The U.N. is Bankrupt? Maybe, maybe not, but so what. The fact remains that GITMO is a disgrace to all that America stands for. What would Jesus do? Not this, you hypocrite. The only reason you don't care is because they are Muslim Arabs and you are a bigot. Deny it all you want, but when you look in the mirror you know what you see. If not, you are rather sad. Go pray for yourself.

That would have been a more effective counter-argument if you had gotten even one thing right about me. I am certainly not a hypocrite, nor am I a Christian, and I don't think I'm a bigot, either.

The only disgrace to America 'round here is you. Because assuming you're an American, you have taken the side of the enemy instead of the side of your own country. I've written here before that you can always count on some small percentage of people to betray their family, friends or country at the first opportunity. That's you, pal. And you're so delightfully shameless about it, too.

I've created a website for UN staffers past and present to share their experiences about working inside the UN. Some of the posts are truly eye-popping. Check it out and grateful if you let others know about it.

I swear you've put more nails in the UN's coffiin than the wood can find a home for. Yet it's still going. Does that mean the UN is of the Undead?

One thing that never ceases to surprise me is the immediate-term thinking of lefties. I suppose it's par for the course given the overly-simple worldview so many of you subscribe to. The United Nations is about 60 years old. At some point it will cease to exist as an organization, but that point may be decades or even centuries away.

The League of Nations, as an example, was still in existence at the time the United Nations was founded, even though it had lost nearly all relevance more than a decade previous. It was dissolved in 1946. Institutions often take on a life of their and continue to exist after the need is gone.

I expect the UN will go through a similar decline - it is structured to prevent large, global wars of the type that are unlikely. Ideally some other body will form as a kind of UN analog SOLELY for transparent, liberal states - I'll call it "FUN". Member states of the FUN will simply cease using the UN as a forum, and eventually will cease sending delegations.

The point is that a UN that includes authoritarian states (such as Iran or Cuba) as the equal members alongside free nations is a fundamentally conflicted institution. The president of Iran is out there calling for Israel to be wiped off the map and his government, as one example, sometimes executes teenaged rape victims as adulterers - yet there is no resolution before the body calling for Iran to be expelled from the UN. It would never pass.

How can a body that includes a "turpitocracy" like Iran then lecture any free country, including the U.S. but also Britain or France or Japan, on ANY MORAL ISSUE, when those free states never, ever approach such a an appalling state of behavior?

When the UN allowed Syria or Libya to chair the Human Rights Committee, it telegraphed its fundamental unseriousness. So it may be some time before it dies, but the UN will decline into irrelevance over the next 10 or 15 years. Bush is not the president to kill the UN, but the next Republican president might be. Any U.S. president can kill it - he just has to declare it illegitimate and terminate the U.S. delegation.

The Rapporteurs declined to visit because they were told in advance they would be denied visiting prisoners.

How can we hold totaliatarian regimes responsible on moral grounds when an analysis of our own internal reports indicates that over half the Gitmo detainees, after four years, still haven't provided any credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing?

Jesus, sterling, was that rant a response to my flippant comment? I was just poking fun at your turn of phrase.

The Rapporteurs declined to visit because they were told in advance they would be denied visiting prisoners.

They were told in advance that they would be denied interviews with prisoners. They could visit all they like.

How can we hold totaliatarian regimes responsible on moral grounds when an analysis of our own internal reports indicates that over half the Gitmo detainees, after four years, still haven't provided any credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing?

We're not holding them as criminals, and they're not U.S. citizens. The main problem with authoritarian regimes is that they treat their OWN citizens like crap. I assume one of the reasons we're still holding some of those men at Gitmo is that we have nowhere to send them - they are stateless or effectively stateless (meaning they'd be killed if they were sent home.) But I'm sure most of them are guilty or they wouldn't be there.

Jesus, sterling, was that rant a response to my flippant comment? I was just poking fun at your turn of phrase.

No.

Demanding that the prisoners at Guantanamo be given criminal trials as condition for their continued imprisonment is tantamount (that word, again) to demanding their unconditional release. Here's why:

The taking of prisoners by the military during wartime is not an exercise in establishing guilt. No one takes sworn depositions or gathers forensic evidence on a battlefield to "prove" that a combatant (legal or otherwise) actually participated. A military unit's after action report is unlikely to record much detail besides the number of prisoners acquired during an action, with no mention of who captured them. Even a captured combatant's name might not be recorded at all until sometime long after he has been removed from the field. The primary military purpose of sequestering prisoners is to ensure that they can no longer be combatants, not to establish guilt or innocence. Besides, one should note that simply killing American soldiers in combat is not necessarily illegal.

