Why do most of the liberals view Iraq as a failure?

"Geneva Convention"? How quaint.

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To the best of my knowledge (and I stand to be corrected here) it has never been repealed or replaced.
Possibly Iran is not a signatory? But we are, like the USA.

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U.S.: Vice President Endorses Torture
Cheney Expresses Approval of the CIA's Use of Waterboarding http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/26/usdom14465.htm "If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American's head under water until he nearly drowns, if that's what they think they need to do to save Iranian or Syrian lives," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

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blueflame1 wrote:

U.S.: Vice President Endorses Torture
Cheney Expresses Approval of the CIA's Use of Waterboarding http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/26/usdom14465.htm "If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American's head under water until he nearly drowns, if that's what they think they need to do to save Iranian or Syrian lives," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

Better then just cutting it off which is the current SOP.

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McTag wrote:

Someone asked today....these British marines and sailors who have been taken prisoner by the Iranian Navy on the Iraq/Iran waterway and are being questioned at a secret location in Iran:

Should they be treated under Geneva Convention rules or under Guantanamo Bay rules?

I think they will be treated in any way the Revolutionary government of Iran sees fit (or believes it can get away with). You may recall that these folks seized the U.S. embassy in 1979 (or so) and held our people captive under rather bad conditions for well over a year.

What were the rules that the British government applied to the internment without trial of IRA men during the 1970s and 1980s???

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georgeob1 wrote:

What were the rules that the British government applied to the internment without trial of IRA men during the 1970s and 1980s???

Do a web search for Long Kesh or Maze Prison---very enlightening. It doesn't really recommend Her Majesty's hospitality . . . .

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I believe if you wear a uniform before capture it makes all the difference....preferably a red coat? Smile

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georgeob1 wrote:

McTag wrote:
Someone asked today....these British marines and sailors who have been taken prisoner by the Iranian Navy on the Iraq/Iran waterway and are being questioned at a secret location in Iran:

Should they be treated under Geneva Convention rules or under Guantanamo Bay rules?

I think they will be treated in any way the Revolutionary government of Iran sees fit (or believes it can get away with). You may recall that these folks seized the U.S. embassy in 1979 (or so) and held our people captive under rather bad conditions for well over a year.

What were the rules that the British government applied to the internment without trial of IRA men during the 1970s and 1980s???

Well the IRA (army, note) had declared war and were busy killing people and blowing them up. Difficult to have a good trial when witnesses are killed or threatened with death.
How many Japanese received a trial before internment in 1941?

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McTag wrote:

Well the IRA (army, note) had declared war and were busy killing people and blowing them up. Difficult to have a good trial when witnesses are killed or threatened with death.

To a very large extent we face the same situation with respect to Islamist terrorism. Why then don't you make this distinction in that case??

McTag wrote:

How many Japanese received a trial before internment in 1941?

None that I know of. However the conditions of their internment were not at all comparable with those that prevailed at Maze and Long Kesh.

You opened this subject, not I. My only objection is to the truly remarkable level of your hypocrisy. Your "redcoats" ackowledgement rstored a bit of refreshing humor and balance to the topic, but, sadly, it didn't last.

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McTag wrote:

Well the IRA (army, note) had declared war and were busy killing people and blowing them up. Difficult to have a good trial when witnesses are killed or threatened with death.

The same applies to the methods of the UDF (the Ulster Defense Force, a Protestant organization which blew up and otherwise murdered Catholics), which left the same degree of difficulty in "having good trials." You know, i don't recall that the RUC rounded up UDF members, or other members of Protestant paramilitary organizations, and who were then incarcerated in HM Prison Maze at Long Kesh without trial. Sauce for the goose apparently did not make sauce for the gander in the operations of the RUC, or the English army, for that matter.

Quote:

How many Japanese received a trial before internment in 1941?

