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Originally Posted by daswig
Who said he was a prisoner of war? What exactly did he do to remove himself from the status of unlawful combatant/spy (who can be summarily executed) and put him into the status of POW? Was he wearing insignia recognizable at a distance? If not, what moved him into POW status?
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Sheesh...
By DEFINITION he was a prisoner. He has his hands tied behind his back. You can read the eye-witness accounts if you wish.
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he was humanely treated, he was humanely shot in the head, causing almost instantaneous death. While not as humane as a lethal injection, execution by musketry is still legal in parts of the US (namely Utah), and it hasn't been ruled to be cruel or unusual punishment.
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If I thought you were being sarcastic here, I woudl ignore this. The sad thing is I think you are being serious and I have nothing but contempt for such an opinion as that stated above.
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PURPORTEDLY?!??!? his widow admits he was VC. And not wearing uniforms is why they were not classified as POWS but rather as unlawful combatants.
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Whoa... hold on there Tiger. I said purportedly in case you spouted some nonesense about him being a spy in civilivan clothes. The fact that he was a VC means your original comment about him wearing civilian clothes is entirely irrelevant. And you've just proved it by your knee-jerk reaction to my attempt at a non-confrotational description of him as a "purported" VC.
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I can claim to be the Queen of the MayDay, that doesn't make it so. I'm sure he also claimed to be innocent, like most convicts do.
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Huh? He was taken prisoner. That's a fact. What are you arguing about?
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No, it doesn't. People in his situation can indeed be executed, just like spies can be executed.
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Yes it does. NO prisoners can be summarily executed. If you believe so, then you don't understand the Geneva Conventions (of which the US is a signatory).
And spies can be executed after a trial (if only in a military court).
I refer you to the Nuremberg Trials when the US charged, convicted and executed German military and political leaders. One of the charges was that they
illegally executed prisoners, and murdered civilians.
In other words, if you don't believe he was a prisoner of war, by definition he was therefore a civilian. Either way, his summary execution was a crime.
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Yup, you sure did. You just didn't mention why a US government policy would apply to a Lt. Col of the ARVN, which was part of a sovereign nation OTHER than the US, and which was NOT under US command or the UCMJ. He was captured, interrogated, passed up the chain of command to somebody who had the legal authority to judge him (in effect, a summary courts martial) and then execute him.
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The second reference (to which you once again make a knee-jerk reaction) quote was not refering to this specific occurrance at all, but your repeated bleating that the US did not commit war crimes in Vietnam. You may not believe me, but I (apparently rashly) assumed you would believe the US military itself.
I wonder what it must be like to live in a world where everyone else is always wrong and you are always right...
Mr Mephisto