You minimize the negative and accentuate the positive; but Abu Ghraib was a symbol of abuse, and Guantanamo is a symbol of abduction and torture.
Do you consider Abu Ghraib to have been a "symbol of abuse" mainly by Saddam Hussein's regime? If not, why not, considering that Saddam murdered tens of thousands of people there, and at worst it's been claimed that one or two of our prisoners died there?
Futhermore, the prisoners at Guantanamo were mostly taken in open battle, and few if any of them were tortured. In fact, for the most part the Guantanamo Bay prisoners have been treated better than even the Western Allies treated their prisoners in World War II -- and our prisoners in World War II were captured fighting against us in full uniform and military organization, and were thus subject to the Geneva Conventions -- which the Guantanamo Bay prisoners are not.
We broke treaties and worldwide conventions created for the protection of our own citizens and soldiers, which were based on the presumption that if someone breaks the treaty, then their own people are valid targets for the same abuses which were inflicted.
First of all, the articles of the Geneva Conventions which we signed do not apply to enemy combatants fighting both out of uniform and under no recognized command structure. You might want to actually read the relevant articles before you make yourself look like a fool by statements of this sort.
Secondly, if you want to go under the rule that "if someone breaks the treaty, then their own people are valid targets for the same abuses which were inflicted," doesn't this mean that, after 9-11 (in which the enemy both deliberately attacked civilian targets and murdered civilians they had made prisoner) that the Terrorists would become "valid targets for the same abuses which were inflicted?" Or are you only applying this principle in one direction?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-05-22 02:05 pm (UTC)Do you consider Abu Ghraib to have been a "symbol of abuse" mainly by Saddam Hussein's regime? If not, why not, considering that Saddam murdered tens of thousands of people there, and at worst it's been claimed that one or two of our prisoners died there?
Futhermore, the prisoners at Guantanamo were mostly taken in open battle, and few if any of them were tortured. In fact, for the most part the Guantanamo Bay prisoners have been treated better than even the Western Allies treated their prisoners in World War II -- and our prisoners in World War II were captured fighting against us in full uniform and military organization, and were thus subject to the Geneva Conventions -- which the Guantanamo Bay prisoners are not.
We broke treaties and worldwide conventions created for the protection of our own citizens and soldiers, which were based on the presumption that if someone breaks the treaty, then their own people are valid targets for the same abuses which were inflicted.
First of all, the articles of the Geneva Conventions which we signed do not apply to enemy combatants fighting both out of uniform and under no recognized command structure. You might want to actually read the relevant articles before you make yourself look like a fool by statements of this sort.
Secondly, if you want to go under the rule that "if someone breaks the treaty, then their own people are valid targets for the same abuses which were inflicted," doesn't this mean that, after 9-11 (in which the enemy both deliberately attacked civilian targets and murdered civilians they had made prisoner) that the Terrorists would become "valid targets for the same abuses which were inflicted?" Or are you only applying this principle in one direction?