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.
Btw,
I noted how “unlawful combatants were treated during WWII when I said:
“The problem is, the Geneva Convention doesn’t say much about how “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.”
So I DO note that unlawful combatants - whom are today often being called “enemy combatants” - did not have any rights or privileges accorded to them.
And my ultimate point is that if we wipe out these distinctions, we may as well have the armies of the world throw away their uniforms and start employing the tactics of the terrorists to wage war whenever it is useful for a nation to do so.
So I’m not doing what you think I’m doing, but rather arguing that we need to keep the G.C. distinctions intact.
>>>>>> 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. <<<<
Yes sir, precisely.
Unlawful combatants are nonentities under any and all international laws of war including the Geneva Conventions precisely because they are unlawful, and hence they may be prosecuted by whatever method and manner deemed proper by their captors, not limited to and including espionage, spying, and terrorism, in either a civilian court or by military tribunal.