Given the enemy's practice of denying any wrongdoing more serious than having harsh thoughts and their practice of claiming torture at the drop of a Koran, it is unsurprising that there are calls to close Gitmo. It is correct to hold military tribunals to try to determine if specific prisoners were illegal combatants. But demands that every prisoner be given a criminal trial is simply impractical. There is, quite literally, no unbroken chain of evidence on any of them, for the very good reason that their capture was a military procedure, rather than law enforcement. The US military is far better prepared to determine the guilt or innocence of its own members than that of the enemy.

By criminal standards now being demanded, we would have been unable to prove the "guilt" of a like number of WWII Waffen SS, provided they all had removed their uniforms and claimed innocence two years later.

"I'm sure most of them are guilty or they wouldn't be there. . ."

Is an interesting turn of phrase that reveals a touching faith in the ability of a government to distinguish guilt and innocence on the spot. Even better than that, a touching faith in the ability of the common US soldier untrained in law enforcement and unable to speak a word of the local lingo to do a better job than your police in the US, many of whom speak the same language as the local evil-doers, in dispensing justice. Why not bring the same people back to the US to sort out your remaining crime problems? Your faith in government is Soviet-like.

Or perhaps it is OK because: "We're not holding them as criminals, and they're not U.S. citizens"

Well, there is a thing: it is fine to do whatever you like to non-US citizens, qua non-US citizens, who do not deserve the same basic human rights as the Übermenschen populating your country. This means you reserve the right to kidnap me, Stefan, Felix, most of my family and friends and hold them indefinitely without access to a lawyer or a consular official, were the military of your country to so deem it a Good Thing. Now I think doing that would be an act of war, piracy or some other international crime. I think this is the major problem most non-Americans have with Gitmo, and incidentally why I so strongly dislike entering your country.

Note also the other suspicion that the only white man and US citizen to be captured on the battlefield -- who even admited to being a Taliban and taking pot-shots at Americans, didn't gget Gitmo-ized at all but sent back to sunny California to stand trial, and being a nice middle-class boy will no doubt serve only half of whatever sentence he was given.

I think it is coz they is black.

Certainly, making an unguarded statement such as "I'm sure most of them are guilty or they wouldn't be there," is the debate equivalent of pitching a softball at Albert Pujols. However true it might be, it was sure to be smacked over the fence.

But back to the issue itself. EUROF wrote: "This means you reserve the right to kidnap me, Stefan, Felix, most of my family and friends and hold them indefinitely without access to a lawyer or a consular official, were the military of your country to so deem it a Good Thing. Now I think doing that would be an act of war, piracy or some other international crime."

In fact, these detentions are acts of war, a war in which we are still engaged. That EUROF apparently only unintentionally made the connection is illustrative of the difficulties inherent in fighting that war.

Let me say it more clearly, then: I'm not interested in their guilt or innocence for purposes of indefinite detention. They are rightless persons, taken as prisoners for waging illegal war against the United States.

The very fact that the enemy conceals itself among the populace means that U.S. forces will make some errors in who they capture or kill. That's not our fault - it's the fault of AQ and its affiliates. The Gitmo prison camp is a legitimate action of a belligerent in wartime.

At some point their cases will all be adjudicated under U.S. military law. The U.S. is under no obligation to expedite that process, though I wish it would happen sooner rather than later. My hope is that the actual terrorists will be hanged, and my expectation is that most of those detained were illegal combatants at the time of their capture.

Oh, I missed Eurof's remarks.

Note also the other suspicion that the only white man and US citizen to be captured on the battlefield -- who even admited to being a Taliban and taking pot-shots at Americans, didn't gget Gitmo-ized at all but sent back to sunny California to stand trial, and being a nice middle-class boy will no doubt serve only half of whatever sentence he was given.

He was sentenced to 20 years. I doubt very much that he'll be getting out early.

This means you reserve the right to kidnap me, Stefan, Felix, most of my family and friends and hold them indefinitely without access to a lawyer or a consular official, were the military of your country to so deem it a Good Thing. Now I think doing that would be an act of war, piracy or some other international crime.

