> Unlawful combatants, by contrast, are not entitled to a trial, and can even be executed on the spot if it seems advisable

When you write these things, imagine how they work when your simply replace names of countries involved.

You are saying it's right and proper when a Russian soldier executes a Ukrainian civilian putting up resistance? Or a civilian that looks like the guy that was putting up resistance?

Either you are a combatant, or you are a criminal. If you are a combatant, Geneva convention applies. If you are a criminal, system of justice applies. There isn't some sort of third subhuman category you can just execute willy-nilly.

Civilians can and do take up arms to defend their homes. They do not have uniforms just for such an occasion and Geneva convention recongises that.

> If you are a combatant, Geneva convention applies.

Only if you are wearing a uniform and otherwise abiding by the laws of war.

Look it up.

Edit: Read it yourself.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Article.xs...

Note that even resistance forces are required to wear insignia.

It doesn't have to be a fancy uniform, even an armband of a specific color will work.

What you cannot do is engage in hostilities while hiding among the civilian population.

And how do we know that the people locked up in Gitmo were not wearing an armband or something similar?

Oh, right, the United States government told us. How convenient.

Truth is, in many cases, those people weren't combatants at all. But when you're denied due process because of the presumption of being an "illegal combatant", it's kinda hard to prove otherwise.

> And how do we know that the people locked up in Gitmo were not wearing an armband or something similar?

> Oh, right, the United States government told us. How convenient.

Yes, the United States government has kept them prisoner for 20 years, at great inconvenience and expense, because they just want to be meanies. You bet.

> But when you're denied due process because of the presumption of being an "illegal combatant", it's kinda hard to prove otherwise.

"Due process" is a feature of United States civilian law.

Not international martial law.

> Yes, the United States government has kept them prisoner for 20 years, at great inconvenience and expense, because they just want to be meanies.

Well, no, they took them prisoner and held them there initially for a variety of bad reasons, and then they were kept there subsequently largely because of intrabranch squabbles, radicalization because of long unjust confinement, and foreign reluctance to help resolve the problem (in large part due to the preceding point) making it difficult to find a resolution to the problem created by the initial bad decisions.

(Anthropomorphizing the US government as if it were an individual with general consistence of interest is... not consistent with political reality, often, or on this point in particular.)

Every one of them is there for a "bad reason"? Not a genuine terrorist in the lot?

Sorry, you are not arguing this point in good faith.

If there are, why is the government fighting tooth and nail to prevent anything pertaining to those cases from ending up in civil courts?

Your "prisoners aren't entitled to due process" point doesn't matter - even if true, if we are the good guys, we should embrace the process that conclusively establishes guilt or innocence for everyone to see, not lock people up in special you-have-no-rights prisons.

> Yes, the United States government has kept them prisoner for 20 years, at great inconvenience and expense, because they just want to be meanies. You bet.

So there are no political prisoners in China?

The United States is not China.

It's not like these people were found in a battlefield. Most of them were kidnapped from their homes in air raids. It's pretty hard to argue that they didn't have a legal right to trial.

A good number were proffered up for cash to the US on a bounty system and were little more than tourists from other parts of the world with few local friends or contacts and ideal patsies for whatever stories local warlords spun about them.

"Tourists" don't generally travel to active war zones.

Sure they do. Folks who have families who live in war zones, for example, will almost certainly fit the definition. Also, I see you've never heard of Miles Routledge, in fact I think he's in Afghanistan right now on a shooting trip with the Taliban - and his next destination is the South Sudan. [1] I myself have been to more than a handful of spicy jurisdictions.

It's fine to say you wouldn't but let's not go projecting.

[1] https://nypost.com/2021/08/18/uk-student-miles-routledge-fli...

> Also, I see you've never heard of Miles Routledge, in fact I think he's in Afghanistan right now on a shooting trip with the Taliban

If "Miles Routledge" is on a "shooting trip with the Taliban", he deserves anything he gets.

And if you make a habit of visiting "spicy jurisdictions", you deserve anything you get.

I say this not out of animus for you or Routledge, but if you knowingly and intentionally engage in risky behavior, you don't get to whine when something goes wrong.

Edit: I smoke cigarettes, which I know to be risky behavior. If I get lung cancer, I won't be whining about it.

Similarly, if Routledge's Taliban buddies decide they don't like him any more, and take a notion to saw off his head on video (a rather more likely risk than him accidentally being sent to Gitmo, IMO), that's on him.

right, but the fact that you smoke cigarettes doesn't give the US the right to lock you up without charges. The problem isn't that these people got hurt, it's that they got illegally imprisoned for decades without charges or trials.

Smoking cigarettes exposes me to the risk of lung cancer.

Being buddies with the Taliban exposes you to the risk of them sawing off your head, or being taken prisoner as an unlawful combatant.

And no, imprisoning unlawful combatants indefinitely is not "illegal", neither under United States law nor under the international laws of war.

If you claim otherwise, I'm going to have to ask for a citation.

> I'm going to have to ask for a citation.

And it gets a downmod, rather than a citation. Hint: that means you lose.

You've completely missed the point. We as a society believe people have a presupposition of innocence. The state must prove guilt. You don't get throw into jail to await trial forever if you happen to be wandering the wrong part of town - and you shouldn't if you're wandering the wrong part of the globe. This is literally the bare minimum standard to which we hold ourselves.

And for very good reason. The states power should always be checked, at home or abroad.

This is especially important as these days wars don't end.

> And if you make a habit of visiting "spicy jurisdictions", you deserve anything you get.

So far what I've got is a broader perspective so thank you.

so in civilized countries, we have these things called trials where evidence can be weighed rather than kicking people up without charges for a few decades and speculating.

It is forbidden under the Geneva Conventions to put lawful combatants on trial.

Unlawful combatants are not entitled to a trial.

It is a grievous error to assume that civilian law applies in a military context.

It's wrong to assume that all of the several hundred prisoners from multiple countries were "unlawful combatants".

As stated, a large number were delivered to the US in exchange for bounty and were alleged to be working with terrorists, allegations that were taken at face value, not looked into for years, if ever, and often lacking evidence.

Attempting to slide out of this via a false binary (ie. either lawful or unlawful combantants) is simply sleazy.

That's so weird then that the US was putting them up for trials. Not all of them, only some of them - and not on any particular schedule. In fact 10 of them are awaiting trial at this very moment.

You can't have it both ways.

I'm not "having it both ways".

Unlawful combatants are not entitled to a trial. That doesn't mean you can't give them one if you feel like it.

You can basically do anything you want with them, including giving them a trial or even simply shooting them on the spot.

> You can basically do anything you want with them

Unless "you" accidentally transport them to the United States like any other prisoner of the US government, in which case they are entitled to legal due process. It's a very principled system that we should all feel great about.