Ambassador Joseph Wilson...

[itsbob]

Originally Posted by Spoiled

our allies usualy wear some kind of uniform, proably sporting a flag of their place of origin, however the people fighting us probably dont... no flag + gun + known place of hostility... i mean really, we had to of been able to distinguish them to know there was an "insurgent force"

And there you have it, you have just defined for us an Isurgent/ terrorist that can NOT be considered a POW..

Thank You!

[Spoiled]

Originally Posted by itsbob

It's called being efective and ending the war.. we can keep doing what we are doing, and they will do the same... for decades..

If it was up to you, would you take the steps necessary to end it today, or would you rather wait until your grandchildren get drafted to go over there and continue the same??

and oh, btw, we never signed the Geneva Convention..

terrorism isnt going to go away regardless of what we do, just like serial killers wont go away... neither will cults...

and we did sign the geneva convention: http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020212.html

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Spoiled

regardless, we signed the agreement, we should stick to it... an eye for an eye? why do we need to lower ourselves to their level, are we not then becoming the thing we are hating on?

...are you serious?

Saddam was a constant, non stop threat to stability in a region we have serious national security concerns; free flow of oil at market prices. Say what you will about oil and energy; in the near term oil stability is important to every US citizen. He was also developing WMD's. This is not up for debate; it is fact. If you argue it turned out it wasn't as serious or advanced as advertised, then why nota 'yeah!' like the firemen do when it's just s brush fire and not the whole house? Also ask yourself; where did his WMD's go? Also aske yourself "wasn't it obvious Saddam was a 'when' not 'if' problem. There you have the essence of the Iraq War resolution.

Second, Osama and company are explicit; they declared war on us in 1997 with the goal of international Shaira or Holy rule...not just for Islamic nations but for ALL. Ask yourself if it isn't likely that people who used suicide as a weapon would likely use WMD's if they get a chance.

Now. Who's gonna deal with all this before it gets worse than airliners crashing into civilian targets?

The UN?

How can you sit there and worry that WE are becoming THEM???

[itsbob]

WHOOPS, never mind i was wrong about us signing the Convention..

[2ndAmendment]

Originally Posted by Spoiled

our allies usualy wear some kind of uniform, proably sporting a flag of their place of origin, however the people fighting us probably dont... no flag + gun + known place of hostility... i mean really, we had to of been able to distinguish them to know there was an "insurgent force"

You just choose to be selective in your understanding of the very article you post.

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

That is very definitive. It does not say by lack of visible sign and combination location and type of weapon. You can't have it both ways. The insurgents must conform to the rules or they do not have to be treated according to the rules. One of the problems our troops have is being able to distinguish an insurgent from a normal Iraqi on the street. If the insurgents were wearing a badge that distinguished them, they would already be wiped out.

[itsbob]

Originally Posted by Spoiled

terrorism isnt going to go away regardless of what we do, just like serial killers wont go away... neither will cults...

and we did sign the geneva convention: http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020212.html

Actually terrorists DO go away.. look at Germany and Western Europe after WWII.. there were insurgents, and terrorists aplenty.. and they lived with them, and until the 70's they were still making their presence known.. car bombs, pipe bombs and the like..

Lets see, we had the Red brigade, the Baader Meinhopf.. just to name two.. and they have all basically have become instinct. But to do so, you don't capture them and put them in prison, you hunt them down and kill them, they can not be rehabiliatated..

[ylexot]

Well, terrorism in general will probably never go away (but we can hope that some day...), but we sure can discourage it by destroying those that practice it!

Originally Posted by Spoiled

regardless, we signed the agreement, we should stick to it... an eye for an eye? why do we need to lower ourselves to their level, are we not then becoming the thing we are hating on?

I often wonder if we should. I went through SERE school when I was in the Navy, and was given a very light exposure to what life might be like as a prisioner. The main point of teh training was you should fully expect to be tortured, even though torture is banned by most "civilized" countries.

The truth of the matter is that the countries that actually believe that torture is wrong are not the countries we would go to war with. We go to war with countries that don't believe in human rights, yet alone the rights of enemy combatants, hence our folks have gotten tortured by Germans, Japanese, Russians, Chinese, Koreans, North Vietnamese, Iraqis, Iranians, Cambodians, and on and on.

While I see the point of those who fear we will become that which we are fighting, the reality is that when you are at war you should be fighting to win, and the key element to winning is destroying your enemy's desire to fight. Right now every enemy we face knows that if they get captured that they'll be treated well, not tortured, not beheaded, etc., which actually gives them a great deal of power over us. They know that they need not provide any information, they need not heed threats, and that if they decide to keep silent or even to escape that there's nothing very damaging that we'll do to them. That's no way to fight a war. I would much rather have the enemy fearing that getting captured normally means getting your head stuck on a pike if you don't cooperate.

[2ndAmendment]

Originally Posted by Bruzilla

Right now every enemy we face knows that if they get captured that they'll be treated well, not tortured, not beheaded, etc., which actually gives them a great deal of power over us. They know that they need not provide any information, they need not heed threats, and that if they decide to keep silent or even to escape that there's nothing very damaging that we'll do to them. That's no way to fight a war. I would much rather have the enemy fearing that getting captured normally means getting your head stuck on a pike if you don't cooperate.

This does seem that a "take no prisoners" policy would be best. Saves money too. A bullet or two vs. shelter, food, amenities, guards, and fighting the ACLU and Democrat BS. I bet the savings would be huge.

[FromTexas]

Some good reading from IBD...

http://www.investors.com/editorial/I...issue=20051028

Also, they had a great editorial on "Poor Valerie". It made some great points on who really deserves some blame. Essentially, it laid it at Valeries feet for sending her husband out to do a job which she has been shown to have a pre-conceived bias in by the Senate Intelligence Committee's Pre-War Intelligence Report (i.e. her admitting sending Wilson and saying he was going to investigate this "crazy report"). It also details all the information Wilson found which has been proven factual that goes against Wilson's public diatribe. But back to the subject...

Essentially, since she sent him and then let him go on a massive publicity stint (NYT op-ed, cozying up to Kerry in the election, etc... ) that she should have realized she was being made very public by association; especially so since she should know politics and that people would find out who sent him. She set herself up to fail if she was that worried about her identity. However, the reality is she apparently wasn't very worried and neither was Wilson.

I would say they were right on the mark. Anyone who is that worried about theirs or their spouses covert status would not be placing themselves up to be a media poster boy (this was before anyone was outed) and shining a spotlight on themselves in such grand fashion.