As Trashhauler already noted, Eurof is correct that they are acts of war, which is what countries do in wartime. If the U.S. went to war with Belgium and Stefan was detained by U.S. forces anywhere in the world, he could (based solely on the judgement of U.S. military officers) be held indefinitely, with his rights protected only by U.S. treaty obligations or POW handling agreements (the Geneva Conventions, etc.) with Belgium or to which Belgium was also a signatory.

That's all contingent on U.S. military officials not believing that Stefan was an illegal combatant. If Stefan was caught behind enemy lines without good reason and wearing civilian clothing, he could be executed summarily, without court proceedings, or be held indefinitely without rights protected by treaty obligations. (Though perhaps subject to prisoner handling agreements with Belgium.) His existence would rest entirely on the judgement of U.S. military officers.

The men in Gitmo were detained by the United States military while they were waging illegal war against the United States. Al Qaeda's campaign is an illegal war intent upon massacring U.S. civilians and causing mayhem in the U.S. homeland, and we can do with AQ members what we please, when it pleases us. They are not the concern of the United Nations or the European Union or any other state actor or legitimate NGO.

So butt out.

Which is why you would be much better off not calling it a war, and instead dealing with it in ways that would be more effective. Other countries have been attacked by Al Quaeda, and have not reacted quite so oddly. Calling it a war but only half-fighting it like one -- and sort of incompetently, too -- creates problems like this which defeat what should be the goal, the ending of any threat from Al Quada and Islamic terrorism.

It sounds good, certainly, plays well in the heartland, gives republicans a new international issue to rally around (like they had so successfully in the cold war), but in terms of achieving a practical goal is not particluarly helpful.

You are not paying attention Sterling, they are the legitimate concern of the UK and the EU insofar as any of then are UK or EU citizens.

Also, in a global action against terrorism it is not totally clear exactly where "behind enemy lines" as you so quaintly put it, actually is. For instance, I would hardly place Gambia in the backwoods of Taliban-dominated Afghanistan, yet that is where 3 UK citizens currently at Gitmo were picked up. A UK court has ordered the government to demand their release. This is their version of events according to a UK daily:

"Mr al-Banna was accused to have been in possession of "a homemade electronic device" at the time of his arrest. The device, the court was told, was in fact a battery charger bought from Argos and cleared by the British authorities before he went to Gambia.

Mr Deghayes was detained in Pakistan after his name was said to be on the FBI's "most wanted" list. But the photograph in his file was of a "totally different individual", said Mr Singh. Mr Deghayes had been rendered virtually blind in one eye by the use of pepper spray and the gouging of his eye during his detention, yet was still being constantly subjected to high light levels."

It might be that a lot of this is lies, but then without a trial we don't know, do we? I certainly do not share your touching faith in the infallibility of your intelligence agencies, who are the same ones who wanted to blow up Fidel Castro with a cartoon exploding cigar and thought Cuba would fall if his beard fell out.

I would also add that Stefan is going to be travelling in Africa at sometime in the near future, and is known to cart around electronic goods. Please be so kind as to publish a list of countries it is permitted to visit, and of electronic goods it is permitted to carry around without being at risk of life without trial in Gitmo.

This is why it is everyone's concern. Similarly, however, apartheid in Sarf Effrika was not strictly speaking the concern of the US, the UK, what was then the EC and in fact anyone else. Didn't stop everyone butting in.

And isn't that argument, viz "butt out of our internal concerns" the same argument that Soviet Russia used when Ronnie was accusing them of being an evil empire? And Communist China today? And Sarf Effrika in the 1980s? You have joined a very exclusive club, congratulations. . .

You are not paying attention Sterling, they are the legitimate concern of the UK and the EU insofar as any of then are UK or EU citizens.

We've already done a courtesy and released the UK nationals. But that's all it is - courtesy.

Also, in a global action against terrorism it is not totally clear exactly where "behind enemy lines" as you so quaintly put it, actually is.

First off, "behind enemy lines" is only one way to differentiate legal from illegal enemy combatants according to the Geneva Conventions, which I encourage you all to read. The U.S. is bound by the Geneva Conventions and has acted in full accordance with them. Essentially, any Al Qaeda member out of uniform while on duty in any part of the world where he might take part in planning or execution of belligerent activities against the United States, is a de jure illegal combatant. The United States is free to detain or kill him, when that is consistent with treaty obligations or other agreements with the local government.

