Military Tribunals

Yup.
Great find.

when we launch the bombers against the Taliban safe havens in Pakistan, THEN we can say we are at war.

War is war and is no place for people like leahy or taliban jack. Our freedom means more to me than holding hands with terrorist or their supporters. Taking the time to provide courts or reviews is something we don't have much time for, so lets call a spade a spade and start
dealing with these Islamic-fascists forthwith.

Hey, it was Churchill that rightfully wanted summary executions of Nazi swine against Roosevelt's socialist proclivities and equivocating. Roosevelt really was quite spineless at times - remember Yalta when he gave away half of Europe to the Russians? He was really the beginning of our descent into lefty crapola.

Churchill also counseled Roosevelt to use our forces in place and turn East at the end of WWII which would have saved how many millions of lives if a weakened Stalin had been taken out? I think Solzhenitsyn put Stalin's subsequent murders at 30 million and that was just inside Russia.

Sadly, the great man is forgotten. His memoirs should be required reading now.

Hey, it was Churchill that rightfully wanted summary executions of Nazi swine against Roosevelt's socialist proclivities and equivocating. Roosevelt really was quite spineless at times - remember Yalta when he gave away half of Europe to the Russians? He was really the beginning of our descent into lefty crapola.

Churchill also counseled Roosevelt to use our forces in place and turn East at the end of WWII which would have saved how many millions of lives if a weakened Stalin had been taken out? I think Solzhenitsyn put Stalin's subsequent murders at 30 million and that was just inside Russia.

Sadly, the great man is forgotten. His memoirs should be required reading now.

Regarding Churchill, I agree. Yes, he made mistakes (I believe Gallipoli was pretty much his brain child; at least he pushed for it), but as far as a head-of-state goes, surely Churchill was, and remains, unparalleled in his effectiveness as a leader and motivator. His grasp of situations coupled with his gift for language made him ... hmmm... was it DIVINELY inspired that he was there at EXACTLY Great Britain's most critical moment in all her history?
“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”.

well thats quite interesting ms penny, because if George S Patton had had his way, the allies excluding russia would have immediately rearmed the nazis and turned them against the russian communists. but according to you, we were supposed to go along with churchill and shoot zem !!!! himmel !!! shoot zem hall!!!!

so which is it?

exterminate them or recruit them against what eventually was the REAL threat to european freedom???

(gratuitous insult deleted)
(This is your first warning, schmuck. Trolling will not be tolerated)

Terrible thing to see. More useless, sad death and destruction. Watch the video and you'll notice some of the 'marksman' intentionally shot above his head and hit the pole instead. That's probably what i'd do.

Dishonest t. schmuck esq., did Penny advocate Patton's policy or Churchill's?

And Kate, as you know, I am no big fan of kicking people out of blogs... because I believe that even advocating wildly silly and offensive positions is not the same as trolling, because people believe wildly silly and offensive things.

But alleging that a woman is sporting "syphilitic chanchre" on her upper lip would appear to meet every reasonable definition of trolling.

I urge you, as your reader and humble fan, to ask Mr. aptly-named "Schmuck" to either firmly and unambiguously apologize and pledge not to make disgusting personal attacks or to show said "man" the door.

Christoph (1:27 AM)
I could understand a ban. Problem is, sheep shaggers are in short supply; should he not therefore be kept around?

"schmuck" is defined in Webster's as "jerk". Might be better than sheep, ya know.

Mark, IIRC, in most firing executions, a subset of the shooters deliberately aimed away from the target. It had something to do with not wanting to only injure the target if the target should move. But I'm by no means any expert on the subject.

I think for many years this bit of footage has been mis-captioned...It is now thought that this man was actually Volksturm, an older man called up for the peoples army at the end of the war.Many had no uniform as such and some were only given an armband which stated that they belonged to the German peoples army.

