Posted on 03/16/2009 3:14:43 PM PDT by Michael Eden
Some analysts are claiming that this abandonment (dare I say it, 'cutting and running') from the term, "enemy combatant" has practical consequences; others say it's basically window dressing from a president who will outwardly make a cosmetic change to damn the Bush administration only to more or less continue the same policies. I don't claim to know who is more correct. But I am gravely concerned about the direction in which we seem to be headed.
And I have reason to believe that Obama's decision to change his terminology will lead to deeper, more fundamental consequences, as a Wall Street Journal article alludes to:
The term enemy combatant has been used for decades to define members of a military who engage in activities such as sabotage and espionage that occur outside normal combat. By defining Guantanamo detainees as enemy combatants, the Bush administration cleared the way for some to be tried in newly created offshore military commissions rather than in civilian courts.It is interesting to learn where the term "enemy combatant" came from. It's not just some phrase created out of thin air by "that fascist bastard George Bush to justify his warmongering." Rather, it comes out of the Geneva Convention.The Obama administration, in abandoning the term, hinted at its likely policy on the detainees. Mr. Holder expressed doubt about the Bush military commissions during his confirmation hearings, and said civilian courts may be the best place to try such prisoners.
The Geneva Conventions distinguish between lawful combatants, noncombatants, and unlawful combatants.Basically, a lawful combatant must fall under a legitimate chain-of-command structure; must wear some form of recognizable and distinguishing uniform or emblem; must carry weaponry openly; and must fight according to internationally-recognized rules of warfare.
And one of the things the Geneva Convention was clearly intended to do was to encourage combatants to fight "lawfully,' by employing those four characteristics. If a nation's combatants did in fact fight according to those characteristics, there were benefits. How they were treated if captured was defined and regulated. In other words, if combatants fought by internationally recognized standards, the benefits of the Geneva Convention applied to their soldiers.
The problem is, the Geneva Convention doesn't say much about "unlawful combatants" are to be treated. During World War Two, the Germans and the Japanese simply tended to line them up and shoot them after brutal interrogation sessions.
The United States is currently fighting a war - often by proxy - against enemies (yes, I said the word 'enemy' and I'm not going to take it back) who don't follow ANY of the four rules that would place them under Geneva Convention protection.
And the Obama administration is saying, "Let's protect them under the Geneva Convention anyway."
Do you see the problem? If we're going to treat unlawful combatants the same way as lawful combatants, what is really the incentive for being a lawful combatant? I hate to have to be the one to tell you, but by taking off a uniform, hiding weapons, and blending into the civilian population, you can do a lot more damage to the enemy - and have a much better chance of getting away following attacks.
It tends to be real hard on the civilians who get in the way; but it works GREAT for all those "unlawful combatants." They're harder to catch, and they have a much easier time planning surprise attacks that will generate high casualties.
the commander of the USS Cole when it was attacked by such "unlawful combatants" was outraged:
"The decision by President Obama to shift responsibility of captured terrorists from the Department of Defense to the Department of Justice sets a dangerous precedent in the war on terror. Now, those forces responsible for military actions to capture terrorists will no longer have a say in how and where they are detained, or when and where they are transferred out of U.S. control. By this change the President is no longer consider the threat or the intelligence value of detainees.''And Commander Lippold, all outrage notwithstanding, is correct in his facts: Obama IS - in stark departure from the Bush administration - treating these "undocumented protagonists" (via Hotair) as criminals who posses rights and privileges rather than as the very worst form of human cockroaches that they are.• Retired Navy Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, former commanding officer of the USS Cole warship and senior military fellow at the lobby Military Families United
Our soldiers are not trained police investigators. They are neither trained to collect evidence nor do they operate in an environment where such a luxury is allowable. And that's on top of the problem of exposing secret intelligence capabilities that led to our forces capturing these terrorists in the first place.
The Obama policy is both insane and immoral. It is insane because it rewards these terrorists by guaranteeing them status and treatment that they do not deserve - said treatment being reserved to those who have followed the rules of warfare - and eradicates any and all incentive to follow the rules of war. And it is immoral because it cannot do anything other than undermine our soldiers' operations and jeopardize their lives.
Since they were clearly combatants they must not be an enemy to him.
Besides being wrong, Obama is just wrong. Did I mention that he’s wrong?
If an organized army of people target your nation, your citizens, your interests all over the planet, if they bomb, shoot, and otherwise slaugther your citizens,if their stated goal is the destruction of yiou yiour nation and civilization what would you call these people?
Misguided youth?
Criminals ?
no good sob’s?
How about ENEMY COMBATANTs
Our current President is a MORON..........
We have to be politically correct. The term “enemy combatant” hurts the self-esteem of terrorists. The term is loaded with innuendo and assumptions about their behavior. We have to prove that we aren’t discriminating against those who would destroy us, because as Obama says, we have to live up to our highest ideas and ideals. We have to do all that to prove to the terrorists that we won’t put underwear on their heads anymore, as happened at Abu Grahib(sp?).