It might be that a lot of this is lies,

Ya think?

but then without a trial we don't know, do we?

I'm sure they will eventually be tried or released without trial. But the time of those actions is for the president to decide, not you and not the UN.

And isn't that argument, viz "butt out of our internal concerns" the same argument that Soviet Russia used when Ronnie was accusing them of being an evil empire? And Communist China today? And Sarf Effrika in the 1980s? You have joined a very exclusive club, congratulations. . .

You left out the United Kingdom regarding Northern Ireland, Spain regarding the Basques, etc. I doubt there's a state out there that hasn't brushed off foreign criticism of something it considers to be an internal matter. I put the UN criticism of Gitmo in the same category of the Mayor of Paris giving Wesley Cook (sometimes known as Mumia Abu-Jamal) honorary Parisian citizenship - nonsense.

The fact is that keeping these guys locked up, on balance, makes the world a better place. I doubt you'll contest that, which means your whole argument is about process. And as I've demonstrated here, the U.S. is following its own established military justice process - to which our own military personnel are likewise subject - in accordance with treaty obligations.

Of course, it's entirely possible a murderer like Mumia belongs in Paris.

NO IT DOES NOT make it a better place you benighted nincompoop. The cavalier way you use the word "process" means you have only the sketchiest idea what the rule of law actually means. It makes the world a scarier place, where not only do we have to contend with the very rare jihadi trying to blow himself up in the bus, we have to worry about the more likely probability of being locked up by over-eager and over-dense Septics if we look funny at them.

And I do not think the Spanish and the british ever got the same type of criticism, and responded in the same type of way as you do over Gitmo. We in the UK for instance never thought ourselves at war, everyone locked up under the most stringest anti-terrorism laws had to get a hearing after 72 hours, rights of counsel and eventually a trial by jury. Laws were passed. Habeus corpus prevailed.

The common point about detention at Gitmo, the gulags, and Chinese political prisoners is the arbitrariness of it. Actually it is unfair on apartheid sarf effrika to compare them to you -- at least Nelson Mandela received a public trial. Even the Commies "passed" figleaves of "laws" to permit them to lock people up. This administration hasn't bothered at all.

Re-reading your comment I confess I find every single line either tendentiously ignorant or demonstrably factually wrong, and all of it an embarrassing indictment of your education:

"We've already done a courtesy and released the UK nationals. But that's all it is - courtesy." -- no you haven't, at least 3 remain, and are subject to an order from a high court judge in the UK instructing the government to work to free them. And I have yet to see a worse use of the word "courtesy". Either you have released dangerous terrorists bent on destroying america out of mere politeness -- in which case you should us ethe phrase "fabulously stupid" -- or you have released innocent people who shouldn't have been locked up in the first place, which is not a "courtesy" at all, but the mending of a wrong which was fabulously rude in the first place.

" any Al Qaeda member out of uniform while on duty in any part of the world where he might take part in planning or execution of belligerent activities against the United States. . ." this made me laugh. Presumably Al Quaeda terrorists and general hangers on carry some sort of jihadist identity card to make it easy to arrest the right ones. "On duty" makes it sound like you think they have set working hours. Maybe union rules? "Abdul, I cannot destroy the infidel at 11, I am having my coffee break, praise Allah. If you try and make me the Fellaheen will walk out." You imply you would not arrest them while they are OFF duty. Also, please tell me what an Al Qaeda member looks like IN uniform. I imagine it is an attractive jihadi green. Idiot.

". . . is a de jure illegal combatant." Gaah. He is a de FACTO "illegal combatant". What is the "jure" that defines "illegal combatant"? There is none; it got made up by John Woo or whoever that looney lawyer is at the US Attorney's office. It is a status with no force of law, and no law has been passed in the US that defines it.

"The United States is free to detain or kill him. . ." hmm slight difference there ". . . when that is consistent with treaty obligations or other agreements with the local government." Wow, very impressive. You sound like a real lawyer, don't you? Unfortunately you are just making funny noises. CIA agents who kidnapped a muslim cleric in Italy, now in Gitmo, have a warrant out for their arrest which would argue that "agreements with the local government" were not well defined. What particular "local government" prevailed at the time the Taliban were captured and Gitmo-ised? Do you know whether Gambian authorities acquiesced in the kidnapping of the 3 UK citzens mentioned above? What particular treaties permit the taking of one's citizens by a foreign power and spririting them off to a legal netherworld?