None of whom i have ever heard, neither in the United States, nor in Canada (which was then still, at least technically, a Dominion of the King of England). Do you suggest that turpitude on the part of Americans justifies turpitude on the part of the English?

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McTag wrote:

I believe if you wear a uniform before capture it makes all the difference....preferably a red coat?

According to the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, the only difference it makes is that those out of uniform must be accorded the same treatment as uniformed prisoners of war until such time as their actual status is determined by "a competent tribunal."

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georgeob1 wrote:

McTag wrote:
Well the IRA (army, note) had declared war and were busy killing people and blowing them up. Difficult to have a good trial when witnesses are killed or threatened with death.
To a very large extent we face the same situation with respect to Islamist terrorism. Why then don't you make this distinction in that case??

McTag wrote:
How many Japanese received a trial before internment in 1941?
None that I know of. However the conditions of their internment were not at all comparable with those that prevailed at Maze and Long Kesh.

You opened this subject, not I. My only objection is to the truly remarkable level of your hypocrisy. Your "redcoats" ackowledgement rstored a bit of refreshing humor and balance to the topic, but, sadly, it didn't last.

George, almost your only fault is that you leap into hyperbole from a standing start. If you think I'm guilty of "hypocrisy" for drawing attention to methods and mores at Guantanamo Bay, on the grounds that British behaviour in NI was not acceptable (which I neither defend or condone) then you're more than a little bit off track.

Forget the Japanese-American civilians, it was a bad example. The IRA was involved in a (albeit guerrilla) war against Britain and as in any war, combatants are interned without trial- usually until cessation of hostilities- isn't that so?.

At least they were pretty sure of the charges against them, unlike most of the Guantanamo inmates.

By the way, just so we're clear, are you defending the Guantanamo setup, or just attacking me? Shocked

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Setanta wrote:

McTag wrote:
Well the IRA (army, note) had declared war and were busy killing people and blowing them up. Difficult to have a good trial when witnesses are killed or threatened with death.

The same applies to the methods of the UDF (the Ulster Defense Force, a Protestant organization which blew up and otherwise murdered Catholics), which left the same degree of difficulty in "having good trials." You know, i don't recall that the RUC rounded up UDF members, or other members of Protestant paramilitary organizations, and who were then incarcerated in HM Prison Maze at Long Kesh without trial. Sauce for the goose apparently did not make sauce for the gander in the operations of the RUC, or the English army, for that matter.

I can't give you chapter and verse on this, I don't know enough about it, but I do know that criminals from both sides of the community were locked up in these prisons, and the warders had a devil of a job keeping them apart.
Were the republican sympathisers in the majority? Don't know, but I think they murdered more and bombed much more, so they may well have been.

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McTag wrote:

George, almost your only fault is that you leap into hyperbole from a standing start. If you think I'm guilty of "hypocrisy" for drawing attention to methods and mores at Guantanamo Bay, on the grounds that British behaviour in NI was not acceptable (which I neither defend or condone) then you're more than a little bit off track.

Forget the Japanese-American civilians, it was a bad example. The IRA was involved in a (albeit guerrilla) war against Britain and as in any war, combatants are interned without trial- usually until cessation of hostilities- isn't that so?.

At least they were pretty sure of the charges against them, unlike most of the Guantanamo inmates.

By the way, just so we're clear, are you defending the Guantanamo setup, or just attacking me?

I have many faults, but a taste for hyperbole is not one. You just don't like the stunning clarity and focus of my prose. Smile

Those interred in Guantanamo are every bit as much combatants seized in a war as were the IRA men pulled off the streets of Belfast (and in far greater relative numbers than their UDF counterparts). Indeed that is precisely the argument offered by our government.

I suspect the IRA men so confined (without the filing of legal charges) would profess every bit as much ignorance about these charges as perhaps do those in Guantanamo. You have here asserted as fact something that you almost certainly don't know to be true.

