Talk:Unlawful combatant/Archive 1

message: Those who support the use of this term seem to be in a minority even in the USA and Israel, and it has *no* support anywhere else in the world, it seems, so it is hard to make this article much more neutral than it is.
Can someone from the Texas Nazi Impire, or Jerusalem Post, add some kind of defense of this insanity?  We wouldn't want to be accused of having a bias here. ;=(
:Are you sure support for the existence of illegal combatants is that rare?  Not in reference to Taliban-related specifics, but against the actual existence of illegal combatants?  The page was originally made by Lir, who can hardly be said to have had a pro-US and Israel bias... Tuf-Kat
The appended sentence from the article doesn't seem to make sense if you combine it with the fact that they are called illegal combatants. Ie: how can you both be an illegal combattant, and not a combatant at all. And there has to be a differentiation between the logical use of the word combatant and the legal use. (Anyone who engages in combat is a combatant in the logical sense, but not necessarily in the legal sense).
:"Such a person is not considered a combatant and therefore is not accorded the rights of a prisoner of war (POW)."
WDYT? --snoyes 04:20 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)
::I clarified the sentence in question.  I am the one who has made the recent edits.  I just forgot to log in.  I think the article is clearer now.  Chadloder 04:27 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)
:::Thanks Chadloder. --snoyes 04:31 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)
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Does anyone have a reference to the Israeli legislation introduced in 2000? Chadloder 04:28 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)
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I have removed the following recent addition to the article.  It is not factual,  it is POV, and really does nothing to inform or educate the reader. Chadloder 01:36 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)
:In the 1942 context, the concept of an unlawful combatant is not controversial: the US was at war with Germany and the saboteurs did obviously not wear uniforms and openly bear arms as required for protection as prisoners of war. However, after the events of September 11, 2001, the U.S. applied illegal combatant status to its own citizens and to citizens of countries the US is not at war with. This effectively implies the US has given itself the right to call anyone in the world an illegal combatant and detain that person indefinately without trial. Those labelled illegal combatants are not told specifically what they are suspected of, nor given access to counsel. In addition, they are frequently held in isolation units and subjected to food and sleep deprivation.
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I have also reverted Gretchen's edit which modifies a direct quote from the ex parte Quirin ruling.  Take a look at the diff in the history and tell me if you agree that the edit of the direct quote was not valid.
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I removed the recentj edition because it has the form of an argumentative editorial.  While some of this material may have a place in the article, it must be presented as the opinion of a named competent party and not just presented as factual background.  In fact it is highly contentious and in some aspects exceedingly doubtful.  (I suspect copyvio too.) --Zero 12:04, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Page 1

message: I have removed the following section titled Protest until someone can prove that this actually took place.  I cannot find any corroboration of it via Google. Chadloder 20:31, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)
=== Protest ===
Some citizens have declared solidarity with prisoners accorded this status, especially by declaring their profession to be 'illegal combatant' on official forms, especially if arrested during anti-war protest or anti-globalization movement activities. This practice is most common among anarchists, situationists, and Marxists.
:my first impression is that the "most common among..." should read "political activists" (a.k.a. citizens exercising their duty as citizens), and that this is a very hard statement to qualify - it sounds judgemental to me.  Other than that, the solidarity part seems quite plausible.  I know there are many highly respected lawyers who have fought for the human rights of those deemed as unlawful combatants.  Where is this information from? Kevin Baas 17:46, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protest 

message: Some citizens have declared solidarity with prisoners accorded this status, especially by declaring their profession to be 'illegal combatant' on official forms, especially if arrested during anti-war protest or anti-globalization movement activities. This practice is most common among anarchists, situationists, and Marxists.
:my first impression is that the "most common among..." should read "political activists" (a.k.a. citizens exercising their duty as citizens), and that this is a very hard statement to qualify - it sounds judgemental to me.  Other than that, the solidarity part seems quite plausible.  I know there are many highly respected lawyers who have fought for the human rights of those deemed as unlawful combatants.  Where is this information from? Kevin Baas 17:46, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protest 

message: Those are, for example, not being deliberately targeted by military action and other traditional protections. 
I couldn't decipher the meaning of this sentence within its context. Does this sentence make sense to anybody? Mdchachi|Talk 18:22, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentence wording 

message: Although the term unlawfull may be mapped, legally, to the term "illegal combatant", I think a large number of people, including contributors to this page, and I know for certain myself, ares sensitive to the different connotations of the word, but relectant to discuss this in the article.  Perhaps we should bring this issue to the surface here?  I understand the connotations to differ in this respect: "illegal" is an explicit and objective adjective, saying the act that has been done is not legal; that it is contrary to one or more laws.  "unlawful", on the other hand, refers to an individual rather than an act or phenomena, and is a judgement of that person, rather than a logical statement concerning law.  An unlawfull person is a person who is not law-faring, as an unpious person is a person who is not god-faring.  I believe that these differences are quite significant.  the word "unlawfull" is a judgement of a person that cannot be substantiated, and dehumanizes the person that it refers to, yet makes no specific claims of illegal acts.  Illegal does not charaterize a peson or dehumanize them in any way, rather it makes an objective statement about an act or phenomena.  What do dictionaries say about the two terms? Kevin Baas 01:16, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Another term used is "unprivileged combatant" (i.e., not having the privileges of the Laws of War, including freedom from civilian law prosecution and POW status). This is probably both the most accurate and NPOV. HOWEVER, I think hardly anyone who hasn't studied this stuff has heard the term, even it has been around for a century or so. I am personally agnostic as to which term should be used, since none of them appear in Geneva or Hague, but maybe you want to run a poll? -- Cecropia | Talk 01:39, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "Illegal" and "unlawful" combatant