"Ya think?" -- I have at this point more trust in the word of people who have not yet lied to me than I have the US government, which has. And if the trustworthy, well-intentioned part of it contains anybody at all like you, I have even less.

Oh dear, look how much you made me write.

My point in including the bit about "on duty" and "in uniform" was simply to point out that Al Qaeda don't use either concept. The Geneva Conventions specifically attach the idea of uniform to a combatant's legal activities. No uniform, no protection. You betray your ignorance by failing to understand that.

You don't think there's any legal standing for the term "illegal enemy combatant?" There is. It is implicit in the Geneva Conventions and it has U.S. military justice precedent going back more than 60 years.

The basic problem is that when a state wages war against a non-state actor which will cease to exist if the war is successful, there is no party to offer surrender. So each individual member of the non-state actor forces must be considered a lifetime threat, and be dealt with in a fashion to neutralize that threat. Generally that means killing them.

What's most tedious about Europe is your moralistic presumption. You are wrong. The moral thing to do is to kill them. The United States seeks to kill or otherwise neutralize every single member of Al Qaeda. That is the moral thing to do.

Sterling, you say that "the moral thing to do" is "to kill or otherwise neutralise" all those who, like those in Gitmo, have come under suspicion of being "illegal combatants" "out of uniform" (which doesn't exist) "behind enemy lines" (which don't exist).

I doubt W or any neocon or any sane US citizen will thank you for this, it is such a travesty.

The point about Gitmo and torture and all the rest of it is NOT that it is all fine and dandy. The point is that AQ fighters should credibly believe that they will be tortured and imprisoned for ever, whilst the US government should credibly claim that they'd NEVER torture and that Gitmo is an anomaly but is the best they can come up with.

As to the UN - a multinational talking shop of some sort still seems a good idea. Having one with just democratic states, as you suggest, defeats one objective, which is to bind non-democratic states into the processes and habits of civilised democracies. Whoops - I don't even need to spell out the obvious pay-off vàv current US demeanour here, do I?

Sterling's time of the month again. blood will get blood...

The UN is ineffective, it only barely made a difference in Bosnia and has done nothing to halt atrocities around the world since then.

That said, Gitmo is disgrace to the US. A pR nightmare that has not proven effective AT ALL in the "war" or whatever it is we're doing.

The bottom line is that most Americans are, like me, not terribly troubled by what's going on at Gitmo.

The only people to whom it's a "PR disaster" are the people whose opinions don't really count, i.e. Europe, and who are always looking for reasons to badmouth us, anyway.

Well if everyone else's opinion doesn't count why did you bother to write about it in the first place? I think you are right, though, most Merkins couldn't give a fuck about it.

Those whose opinions "count", would presumably be the Rovian "Base". And good christians that they are, they remain untroubled.

I think the subtext of your final, rather piqued comment was, "well whaddaya going to do about it?" seeing as no-one who is complaining really has the leverage over the administration to make them do anything. If objectors to Gitmo had enough tanks, smartbombs and the like, maybe a nuke, you seem to be saying, then they might make a difference. Well this would make you a Maoist, as well as a Leninist. Because a world where power grows from the barrel of a gun is the one you want to live in, so long as you have the guns, wheras civilised societies and rule-of-law liberal democracies have tended to like to try and persuade with the power of their ideas.

You simply can't do that in this case, the arguments are beyond you. So you fall back to a babyish stance of "can't make me nyah nyah nyah." And why should we expect anything different from you?

I've already stated my arguments, Eurof, but you don't respond to them. You have yet to even attempt to counter my assertions that the Gitmo detainees are not covered by the Geneva Conventions or that they are covered by the UCMJ rather than civilian law. Bush is acting according to the law that is, not the law as you imagine it.

And so my response to your ungrounded ranting is that you don't get a say. And you don't.

Here's the thing, NOTHING is being gained by prolonging the captivity of the Gitmo detainees, while there is a lot to lose by continuing, mostly our moral high ground, if there is any left after the past 5 years. To "stay the course" is pure spite at this point. Just because we can, at this point in history, which is by no means guaranteed in perpetuity, doesn't mean we should. That's a lame ass argument, no better than the schoolyard taunt of a bully, which is what we've become.

