooth

It was used by Mr Rumsfeld a lot when referring to the captives in Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-ray.

Officer of Engineers

Remember the original intent of C-X, it was the war against OBL and they are as unlawful combattants as they come.

Trooth

I read the usage as being a blank cheque for the captors to dow ith the prisoners as they will. Given that increasing numbers are being released without charge after years in detention I am concerned that it was a legal loophole.

ChrisF202

Does the GS's Art. 13 apply to uniformed law enforcement officers? Such as the Iraqi police who tried to drive their patrol cars into US tanks as we stormed into Baghdad.

Officer of Engineers

A non-point. We're in a war and we do not lay charges against people shooting at us. All they have to do is to act against us and that is enough. The people in there were in active combat or at there very least active support (I don't care if they were just hauling water) for the enemy. The best they could have hoped for was a declaration under the GC to which the best they can hope for was eventual release when the War on Terror is over. The War on Terror is far from over. If they were declared lawful combattants, then the US is under obligation to still keep them behind bars.

Also, nothing that has happenned to them is in any violation of the American Uniform Code of Military Justice which supercedes the GC as far as the USArmy is concerned.

Your 22SAS and my JTF II caught quite a few of these people. I am not about to discuss the ROE concerning the treatment of hostile prisoners, surfice to say the legal basis to which they operate does not violate the QR&O of both your country and mine.

Officer of Engineers

As long as they don't run over babies while doing it, then they are considered lawful combattants under the GC.

Trooth

OofE. I understand what you are saying. Perhaps it is just my mistrust of Rumsfeld and if other people had been dealing with Guantanamo i wouldn't feel uneasy about the words used.

However, at some point those combatants have to be dealt with. They are, if not in name, in parallel, to PoW camps. How long would we expect to keep them in such camps? The war on terror will not end for decades. So are we proposing to hold them for decades without charge, even after (hopefully) Afghanistan and Iraq can gain some sort of stability?

I have no issue with them being detained, it just strikes me that when they are released it isn't clear why they were detained.

Officer of Engineers

I am trying to ease some of those feelings for you. Neither your soldiers nor mine answer to the USA in general and Rumsfeld specifically. We will not bring dishonour to the Crown by allowing anyone else, even an American, to tramble our principals. Your very own LCol Collins said the same thing. I have said the same thing. At least feel easier that when we did send people to Guantanamo, we have not violate the Queen's Rules and our honour.

If we follow form, we would've transfer them back to their respective gov'ts to do as they see fit.

Having a Want-To-Know does not entitle you to have a Need-To-Know. In general terms, there are things the interrogators want to know. The subjectees did not have that knowlege and thus were released. Revealling what the interrogators suspected the subjectees knew would alert the enemy just how close or how far we are away from them.

Praxus

Worrying about dishonoring the queen is one of the most archaic things I have ever heard from you.

Officer of Engineers

For your Service Members, it's your Flag. For us, it's our Queen, more the actual symbol than the person.

Trooth

His actual quote was regarding the crown. Which isn't the same thing as the Queen.