The essential point here is that the actions of the U.S. government with respect to Guantanamo - which you made the issue - are in keeping with the norms of real behavior of Western governments is real situations. Examples include the British government in Northern Ireland, Spain with respect to Basque terrorists; the French with respect to revolutionary movements in their former North African colonies (indeed under French law one can be held without charges for quite a long time) , and many others.

You did not criticize those norms. Instead you cited only Guantanamo, and you did so in a manner and context that clearly implied that it was the exception to the rule. That is palpably false (as has been demonstrated), and you are thus guilty of either remarkable ignorance or hypocrisy. I don't believe you are ignorant.

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For chrissakes, I've got to compare the US with everyone else before I can criticise them? Who made that rule up?

Leaving aside the fact that I am probably more ignorant than you realise;

Comparing USA with Spain- pass

With France- France used torture in Algeria- equally bad

With Britain- worse I believe, a lot worse.

You did not answer my question about whether the behaviour of your goverment in the case of Guantanamo Bay was acceptable to you or not.

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McTag: "Your wife is very beautiful"

George: "What do you mean, beautiful? Have you looked at your own wife lately? That's beauty. The guy across the street, he's got a honey."

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No, you can certainly criticize the U.S. in any way that you want. However, you do have the responsibility to state your views in a context and manner that can satisfy the discerning minds of those who will hear you and whom you are addressing. If you don't, they have an equivalent right to criticize you.

This particular - and all too familiar and repeated - criticism, comes usually laced with the implication that the U.S. has somehow strayed into new territory into which the purer lands of the critics have not strayed. That was your clear implication as well. It is palpably false.

The frequency with which this nonsense is repeated by perhaps unthinking or credulous people, does become a bit tiresome. It also reinforces harmful illusions among the critics about the reality of the world we share and their own actions under similar conditions.

It is also useful and important to discriminate between virtue and the mere lack of temptation (or necessity).

I do find the present situation with respect to the detainees in Guantanamo to be "acceptable". Do you know that in a large fraction of these cases we have offered to turn them over to their former governments, but they have refused to accept them? In some cases when we have done so, we were also criticized for their treatment at the hands of their own governments.

I didn't fully understand your comparison of Guantanamo with Northern Ireland. Which was worse in your view? I have a lingering natural sympathy for Ireland, but I am not confused about the often murderous mentality of the IRA, and their irrelevance in the contemporary world. I would not raise this issue in a discourse with you, except as counterpoint to a criticism that you initiated yourself.

By the way -- read up on the French oppression in Algeria. Guantanamo isn't even in the same league.

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My main point about Guantanamo Bay was, that America has many laws about protecting the rights of the individual, and Guantanamo Bay was set up in Cuba (and I believe there are similar installations elsewhere in the world under American jurisdiction) precisely to be outside of American law, so that extreme measures can be brought to bear on the inmates, without restriction of time or any other restriction.

So, although the rhetoric of our leaders is laced with epithets like "terrorists", "murderers", "illegal regimes", "bringing civilisation/democracy to our enemies", "western values", and so on, our actions at Gauntanamo and elsewhere tell a different story about us. You raised the point about hypocrisy.

I do not support for a moment the people whose mindet resulted in the Achille Lauro atrocity or Daniel Pearl's murder. But I believe that Guantanamo's existence debases us all, and makes such events more, not less, likely.

On a practical note, I wonder whether all the negative publicity from GB has been balanced by any useful information gained. I suspect that useful information gained is minimal, leaving aside the fact that information extracted under torture is inadmissible in a court of law.

Peanut farmer ? driven mad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,1984635,00.html
Sensory deprivation and psychological abuse over extended periods is being routinely administered.

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Good points, McTag. The existence of the Guantanamo detention center in its present guise is indefensible. Which is why some try so desperately to defend it.

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I don't think you need to establish a connection with any political bent to know that the current occupation of Iraq is a dangerous farce.

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Why do most of the liberals view Iraq as a failure?

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