Here's the thing, NOTHING is being gained by prolonging the captivity of the Gitmo detainees, while there is a lot to lose by continuing, mostly our moral high ground, if there is any left after the past 5 years.

But we don't know that, sac.

To "stay the course" is pure spite at this point. Just because we can, at this point in history, which is by no means guaranteed in perpetuity, doesn't mean we should. That's a lame ass argument, no better than the schoolyard taunt of a bully, which is what we've become.

We have to deal with this on our own time. Releasing them before they face a military tribunal will be seen as weakness and exploited. I want to see them go before tribunals as soon as possible, but they can't be released until at least some of them have.

Every time these people came at us, since 1979, we took a step back. And finally they attacked NYC and Washington and killed thousands of people.

The US isn't bound by the Geneva conventions because Al Queda is stateless. Indeed, the point of the US gov't position is that it isn't bound by any international treaties because treaties are between states and AlQ isn't a state.

But AlQ people tend to hang out in states. Frequently pretty useless states, but states nonetheless. US actions towards AlQ people in other states have to be in accordance with the laws of those states. Otherwise the act is what is commonly called 'illegal'. As a rule, states look ill upon anyone but the state itself kidnapping or killing people within their jurisdiction. This would include killing by people who work for another state.

If there has been a declaration of war (something made by a state against a state), the US has to act according to treaty obligations when it comes to people in that state. So the Geneva convention applies. If there hasn't been a declaration of war, local law applies. In neither case can the US 'legally' kidnap people from third countries and hold them without trial.

What astounds me the most about all the vitrious comments circling the web about Gitmo is this simple fact: Most of the prisoners at Gitmo have not been proven guilty of anything. The should have the right to a fair and unbiased trial in a reasonable amount of time (some have been held over four years without a trial). Whatever happened to innocent before proven guitly?

The US isn't bound by the Geneva conventions because Al Queda is stateless. Indeed, the point of the US gov't position is that it isn't bound by any international treaties because treaties are between states and AlQ isn't a state.

The Geneva Conventions take into account statelessness. What exempts AQ from coverage isn't its lack of a state but its refusal to abide by the rules of war identified in the Geneva Conventions.

What astounds me the most about all the vitrious comments circling the web about Gitmo is this simple fact: Most of the prisoners at Gitmo have not been proven guilty of anything. The should have the right to a fair and unbiased trial in a reasonable amount of time (some have been held over four years without a trial). Whatever happened to innocent before proven guitly?

And you're just an idiot. These men are not being detained for anything "criminal" they may have done (though they may eventually face a war crimes tribunal). Have you ever heard the term "prisoner of war"? The U.S. has the right to hold these men, who are enemy combatants, until cessation of hostilities or until some other agreement is reached. That's the way it works.

AlQ is not a High Party to the Geneva Convention. But it is true that AlQ people usually don't follow the Convention rules regarding carrying weapons opnely and having a little sticker saying "I'm from AlQ: Hug Me." That's a bit beside the point, though, because there has been no declaration of war against AlQ, what with AlQ not being a state and all. So, the laws that matter are the laws of the countries in which the people were abducted. I'm not an expert on Iraqi or Italian or wherever else criminal code, but I'm willing to bet they all have something to say about abduction and forced removal from the country without due process being illegal.

Oh, sorry, Sterling, you are right, I didn't answer your oh so very relevant point on whether denizens of Gitmo are "illegal combatants" or not. However I did not because I do not see the relevance. You are clearly confused by this. The whole illegal combatant malarkey is merely a damned lawyers' quibble used to justify something that shouldn't have been done in the first place. It is an attempt to show "how" it can be done legally (which fails by the way), but says nothing about "why" it should be done morally, in the pursuit of practical aims of curbing terrorism, and in the spirit of the law. There is no real legal precedent for this "illegal combatant" status, and even if there was it would not be the point.

As the ex head of the Navy's general attorney's office puts it:

"The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America — even those designated as 'unlawful enemy combatants.' If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles."

He is talking about torture, but you could equally add the right to not be arbitrarily locked up indefinitely on the whim of your very fallible intelligence services.

I'm not an expert on Iraqi or Italian or wherever else criminal code, but I'm willing to bet they all have something to say about abduction and forced removal from the country without due process being illegal.

And we don't know how much of this has actually occurred or the justifications for it, or whether permission was secretly given.

