unlawful combatant

[Michael Pollak]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Chuck Grimes wrote:

> It is clear that Rumsfeld is playing games here to keep them from being
> classified as prisoners of war, because this status has numerous rights
> attached, among them writing home, right to not be tortured or or
> compelled to give more information than their own identity, etc.

Well, just to play devil's advocate for a moment, that last point might be
the defensible core under the repulsive exterior.  It doesn't seem
unreasonable to say that the authorities should have the right to
interrogate terrorists as least as much as much as they can common
criminals -- and the POW statute forbids it.  For soldiers, that makes
sense.  There are other ways to find out about the movement of whole
armies, and there are fronts that grossly limit the possibilities. And
besides, regular soldiers don't usually know much of value.
Interrogation there would just be an excuse for bad treatment.  But
terrorism is different on all three counts. With terrorists caught on US
soil, or who are US citizens, it's not a problem, you can just charge them
in normal courts, like we did Walker, and treat them like criminals.  But
you can't do that if they are foreign nationals and you catch them in
Afghanistan.

The odd point that sticks out from this point of view is that we all know
this rule has been broken at many times and place and that POWs have been
interrogated.  So as a devil's advocate, one might argue that the problem
with the US is not that they are disdainful of legal niceties, but that
they are taking them unusually seriously.  And one might make a case that
the Geneva conventions should have an article that would clearly define
terrorists, distinguish them from soldiers, and allow for their
interrogation -- and that until then the law has a crucial gap in it that
has to be filled in a makeshift manner.

</devil's advocate mode off>

Michael

__________________________________________________________________________
Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com