If I understand your logic: We should remove the mote in our neighbor's eye before working on the beam in our own?

If that's how they taught you to do logic, you should ask for your tuition back.

I am clearly saying that people like YOU are dishonest on this issue, and that you are not really interested in the subject of torture at all. This is pure anti-Americanism and BDS

If Hillary is elected president you phonies will instantly lose interest in this subject. (For example, the policy of "rendition" was begun by the Clinton Administration, and none of you fake-leftists said boo about it.)

Actually, I was not clear here. If Hillary is elected and espouses in any way policies that assume that the US should act decisively as a force for good in the world (by, say, something like invading and liberating North Korea) you will turn on her too.

You fake-leftists hate Bush as a symbol, but you hate the USA as a reality. A reality that is greater and better than us, that demands that we put ourselves in second place, and give service (sometimes even unto death) and warm-hearted loyalty.

Fake-leftists hate The Church for analogous reasons. To the nihilist, belief is an affront and an irritant. And the thought of being subordinate to any higher power is unbearable.

Andrew,

Surely, we should remove the beam in our own eye.

Yet Saddam's crimes were beams, and ours merely motes.

Get a sense of proportion, dude.

I think that the US Govt did go over the line in dealing with Padillo.

How so? I'm not aware that he was subjected to any coercive interrogation...

I also am a little uneasy about the Padilla case. Now, keep in mind, I don't know all the details, and I'm really unconcerned enough about the case that I haven't bothered to learn them. But my understanding is that Padilla is a US citizen, who was suspected of plotting some nasty stuff, and so the Feds grabbed him and held him sans due process. The idea of a citizen being denied due process because the government thinks he ought not receive due process? I don't like that.

Now, I think it illustrates the beauty of our system - the president asserts authority, and the other branches reign him in where he goes too far. To that extent, the Padilla case is a positive thing, and the fact that the executive branch accepted defeat when it was meted out is a sign of our system's health, not some ominous sign of impending fascism. But I will say that I'm happy they lost this fight.

But I'd love to hear the other side!

I too do not know much about the case, or the law. (Aren't we a crowd of pontificators.)

But my understanding is that he did not just plot stuff on his own, but was a member of a foreign terrorist group--al Qaeda I assume?

Surely this is equivalent to taking up arms against this country, and should therefore result in the loss of the privileges of citizenship? But I suppose he should have due process in determining that.

(And was not his action a war crime? Which would result in the loss of the right to POW status?)

What really bugs me is the way these bozos game the system, using our freedom and legal protections against us. And the way leftists abet and condone this.

I remember in Gen. Patton's memoirs he mentioned a German soldier who stayed behind and hid and blew up a bridge as US troops crossed it---and then stood up and surrendered! And Patton harshly criticized the US soldiers who accepted the surrender. He was right. That German had forfeited the right to be a POW, and should have been shot immediately.

I agree if he were Johnny Walker Lindh on a battlefield in Afghanistan - military necessity changes everything. But when you're a US citizen who is arrested in Chicago, it seems to me that due process has to apply...

And, in the end, it did - and he's in jail for life...

John,

Was that German soldier in uniform?

Had he already surrendered once, and accepted parole?

If he was still in uniform, and hadn't accepted parole, who is at fault for the loss of American life? The German soldier for doing his job? Or the American engineers for not clearing the bridge of explosives?

Yeesh.

Yeah, the German soldier was in the service of a hideous tyranny. But if I had been Patton, I would have been sorely tempted to shoot the engineers. And I bet somebody's head on the American side did roll, if only figuratively.

**************

As for Padillo et al, ya gotta remember that, per the Geneva Convention, there are four tests an enemy combatant has to pass to be considered a lawful combatant and avoid a bullet in the back of the head. Too bad too many on the Left don't know that, and subject the rest of us to their mindless blather.

The German units retreated, and one guy remained behind to blow up the bridge. In uniform. Hiding in the bushes or something.

Whether or not the engineers should be faulted, the surrender was a fake, and should not have been accepted. Just as if he'd hidden, then popped up and shot someone, and then put up his hands and said, "Kamerad."

What exactly are the four tests?

From the "Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War":

Article 4

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

We're not fighting against a government in this "War on Terror", so much of the Geneva Conventions (there are four of them) don't apply.

In the quote above, what most directly applies to our situation in Afghanistan and Iraq is section 2, the four tests I wrote about, John.

Al-Qaeda and their allies don't follow the laws an usages of war generally, but where they really fall down is in meeting those four tests, and a combatant has to meet all four tests, not just one or most, but all four tests to be considered a lawful combatant.

The treatment of unlawful combatants is left up to the capturing Power, and most Powers just summarily execute such people.

That's a little brutal, but there's a reason for that beyond the obvious utility of not having to care for the unlawful combatant as if he were a Prisoner of War.

Such summary executions discourage people from becoming unlawful combatants. If unlawful combatants aren't discouraged, the occupying Power is forced to harass, injure, or kill the civilian population, either out of fear that they too will become unlawful combatants, or merely as an accident in the course of fighting unlawful combatants who are hiding among the civilian population.

And that's what the Leftoids miss about the Geneva Conventions. They exist to protect civilian populations, and the Leftoids, by insisting that P.O.W. treatment be extended to unlawful combatants such as Al-Qaeda and their allies, only encourage Al-Qaeda to act in ways that endanger civilians.