From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Jul 30 2003 - 00:25:54 MDT
On Tuesday 29 July 2003 20:07, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> When an individual violates the Geneva Conventions by acting as an
> illegal combatant, ALL of their rights are automatically forfeit
> BECAUSE of their crime of acting as an illegal combatant.
Rights are not dependent on the Geneva Convention and I don't think it
actually has anything on such a category as "illegal combatant" anyway. The
founders of America were "illegal combatants" by the lights of the official
government of the day. Did they have no rights? Do revolutionaries have
no rights? Do they somehow only get rights when/if they win?
> They can be
> legally executed summarily without trial.
No, they cannot. Read your Constitution. It does not establish some special
category such as this.
>These are not innocent men in
> Gitmo's prison. They are killers who refuse to wear a uniform, who
> attack civilians and torture innocents. They refuse to operate by the
> Geneva Conventions, and since they choose to operate in violation of
> the laws of war, they will be tried outside the civilian court system,
> for their crime is not a civil crime, it is a military one.
>
Look, we have an Attorney General who would happily declare people who merely
demonstrate or support some group that is later (again without due process)
termed a terrorist organization or supporter to be illegal combatants and
lose their rights of citizenship. This without due process of any kind on
government's whim. Do you believe that is at all compatible with any sort of
Free State or free people?
> I have several times asked people to read the Geneva Conventions,
> please do not make any more unsupported claims about such things until
> you do so.
>
The founders did not put their ass on the line in order to be stripped of all
rights on some bogus interpretation of the Geneva Convention.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 30 2003 - 00:33:22 MDT