Did they read the dudes at Gitmo their Miranda rights before they picked them up off the battle field and put them there?
God Forbid anything like Sept. 11th happens again. I wonder what Obama would do in response to an event like that. I hope and pray we don’t find out.
Obama has ordered that they be called Undocumented Guest Democrats.
Obama says he will close Gitmo. So, they change the name of Gitmo. No more enemy combatants? They'll just invent another name for them too. End the "War in Iraq" by calling the U.S. forces there by another name. See a pattern yet?
I guess you don’t like Michelle Malkin’s alternative suggestion: “undocumented protagonists”
Big red rant off!
Don’t worry, be happy. Obambi has been taking lessons from the Clinton book of “what is, is.”
Obama says he will close Gitmo. So, they change the name of Gitmo. No more enemy combatants? They’ll just invent another name for them too. End the “War in Iraq” by calling the U.S. forces there by another name. See a pattern yet?
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This view kind of indicates that Obama is largely continuing the Bush policies (because they work) while changing the language (because a lot of liberals are truly stupid and redefinitions work if the people who tell them what to think are willing to go along).
And this is partially true.
But I also fear that Obama is genuinely making changes that will undermine us and expose us to another attack.
It would be wrong of the president to critizise his muslim bretheren.
Angkor,
I noted the original Geneva Convention term “unlawful combatant” without going to any lengths to explain the difference between it and “enemy combatant” because I frankly didn’t see any.
It is possible that liberal journalists used the term “enemy combatant” so they could then pursue the idea that it was a Bush creation rather than a long-accepted international principle.
Since my purpose was to simply put the overall term (whether “unlawful” or “enemy” combatant) into proper context, rather than to attempt to demonstrate that someone created the term “enemy combatant” to undermine the concept of “unlawful combatant,” I didn’t go into that analysis. But I’m glad you brought it up.
In any event, I hope your “big red rant” is not with me.
>>>>> In any event, I hope your “big red rant” is not with me. <<<<<
Nope, not one iota.
The media took extreme liberties with the terminology just as you say, and “undermine” is the perfect term although IMO they had some obscure journo agenda (being sissies) of not being “too judgmental” about the validity of terrorism (they are “objective journalists” after all) and so the ambiguous, redundant, and meaningless term “enemy combatant” served their multiple obtuse purposes ideally.
>God Forbid anything like Sept. 11th happens again. I wonder what Obama would do in response to an event like that.<
I wonder if he’ll call it “Friendly Fire” since they are no longer “Enemy Combatants”?
Obama’s pretty much taking a dump on the very thing people were whining about us violating in the first place (Geneva Convention) by essentially saying what it says doesn’t matter.
By the terms of the Geneva Convention, these people are enemy combatants and not subject to protection of the Convention. By removing that term, Obama has pretty much voided the entire thing; if one part isn’t to be followed, why should any of it?
“I wonder what Obama would do in response to an event like that.”
Depends on when it happened.
Angkor,
That might be an interesting article to write.
What one would need would be to show that it was the MEDIA or liberals who coined the term “enemy combatant” rather than the Bush admin, and that (a MUCH easier task, I imagine) the media then used the term “enemy combatant” in a pejorative rather than historically accurate sense.
I think Democrats are truly dangerous. But the media is even worse.
If the shoe were on the other foot, and it was conservatives who were benefiting from all the media propaganda, I imagine conservatives would be happy with it and use it. So the fact that “Democrats are using the media to their own advantage” isn’t the thing that burns my butt.
What DOES burn it - and scorchingly so - is that the media is dishonest, biased, and corrupt. And that they continually advance a blatant ideological agenda all the while claiming to be “objective.”
No democracy can long survive such a media. People cannot vote intelligently when they are continually denied the truth.
I've really got nothing to add to this. But it expresses the point of my article so well that I figured I'd bump it along the comments.
Angkor is correct and there is a huge and critical difference. Under international law, enemy combatants are legitimate soldiers and have a right to be treated as such if captured. Unlawful combatants have no such rights and are subject to execution.
“I noted the original Geneva Convention term “unlawful combatant” without going to any lengths to explain the difference between it and “enemy combatant” because I frankly didn’t see any.”
Angkor is correct and there is a huge and critical difference. Under international law, enemy combatants are legitimate soldiers and have a right to be treated as such if captured. Unlawful combatants have no such rights and are subject to execution.
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You MIGHT be right, but I think that the technical term is “lawful combatant,” as opposed to the other two terms: unlawful combatant and noncombatant (or civilian). And that there are only these three terms in the Geneva language.
If I’m right on the three terms above, then “enemy combatant” is merely another way of saying “unlawful combatant.” And in my discussion with Angkor, we both wonder if there’s a conspiracy on the part of the media to disassociate “enemy combatant” from it’s historic/Geneva Convention root [aka “unlawful combatant].
I know for a fact that the Geneva Convention uses those three terms: lawful combatant, noncombatant, and unlawful combatant. If it uses the term “enemy combatant” as a FOURTH term to mean something different from the other three terms, it is news to me.
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