Re:A Secretly Detained American Has Asked for a Lawyer – But...
by pessimizer on Sunday December 03, 2017 @05:41AM
(#15836997)
> Enemy combatant "held without charges" sounds a lot like any vanilla prisoner of war.
This is a convenience because war is chaotic, and prisoners of war could be held near the front, where people have more pressing duties than to worry about the comfort of prisoners that they only took out of a sense of civility (above some minimal consensus standard.) Once prisoners are away from the front, and resources are available, there's no reason why a prisoner of war should be any different from any other prisoner.
When this treatment becomes "the normal rules of war" and active for years on end, nowhere near a front, it has become a rationalization and a loophole.
This is a convenience because war is chaotic, and prisoners of war could be held near the front, where people have more pressing duties than to worry about the comfort of prisoners that they only took out of a sense of civility (above some minimal consensus standard.) Once prisoners are away from the front, and resources are available, there's no reason why a prisoner of war should be any different from any other prisoner.
When this treatment becomes "the normal rules of war" and active for years on end, nowhere near a front, it has become a rationalization and a loophole.