It's also important to take into account the sad history of European states - especially including Italy - in releasing captured terrorists or refusing to extradite murderers to the U.S. If European justice systems refuse to deal seriously with terrorists or fail to honor their treaty obligations regarding extradition, well, guess what? That's a two-way street.

He is talking about torture, but you could equally add the right to not be arbitrarily locked up indefinitely on the whim of your very fallible intelligence services.

The idea that due process of civilian law should be extended to POWs or combatants in the field waging illegal war against the United States is idiotic and has nothing to do with the Constitution. The Constitution makes no such statement about man having natural rights - that's the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution is an itemization of the powers and limitations of the federal government, in terms of its relationship to the member states and citizens.

And anyway, we can make a good guess how the framers of the Constitution would react to this issue because they had to react to similar issues. One example, of many, is the case of John Andre. During the American War of Independence, as they probably called the conflict in your school classes, British Army Major John Andre was apprehended in U.S. territory, while wearing civilian clothing. Andre was well-known to some of the American officer corps as a result of an earlier stint as a prisoner of war, and was well-liked. There was much regret and hand-wringing all around but Andre was hanged following a military, rather than a civilian, trial. He appealed to George Washington to be shot rather than hanged, the death of a soldier versus the death of a spy, but Washington regretfully refused, and Andre was hanged.

The site of Andre's hanging is now a pleasantly-appointed cul de sac in a suburb of New York City, with a stone marker identifying the spot and describing the unfortunate circumstances of Andre's execution. My uncle lives a few miles away and I have visited the spot on several occasions.

So George Washington, later the first president of the U.S. under the current Constitution, likely would have acknowledged the unpleasant necessity of holding these men indefinitely.

But Sterling, the Gitmo prisoners aren't POW's, right? Doesn't the government have to hold them in basically a non-status state to justify the detention? If they were declared combatants (to make them POW's), they would fall under Geneva Convention regulation, regardless of the signatory status of our enemies. We signed the Geneva Convention.

Are you capable of even understanding the cyclical logic (or, more accurately, ill-logic) of your argument sounds like a first year college lit student who dipped their finger in postmoderism?

The prisoners aren't even prisoners -- or people! They are signifiers of a non-state that exists as a Derridean exercise of rupture that is the foil of the pervasiveness of the market economy. We cannot 'stop' the them, because 'naming' them would establish a locus and imply legitimacy. So we must define them out of existence (we can hold them indefinitely because they are POW's, but we actually aren't 'detaining' them, since they aren't POW's -- they aren't legitimate combantants so what we do to them doesn't enter into the realm of treatment or mistreatment because the don't exist). Unfortunately, they corporeal beings resisting our lexical elision.

Heh, that's pretty good, 99.

My understanding is that they are both POWs and illegal enemy combatants. As POWs they are covered by U.S. military justice. As illegal combatants they are not afforded the usual protections of POWs in the Geneva Conventions.

My understanding of the military justice precedent is that they will be afforded some kind of tribunal or hearing before a military court. Their status, culpability and, if warranted, punishment will be determined by that body. That can happen at any time but is usually held off until the end of hostilities, to avoid tit-for-tat retribution by the opposing side.

I should also add that even the stories of alleged abuse indicate that the men in Gitmo detention are treated better than any POWs I've ever heard of, with the exception of German and Italian POWs in the U.S. during World War II.

Germany and France have no right whatsoever to complain about American POW camps.

I'm not French, or German.

And I love how you stare right in the face of such juvenile rationalization and pile on: 'cessation of hostilties?'; they are both? Julia Kristeva (though, really, for it's archness, I might say Irigaray) couldn't have written a better line.

You show up in Vegas in a gold lame suit, and the NYU comp lit crowd will swarm you like Manilow.

Sterling: They are POWs of which W? I didn't notice a US declaration of war, or did I miss something? I agree, if they were fighting for a state which was in a war against the US, and they were captured behind US lines without uniforms and concealing their weapons, they would be both POWs and not covered by Geneva Convention. As there hasn't been a declaration of war, they are not PoWs but a bunch of people some of whom might have done lots of horrible things and ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of locally applicable law wherever it is they happened to be before they were removed to Gitmo.

The question, then, is not about whether people at Gitmo legally meet the definition of POW covered by the Geneva convention (although a careful reading would suggest that many may even if you decide that because the de facto state of war existed you're going to act as if a de jure sate existed). The question is under what legal authority they are prisoners at all...

