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Originally posted by almostaugust
Im just trying to understand the rationale for not upholding the international law with these detainees(?). Im happy to see them prosecuted or whatever, if its done with the world watching, rather than some clandestine mockery.
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We are upholding international law, there's no legal issue here unless you want to question whether or not they qualify as illegal combatant under the geneva convention. That requires they wear a uniform and other such things (it's somewhere here in the thread) for them to be a POW (who get the rights you're probably assuming they're entitled to).
The people who we pick up aren't neccisarily prone to wear these things (in large part being from Afghanistan/Pakistan area and being civilians) but technically you're going on an honor system of sorts since there's no way to tell what made the army pick them up and take them to Cuba, what they were wearing and doing, etc. it's just highly improbable a person from the places we're picking them up from would qualify as POW.