When torturing is OK for feds shouldn't it be allowed for others too?

[Lumpy]

So Nuke, you don't think "it was ever intended to be used on civilians"? Strange then that the three people we know it has been used on were civilians. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was taken from a friend's home in Rawalpindi, Pakistan by Pakistani secret police and handed over to US authorities. He is a civilian. Zein al-Abideen Mohamed Hussein was taken from his two-story apartment in Faisalabad, Pakistan by CIA operatives. He is a civilian. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was arrested in the United Arab Emirates and turned over to US authorities. All are terrorists and criminals, but none of them were captured on any battlefield (though Hussein made a fight of it in his home and was shot three times).

No Nuke, what we're talking about here is dragging people out of their homes in the middle of the night, wishing them away to some clandestine prison and torturing them without trial or justice. So far only bad people have been taken (I hope). So far.

[NUKE]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

According to the 9/11 Commission Report he was "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks". He is also thought to have had, or has confessed to, a role in many of the most significant terrorist plots over the last twenty years, including the World Trade Center 1993 bombings, the Operation Bojinka plot, an aborted 2002 attack on Los Angeles' U.S. Bank Tower, the Bali nightclub bombings, the failed bombing of American Airlines Flight 63, the Millennium Plot, and the murder of Daniel Pearl.

He is an enemy combatant who planned attacks that have killed Americans. He's about as much a civilian as Bin Laden is. I say torture him. By the way, the waterboarding he received did make him reveal information that helped thwart further attacks, from what we are told that is.

I didn't feel like looking the other two up, but I'd guess they have a similar rap. I don't feel bad that they where waterboarded. Not in the least.

[Lumpy]

It seems you don't understand what civilian means. Unfortunately not surprising.

[Yeager]

anyone who refers to KSM as a civilian is someone who needs to be monitored, imo.

[Lumpy]

Then you need to monitor me and most other people I guess.

[Shuffler]

"If we are at war with a country that tortures our people then we should do the same. You folks that think your taking the high road by not doing so will kill more of your own."

This must be the single most silly argument I've read here for a while. Perhaps you should ask your forefathers how many lives freedom and justice is worth. That you want to sell your civility and decency so cheaply is an affront to the sacrifices they made.

My forefathers quit standing in line and shooting volley after volley at the british. They took cover and picked the brits off while the brits were standing in a nice line. My forefathers also hit the brits while the brits moved from one battlefield to another. I think I stand in good with my forefathers. They did what had to be done to get the job done.

The people having their heads chopped off are mostly civilians. The one's doing the chopping are combatants. If one of these folks chops your relative's head off... are you going to offer him a sandwich and ask how the weather is? I don't understand your high and mighty "civility" at the expense of others. War is not pretty or civil.

[Lumpy]

My forefathers quit standing in line and shooting volley after volley at the british. They took cover and picked the brits off while the brits were standing in a nice line. My forefathers also hit the brits while the brits moved from one battlefield to another. I think I stand in good with my forefathers. They did what had to be done to get the job done.

So you think anything is acceptable? Do you think the terrorists are just doing what has to be done "to get the job done", and think it is acceptable?

Yes your forefathers may have been considered the terrorists of their day, but did they torture the British? Every schoolchild knows that Gen. George Washington made extraordinary efforts to protect America's civilian population from the ravages of war. Fewer Americans know that Revolutionary War leaders, including Washington and the Continental Congress, considered the decent treatment of prisoners to be one of the principal strategic preoccupations of the American Revolution.

Historian David Hackett Fischer wrote in Washington's Crossing: "In 1776 American leaders believed it was not enough to win the war. They also had to win in a way that was consistent with the values of their society and the principles of their cause. One of their greatest achievements � was to manage the war in a manner that was true to the expanding humanitarian ideals of the American Revolution."

You may think you stand in good with your forefathers, but I don't think they would have stood with you if they were here. You people have lost your way.

[Yeager]

I dont care to monitor you.  Im not qulaified to do so anyway, that would be a job for professionals.  Also, if you think "most people" consider KSM and his band of organized mass murderers civilians then you are dead off plumb.   Civilians are people who follow civil life, not a life of premeditated mass murder OF civilians.

[Elfie]

Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

Water boarding is torture and should not be used. Don't we have drugs that make people more....pliable...to questioning?

Strange then that the three people we know it has been used on were civilians. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was taken from a friend's home in Rawalpindi, Pakistan by Pakistani secret police and handed over to US authorities. He is a civilian. Zein al-Abideen Mohamed Hussein was taken from his two-story apartment in Faisalabad, Pakistan by CIA operatives. He is a civilian. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was arrested in the United Arab Emirates and turned over to US authorities. All are terrorists and criminals, but none of them were captured on any battlefield (though Hussein made a fight of it in his home and was shot three times).

I believe those three would be classified as unlawful combatants or unprivileged combatants, if they can even be classified. The Geneva Conventions only apply to Nation States, they do not apply to organizations such as  the PLO or Al-Qaeada. To say they are civilians is rather absurd. They wage war against *the infidels* and *The Great Satan*.

[Lumpy]

I dont care to monitor you.  Im not qulaified to do so anyway, that would be a job for professionals.  Also, if you think "most people" consider KSM and his band of organized mass murderers civilians then you are dead off plumb.   Civilians are people who follow civil life, not a life of premeditated mass murder OF civilians.

Your definition would exclude anyone who commits a crime. That's ludicrous. The Merriam-Webster English dictionary defines a civilian as "a specialist in Roman or modern civil law" or "one not on active duty in the armed services or not on a police or firefighting force". Under international humanitarian law a civilian is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces. The International Committee of the Red Cross 1958 Commentary on IV Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War Article 4.4 states that "[e]very person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, or again, a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law." The ICRC has expressed the opinion that "If civilians directly engage in hostilities, they are considered 'unlawful' or 'unprivileged' combatants or belligerents. They may be prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action".

"If civilians directly engage in hostilities" ... Civilians.

[Lumpy]

I believe those three would be classified as unlawful combatants or unprivileged combatants, if they can even be classified. The Geneva Conventions only apply to Nation States, they do not apply to organizations such as  the PLO or Al-Qaeada. To say they are civilians is rather absurd. They wage war against *the infidels* and *The Great Satan*.

Se my previous post. Unlawful combatants or unprivileged combatants are civilians ... That's what makes them unlawful or unprivileged! Just like a criminal is also a civilian, even if he is unlawful.

[Elfie]

Se my previous post. Unlawful combatants or unprivileged combatants are civilians ... That's what makes them unlawful or unprivileged! Just like a criminal is also a civilian, even if he is unlawful.

We can look at all of the definitions we want and by English definitions those guys are civilians. However if we look outside the box and see what they call themselves, look at their actions and see what they do, they are soldiers of the Jihad. We need new definitions for these guys, new classifications under International Law.

I do not consider them civilians in any sense of the term.

[bustr]

Lumpy,

Which advocacy organisation are you shilling for? Your responses read like advocacy responses on other boards. The kind from volunteers and interns who's job is to do searches for key words on blogs so they can tie up opponents of their groups positions in hopes of shutting down unfavorable discorce.

[Yeager]

no reasonable person would argue that KSM is a civilian regardless of what variation of the definition you choose to employ.  Again, no REASONABLE person.

[midnight Target]

No reasonable person would advocate torture either. It doesn't matter who or what he is, still wrong.