I think on second look this man clearly is neither an Allgemeine nor Waffen ss officer.He does accept his fate rather stoically however..

re: my last post ..i am specifically referring to the general comportment, age etc as an indicator,not the lack of an ss uniform.

well chrisop, do you condone ms penny's personal attack against me? which SHE initiated more than once? hmmm? ask her about the smarmy comments regarding acne treatment. caused by the ubiquitous staphilococcal bacteria. and then ask her and the rest of the right wingers about my retort regarding her vaginal boil, also caused by the staphiloccocal bacteria. apparently there is a definite link between her initial insult directed at me and my response. so, then in the afghan poppy thread I suggest the poppies be grown and diverted into legitimate use in the production of carefully regulated heroin. she promptly repeats the acne comment *out of the blue and unprovoked*. why is that acceptable? why all the duplicity? hmmm???? why is it acceptable for the likes of po' widdow' ms penny to hurl personal attacks at me and not visa versa??? Im waiting!!!

can dish it out but cant take it eh? typical right winger.

the simple fact is this entire blog is infested with right wingers who repeatedly initiate personal attacks against me, yet get all uppity when I hand it right back and then carry on quoting high level sources close to the stories being discussed.

and to answer your question, she advocated churchill's position. but history shows us that it was the communists who really eyed the european prize. so Patton was right; we should have rearmed the nazis and settled the question starting in 1945. ergo, churchill whom ms penny supports was wrong about summarily executing the nazis.

I win !!!

Is this "Schmuck" guy for real?? He sounds like he's about 12 years old if this last post is any indication (I'll concede his vocabulary is pretty good for a 12 year old!!)...

Hey Schmuck, if you don't like us "right-wingers" and what we are writing then why on earth do you keep coming to this blog all the time? I, personally, would appreciate if you could troll elsewhere so I won't want to have to read your ridiculous diatribes any more.

Is he/she Big City Lib "incognito" or something??
Thank you.

gee charley, is that the basis for posting here? preach to the converted? is that what right wingers seek, affirmation of the 'righteousness' of dubya?

curiouser and curiouser.

lemme guess, you can dish it out but cant take it either. so far, my posting against mr bush-league bush backed up by citations from numerous sources, oh somewhere between 10 and 8,000.

your retorts based on personal attack and insult and nothing else: one.

you also need to review the definition of 'troll'.

I win !!!

Jaeger, isn't there supposed to be a difference in the conduct of the forces of evil and the forces of good? On what else would you base right-wing manicheanism?

There sems to be some strange interpretations of the Geneva conventions in the world these days. Its been a few years since I was tought military law in basic officer training but as I understand it the aim of the convestions are to protect military and civilian people in war zones. Civilians must be protected and not deliberatly targeted. Soldiers, if they are taken prisoner are to be removed from danger and not exploited or mistreated in any way. They are not charged with offences or tried in courts, they are detained until hostilities end then set free. People who do not wear uniforms and are members of legitimate or otherwise armed forces who shoot at you are considered illegal combatants and their traditional fate is as illustrated in the video.

Therefore in the US the only legal debate should be what is the status of the taliban end there allies. Are they armed forces or ilegal combatants. If the former, any prisoners will probably sun themselves at Gitmo 'till the end of time, and if the latter, the traditional punishment applies.

Its not that complicated.

It's amazing, the amount of nonsense out there in the MSM about the Geneva Conventions. It's quite obvious that many "critics" in the MSM and lefty politicians haven't even read the Geneva Conventions. (Like practically everything else in the world, the ARE available in full on the Internet.)

Good law is readily understandable by the intelligent layman, not just by lawyers. The Geneva Conventions are at least pretty clear law, meant among other things, to eliminate mistreatment of civilians, private property and non-military public property, AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT BEING USED FOR MILITARY PURPOSES.

Ostensible civilian people acting in a military capacity, fighting, and non-military property, i.e. ambulances or mosques, being used for military purposes lose their Geneva Convention protections and it's the lawful responsibility of those (i.e. terrorists) who so use them, not the military acting in self-defense response.

There are three categories of people under the Geneva Conventions:
1. lawful combatants
2. civilians
3. unlawful combatants

In the third category of unlawful combatants are spies, saboteurs, members of the enemy armed forces captured not in the uniform of the enemy armed forces, and terrorists.

Each of those categories are clearly described and defined by the Conventions. Equally clearly described and defined is the lawful treatment that can be given by the capturing power to unlawful combatants.

A summary legal process is necessary to confirm the status of the defendant as an unlawful combatant, then execution is the lawful punishment.

This video shows the lawful outcome of such a summary proceeding of a "captured SS man". (Or possibly SS "Mann", the German word for the rank of SS private.)

In either case, he was apparently captured in civilian clothes, attempting terroristic sabotage. As defined by the Geneva Conventions, that was a war crime by an unlawful combatant.

Some advocate summary execution in the field for presently captured terrorists. This includes the erudite columnist and retired US Army Intelligence Colonel Ralph Peters, who wrote a very cogent column that to avoid all the harassment and propaganda the US is enduring from out enemies AND our "friends", the US simply adopt a military policy of not taking any prisoners in combat with terrorists. He advocates they all be shot on the spot.