In short, there is no legal basis for Gitmo. Your better defense is when you say "well nobody follows the laws, I'm damned if I take lessons from Italy on this stuff." God, the French go round blowing up Greenpeace, and they're way less harmful than AlQ (Greenpeace is, anyway).

They are POWs of which W? I didn't notice a US declaration of war, or did I miss something?

We have an authorization of military force from Congress to the president, and we didn't have to declare war. In case you didn't notice, Al Qaeda declared war on us. Duh.

Your better defense is when you say "well nobody follows the laws, I'm damned if I take lessons from Italy on this stuff."

I never said that. What I said is that if Europeans are going to be obstructionist of America public safety and national defense (despite treaty agreements requiring the contrary) then we have the right to go around those countries to achieve those ends. What they don't know won't hurt them, and since Europe is better off for whatever snatches the CIA may have conducted, I'm not going to get worked up about it one way or the other. And to be perfectly honest I very much doubt the CIA has abducted anyone from a NATO country without a go-ahead from that country's intelligence service.

they are both?

They are both. "POW" and "illegal enemy combatant" are not mutually exclusive terms.

Matt wrote:

"What astounds me the most about all the vitrious comments circling the web about Gitmo is this simple fact: Most of the prisoners at Gitmo have not been proven guilty of anything. They should have the right to a fair and unbiased trial in a reasonable amount of time (some have been held over four years without a trial). Whatever happened to innocent before proven guitly?"

You must not have read my earlier post, Matt. Their detention is a military action, not a matter of the judicial system. Enemy prisoners don't have to be guilty of anything - it isn't a crime to kill American soldiers. Military detention of enemies has two purposes: to ensure that they can't kill us and to gain intelligence.

I declare war on the US. And I'm not wearing a badge saying I'm part of the springfield terror watch, either. So the US can arrest me and lock me up without trial because I'm a POW not covered by Geneva. Actually, they can save the money and just shoot me now. God, at least it would end the effort to un-parse your parsing.

If the US didn't declare war, and AlQ can't declare war, where's the war? On what AlQ territory widely recognized as a state with which the US is at war are the detentions being made?

If nobody follows the laws I'm damned if I'm going to take lessons is, if you ask me, a fairly good summary of "If European justice systems refuse to deal seriously with terrorists or fail to honor their treaty obligations regarding extradition, well, guess what? That's a two-way street." It is the only argument in defense of what is going on at gitmo, and I'd still say its not that all that bad as far as it goes.

"I declare war on the US. And I'm not wearing a badge saying I'm part of the springfield terror watch, either. So the US can arrest me and lock me up without trial because I'm a POW not covered by Geneva."

Even POWs covered by the Geneva Convention can be locked up without trial. Didn't you ever watch Hogan's Heroes? Seriously though, that's the point many people arguing against Gitmo are missing (myself included until very recently). It's well within Geneva to hold POWs, without trial or even suspicion of "wrongdoing" other than being on the other team, for as long as necessary. It's not the detainment I have a problem with, it's the treatment while being detained that is troublesome.

Well, by the standards of 'modern' warfare (major conflict after the Geneva Convention), the aims of wars have been reasonably comestible: pushing people to or from a geographic location.

We've 'declared' a war, but have not even identified against whom or where we are fighting (and seem to be doing a piss poor job of that). So holding presumed combatants (interesting we bother with legal or illegal status since it is action by fiat regardless) until the cessation of hostilities (the POW holding without trying status) is a little tricky, isn't it?

Another intersting problem is that soldiers typically get a degree of indemnification since the war is act of a state. Individual actors who are not soliders are typically held under criminal statute. We can't afford to be vague about this, since it undermines our credibility, particularly as we redefine on the fly why we went to war (since Iraq is apparently an exercise in democracy building)

We may find suicide bombing noxious, but it is still part of miliary training (with precents in WWII). You can claim that a suicide bomber is endlessly dangerous, but that is no different than the rational given for interning Japanese.

We may find that suicide bombing has led to a drastic detachment from 'honorable' war, but our response has mirrored that retreat. Whether we acted without influence, or in response to the standards of our enemies, by mirroring their lack of humanity we do nothing to affirm our assertion that democratic humanism is superior to brutal theocracy.