message: Please see the discussion immediately above. Since there is no "official" term, we could use any. "Illegal" and "Unlawful" are most common, known to most of the general public; "Unprivileged" probably most accurate and neutral, but least known. All the others could, of course, be redirects.
All terms describe an individual who engages in combat but is not eligible in treaty law or tradition for the designation of a belligerent, and therefore the special legal protections of that designation. Terms are in alphabetical order. -- Cecropia | Talk 02:40, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're referring to the people at Guantanamo, I really think we should have a separate article covering that situation. The illegal/unlawful/unprivileged combatant has existed at least since the Laws of Warfare began to be codified (i.e., more than a century). That is the pupose of this article. Editors would then do well to use these points to argue who, specifically, is in that undesirable situation. I'm going to add more history and citation to this at some point as soon I get a chance. If noone else begins a separate article on Gitmo by then, I guess I'll try to start it myself. -- Cecropia | Talk 23:29, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Too late, The Cunctator already created Camp X-Ray. Should I move the Guantanamo-specific discussion there ? -- DavidCary 03:27, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems reasonable to me. -- Cecropia | Talk 03:34, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll: Illegal, Unlawful, or Unprivileged? 

message: Since the only people interested seem to think Unlawful is best and no one seems to like Illegal, I will change the title. -- Cecropia | Talk 13:46, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Title Change

message: I am changing the wording  The treatment of unlawful combatants back to The legal status of unlawful combatants
For precisely the reason given by Cecropia when he made his change
the legal definition of unlawful combatant is specified in international law...
This section is here because the US has not followed its international treaty obligations  (as mentioned in this document) in GCIII Art5. [A]s their status has [not] been determined by a competent tribunal (GCIII Art 5), so they are not being held legally as unlawful combatants. If I am wrong and they have been in front of a competent tribunal, then they should be held under the condition specified in GCIV Art 5 until tried and found guilty of a crime when they should be processed throught the US penal system (no unusual punishment). Philip Baird Shearer 14:39, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  on the Criticism section 

message: Before the recent US court cases, the US supreme court had not visited this since before GCIII, it would seem to me that the most recent US supreme court cases rulings should be mentioned in passing along, with the original case and they all should all be moved down to near the end of the article into a US specific section.Philip Baird Shearer 14:39, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The peculiar legal status of Guantanamo Bay is a factor in the use of Guantanamo as a detention center.  Because sovereignty of Guantanamo Bay ultimately resides with Cuba, the U.S. government has argued (and one circuit court has agreed) that people detained at Guantanamo are legally outside of the U.S. and do not have the Constitutional rights that they would have if they were held on U.S. territory (see Cuban American Bar Ass'n, Inc. v. Christopher, 43 F.3d 1412 (11th Cir. 1995)).  However, in 2004, the Supreme Court rejected this argument in the case Rasul v. Bush with the majority decision and ruled that prisoners in Guantanamo have access to American courts, citing the fact that the U.S. has exclusive control over Guantanamo Bay.
This was taken from the GB page it holds the information with the stuff already on the page to update the US S.Court view of an unlawful combatant with consideration of the 1949 GC treaty obligations. Any one want to write a US specific section and place it just before the Criticism section?  Philip Baird Shearer 04:54, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: US Specific Section

message: "such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State."
So, as I understand the interpretaion of "unlawful combatant", and why that abridges the human rights of the prisoner, is that the State has a right to beat the prisoners because not beating them would endanger the State? Kevin Baas | talk 19:57, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)
Depends if you think that beating someone is consistent with the later clause in the same article (GVIV art 5): In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity
Also there is the point that for many states they have their own domestic laws and international treaty commitments which forbids beating prisoners under any circumstances.
For example the official US methods of interrogation were developed by the British in the early 1970s to "question" people suspected of having information useful to the security of the State, in Northern Ireland. These (very effective) methods known as  "sensory deprivation techniques" (and in court as "the five techniques") -- wall-standing, hooding, loud white noise, deprivation of sleep, deprivation of food and drink -- were designed not to meet the UK legal definition of tourture. Ireland took Britain to European Court of Human Rights and in a landmark judgement  "Ireland v. the United Kingdom" January 18, 1978, the court ruled
:167. ... Although the five techniques, as applied in combination, undoubtedly amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, although their object was the extraction of confessions, the naming of others and/or information and although they were used systematically, they did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture as so understood. ...
:168.  The Court concludes that recourse to the five techniques amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment, which practice was in breach of Article 3 (art. 3). 
On March 2, 1972, in response to the  "Parker report" the UK government had abandoned the use of the techniques and issued directives to the the UK Security forces which to this day prohibit the use of the five techniques. Philip Baird Shearer 11:39, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Treatment

message: The phrase repeatedly used by the Bush regime is "enemy combatant."  I am confused as to why "unlawful combatant" has replaced it in this article.  --Daniel C. Boyer 20:02, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enemy combatant