I don't know that I agree with that view. I don't object on moral grounds-they've surely got it coming-but on the practical matter of the value of intelligence information to be obtained.

Of course, with all the crap we're now getting even from American Democrat Senators on how we interrogate captured terrorists, such as the idiot Pat Leahy, even the intelligence value potential is being undermined.

If it gets any worse, maybe Col. Peters is right: we should simply adopt the policy of not taking terrorists, unlawful combatants, as prisoners on the battlefield. The US is going to be vilified in either case, so we may as well take the maximum benefit to our war effort.

Schmuck. freedictionary.com: yiddish - Shmok - penis,fool.

Moral clarity is right. And a just verdict administered.

schmuck,

The only thing you have proven here is your genius choice of a moniker.

Actually, "schmuck" is what's left over after a Briss. A useless piece of bloody flesh.

I can't say I am surprised, really. If the general concensus here is to shoot prisoners, especially Muslim prisoners, that's consistent with the tone of everything else on this site, including such earth shattering news items as Somalian taxi drivers in Minnesota declining to carry liquor. The general idea that the Western World is under attack from homosexuals within and Muslims from afar seems to be the New Reality for Canadian and American Conservatives. What can I say? Long Live Chairwoman Anne Coulter and her Loyal Handmaidens, Rachel Marsden and KHate/KKKate.

If we are going to shoot prisoners of war without trial, are we also going to go back to the days of Bomber Harris, and start firebombing cities in Arabic countries that are unfriendly to the US?

Budd, you seem to have completely missed the point. According to the Geneva convention, terroristd are war criminals and after their stautus is confirmed by summary trial a legal punishment is execution. If they are prisoners of war they have committed no crime and there is therefore nothing to charge them with or try them for and they are to be protected but detained until the end of hostilities. At this point in time I would assume that the end of hostilities will occur when the taliban et al stop threatening to wipe western civilization of the map and kill all the infidels.

Schmucky set up a Straw Man.

Patton had no intention of of rearming the Nazis.
He advocated shooting them.

He did, however, want to rearm the German Army, which is what was eventually done.

Regardless of what Patton (or Churchill) may have wanted, it is highly unlikely that the Western Allies could have defeated the Soviet Union. The Soviets had the largest military force on earth at the time and they had just finished doing most of the fighting for the Allies. (85% of German losses occured on the Eastern front.) If the West provoked a war, then the chances were pretty good that they would be overrun and all of Europe would have had the opportunity to be Communist.

As for the Geneva Convention, the Geneva Convention does indeed prohibit the mistreatment of prisoners of war. It also prohibits pillage and bombing of civilians, and using "arms calculated to cause unnecessary suffering."

The U.S., as the world’s biggest power, is naturally the biggest flouter. The U.S. killed more than 2 million Vietnamese by carpet bombing civilian areas and carrying out systematic massacres. Three years ago it started an illegal war with Iraq for false reasons, killing hundreds of thousands and precipitating what is now clearly becoming a civil war. Yet no U.S. official has ever been tried for war crimes, or will be, because powerful nations create tribunals to punish their enemies, not dispense justice.

Budd C said:

"I can't say I am surprised, really. If the general consensus here is to shoot prisoners, especially Muslim prisoners"

I don't recall anyone specifically saying anything about shooting Muslims. Nice try though. Maybe if you say it enough times it will become true...

As for the rest of your nonsense, why are you so full of hate for those who are different or hold different opinions from you? It must be frustrating that you cannot control these people, and make them view the world as you see it.

Iberia said:

"Three years ago it started an illegal war with Iraq for false reasons"

see above.

The video that was supposed to be the core of this posting has been removed by YouTube, as I understand it, for a copyright violation. I wonder if the poster and his supporters would agree that copyright violators should be shot on sight by soldiers?

It's unfortunately typical of Steyn that he would attack Leahy without even mentioning, let alone responding to, the measures that have so exercised the Senator, including the removal of habeas corpus protections for legal residents of the United States.

Rather than address the bill's substantial flaws, Steyn prefers adolescent mockery about baklava and Korans.

People like Steyn typically tell us we're in some kind of war to defend the 'West' and its traditions of civilization against those who would destroy them: habeas corpus is a civilized tradition of some standing, and right now it's under attack from the Bush administration and its Senate allies.

Good for Leahy and others who are speaking out.

Mojo - Oy! The part of the schmuck thrown away after circumcision is the putz.