In article , DSK
wrote:

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...0430-1402.html (as visited
June 8, 2004, and available in the Clerk of Court's case file) (media
briefing describing ongoing operations in Afghanistan involving 20,000
United States troops). The United States may detain, for the duration of
these hostilities, individuals legitimately determined to be Taliban
combatants who "engaged in an armed conflict against the United States." If
the record establishes that United States troops are still involved in
active combat in Afghanistan, those detentions are part of the exercise of
"necessary and appropriate force," and therefore are authorized by the
AUMF."


Peter Wiley wrote:
Ah. So there isn't a new Govt controlling Afghanistan, then? It's still
in the control of the Taliban as a political and military force?

Not.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean that there isn't an armed conflict going
on. In fact, the legal blah-blah Dave cited does make some sense and
could cover the case for prisoners from Afghanistan.

The problem is, it's *still* not what the U.S. gov't is doing with
regard to the Gitmo detainees, nor the 'War On Terror' in general.

The problem is, depending on how you define it, there's an armed
conflict going on in so many different places that you could detain
probably 75% of the planet's population.

Look at the USA and various nutcase militia examples. Is this an
example of an armed conflict?

I don't, as I've said, have any problem with dealing summarily with
people caught under arms, sans uniform, on the field of battle, or
shooting people in cities who are actively trying to shoot you.
However, if they're captured, they're then entitled to a trial.

Face it, the Gitmo people have been locked up away from legal advice
and subjected to psy abuse for years now. How long did it take to deal
with the Japanese and Germans after WW2 finished?

From
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj.../nurembergACCO
UNT.html

Twelve trials, involving over a hundred defendants and several
different courts, took place in Nuremberg from 1945 to 1949.* By far
the most attention--not surprisingly, given the figures involved--has
focused on the first Nuremberg trial of twenty-one major war
criminals.* Several of the eleven subsequent Nuremberg trials, however,
involved conduct no less troubling--and issues at least as
interesting--as the Major War Criminals Trial.* For example, the trial
of sixteen German judges and officials of the Reich Ministry (The
Justice Trial) considered the criminal responsibility of judges who
enforce immoral laws.* (The Justice Trial became the inspiration for
the acclaimed Hollywood movie, Judgment at Nuremberg.)* Other
subsequent trials, such as the Doctors Trial and the Einsatzgruppen
Trial, are especially compelling because of the horrific events
described by prosecution witnesses.* (These three subsequent trials
each receive separate coverage elsewhere in this website.)

You guys haven't even managed to bring ONE person to trial as yet. One
strongly suspects this is because, unlike the Nuremberg trials, there
*is* nothing to charge these people with. In which case, it's an act of
an arbitrary and untrustworthy Govt and as such deserves to be
condemned out of hand, lest someone else closer to home goes the same
way.

People like Dave & Vito would have given the Amistad slaves over to the
Spanish.

PDW