[CLUE-Talk] Charlie Daniels comments, article about Saddam's sons.

[David Willson]

Oh Heck.  I think I need a lesson on the basics of the Geneva
Convention.  I'm shocked at everything I've learned about it recently,
and I'm beginning to think I'm disappointed.  I mistakenly thought that
the GC was about NOT behaving monstrously (not using incendiary
grenades, flamethrowers, or napalm on infantry-men, not torturing POWs) 
I didn't realize that it was about being 'polite'.  This business about
embarrassing pictures and lawyers and not bombing the Iraqi TV
station...  Amazing.  One wonders whether the GC was drafted by the
military men it governs, or by lawyers.  I'll cover any dollar bets that
it was lawyers, and that they don't give a fig whether the parameters
they laid down are actually workable or not.  These are the same people
that figured that making it really hard for law-abiding citizens to own
guns would lower violent crime rates.  Don't get me started...

In fact, I have to make one last comment and then bug out...

Check "Starship Troopers" (the book, not the movie) for my stance on
'human rights.'  They're a fiction.  There's no such thing.  A human
drowning in a lake may complain to the lake that he has a 'human right'
to life, and the lake will drown him anyway.  There are needs and wants,
and it's very nice if people try to help you meet your needs, and it's
even  nicer if they help you meet your wants, but they are not obligated
to do so.  It's very mean if they deny you your needs or the means to
meet your needs, and that mean-ness should have some consequences, at
least a transfer of the responsibility of meeting your needs, to them.

I challenge anyone to find a clear delineation between those things we
call 'human rights' and all the other 'things I just feel I ought to
have.'

I find it hard to believe that a man, even a man
detained-under-questionable-circumstances needs a lawyer.  He needs food
and shelter.  And anyone that tortures him should be killed as quickly
and cheaply as can be managed, but he doesn't ~need~ a lawyer.

I must now bow out of the debate, having realized several times now that
I am long on philosophy and short on facts.  There are people that can
do the job better than I can, and if you wanted my opinion, you'd give
it to me, right?  That doesn't mean you shouldn't rebut this post (what
little meat there is to it), just that I won't being rebutting your
rebuttal anymore.

Unless you get me really riled...

On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 17:02, Jeffery Cann wrote:
> On Thursday 27 March 2003 09:27 am, David Willson wrote:
> > Jeff,
> 
> > And I think it is preposterous to group
> > detention-under-questionable-circumstances with the horrific torture
> > going on under the Hussein regime. 
> 
> I didn't compare the Guantanimo scenario with Saddam's treatmentof the Iraqi 
> citizens.
> 
> > Let me ask you, "Which would you
> > rather endure: two weeks as Saddam Hussein's POW or two years as George
> > W. Bush's detained illegal immigrant?  Where do you think your body and
> > mind would be safer from permanent serious damage?  
> 
> I think your retort is preposterous - you are given me the slippery slope 
> argument:  "We treat our POWs better than Iraq; therefore, if we treat the 
> Guantanimo prisoners, we are not violating the Geneva convention".
> 
> But, you seemed to miss my point that BOTH countries are KNOWN to have 
> violated the Geneva convention because they took pictures of prisoners and 
> distributed them.
> 
> > Which of the two is
> > going to allow you an opportunity to whine to AI about not having access
> > to your lawyer?  
> 
> OMG!  So, you think the right to legal representation constitutes 'whining'?  
> If you ever get arrested, maybe you'll waive your rights to counsel, since by 
> equating it to whining, you trivialize it.  What's worse is that you implied 
> that these prisoners in Guantanamo do not deserve legal representation, which 
> is in fact a basic human right, as agreed to in the Geneva convention and 
> signed by our government.
> 
> > I understand that keeping POW's without calling them POW's is
> > questionable, but we need to be clear on the difference between inhumane
> > and questionable.
> 
> Let's look at the facts:
> 
> 1)  The USA government took pictures of prisoners captured in a conflict in 
> Afghanistan.  These pictures were decidedly inhumane.  They show them 
> kneeling in shakles and hooded.  This is a violation of the Geneva 
> convention.
> 
> 2)  The Iraqi government took pictures of prisoners captured in a conflict in 
> Iraq.  These pictures were decidedly inhumane.  They showed soldiers bound.  
> This is a violation of the Geneva convention.
> 
> Please, David, explain how these situations are somehow different?  
> 
> Jeff
> -- 
> Life is a tie. In the end, no one wins. 
>  -- Oswald Neimo 
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