66 Months? For You My Muslim Friend, 30 Years!

[Graham Kennedy]

If you don't want to treat an insurgent like a criminal, then you treat them like an enemy soldier. It's really very simple.

I would say that treating insurgents like soldiers would be a bad idea - it legitimises their aims to a certain extent, like granting IRA prisoners political status did. Criminalisation makes it clear that they're just a bunch of thugs trying to blackmail the government into kow-towing to them.

Seems to me that when the US declared it a "war on terror" and went around saying that they were at war all the time, they pretty much made that decision right there.

Personally I think the "war on terror" is foolishness in the extreme. You might as well declare a "war on harsh langunage". Terrorism is a tactic!

Hell, answer me this : How would we even know when the war on terror was won? Not how likely is it to be won, or how long will it take, but what are the actual goals we are meant to be striving for?

[sunnyside]

The war on terror is a slogan. Rather like the war on poverty and the war on drugs.

Actually can you in any legal manner declare war on international organizations? I.e. Al Queda?

Functionally (as defined by our courts) what we've done is declare something resembling war on a number of organizations labeled as terrorist. In addition we have a couple insurgencies we're dealing with.

Much like the wars on poverty and drugs there isn't going to be some final ultimate victory unless we get orbital mind control lasers or something.

The hope is more that we'll leave the countries with the insurgencies in some sort of stable condition and hopefully gimp the terrortist organizations such that the war on terror rhetoric just sort of fades.

[Graham Kennedy]

The war on terror is a slogan. Rather like the war on poverty and the war on drugs.

I agree.

Actually can you in any legal manner declare war on international organizations? I.e. Al Queda?

That's a good question. Personally I think that military action has a role to play in fighting Al Queda, but only a fairly small one. When the CIA tracks down the location of some meeting of high muckity-mucks in the organisation, by all means go and lob a smart bomb through the window from an F-18. But making this war on terror all about military invasions of other countries was a catastrophic mistake.

Anybody know why we suddenly got peace in Northern Ireland a while back? It wasn't just some accident of history, it's actually a fascinating story if you get into it, and very much the kind of thing that needs to be done to Al Queda.

[sunnyside]

Anybody know why we suddenly got peace in Northern Ireland a while back? It wasn't just some accident of history, it's actually a fascinating story if you get into it, and very much the kind of thing that needs to be done to Al Queda.

Well first you generally ground at them for about 30 years of what was really a low intensity conflict. Then gave the bombers (Sinn Féin) some official power. You had some agreements, but mostly it just seems that after being a conquered territory for so long they'd just gotten used to it and were willing to accept peace. And the origional combatants had arthritis now.

Plus the actual conquering, oppresion, and partial genocide (as considered by some in regards to most of the death in the potato famine owing to the British continuing to ship food out of Ireland) had occured far earlier and set the stage in the 21st century where over half the population remaining in northern Ireland wants to be part of Britain.



At any rate have we moved past the "US is doing illegal stuff" bit in regards to the OP because:

1. The geneva conventions are clear that you can have trials for prisioners of war and
2. They have a vague bit in article 3 of the convention that addresses situations like this and, except for our creative definition of torture, we're holding to that.
3. Release insurgants while the insurgancy is still going on is as dumb as releasing POWs while the war is still going on, and for the same reason.

[Graham Kennedy]

I read an article a while back about the IRA. After the end of the cold war the government taked MI-5 with penetrating them, and MI-5 did an absolutely fantastic job apparently. So much so that the head of IRA security was a British agent. That alone gave them a list of pretty much everybody in the IRA; for years, those who were most vocally against peace found themselves gradually captured one by one, or even singled out as British spies and dealt with by the IRA itself. And although they got increasingly paranoid about how badly they had been penetrated, the very fact that their own security head was one of the spies meant that he was the guy looking for the spies! We basically gutted them from the inside out. They sued for peace in the end because they'd been beaten.

I hope the CIA and others are doing the same thing to Al Queda. It'll be a years long process, no doubt, maybe decades even, but that's the way you beat terrorists. The military is too blunt a weapon to be truly effective.

[Captain Seafort]

For the same reason it isn't quite right to consider a soldier in a traditional war a simple criminal. Not the least of which is the obvious likelyhood that they'd resume their attacks.

I've already pointed out the difference between a war and what's going on in Iraq and Aghanistan. A soldier should not be considered a criminal unless he comits criminal acts unconnected to his status as a soldier, or he violates the laws of war. The Iraqi militias, AQI, the Taliban, etc, are not soldiers, and are therefore criminals - there's no half-way option.

First of all it's a little fuzzy under the Geneva conventions if we'd be allowed to punish them accordingly. I.e. to execute any captured combatatant that commited "murder" in regards to a soldier. Doubly so since we could probably level charges of "espionage" or "treason" against them and just have some mass lethal injections.

Why not? The Geneva conventions do not apply to criminals - they're subject to the normal law of the land.

If we don't charge them with executable offenses the sentences start getting short fast. Meaning we'd be releasing the guys makin the IEDs and such long before the insurgency is over. Which I really think should be obviously stupid. I honestly can't see how you don't understand this to be a bad idea.

What I realise is a bad idea, and you apparently don't, is to base sentences on how long a particular oganisation's activities are going to go on for (and to arbitrarilly extend them), instead of basing them on the actual crime commited, is to effectively say "we respect the rule of law, except when it gets in our way". This exact scenario arose in Northern Ireland. In the early 70s internment without trial was used for the exact reason you propose it in Iraq - to keep bombers off the streets until the IRA was defeated. It was a mistake - and the best recruiting tool the IRA had by a long way. Internment was then dropped, and replaced by the criminal justice system, in which terrorists were arrested, convicted, and once their sentences were up, released. Yes, those released often went on to commit more crimes, and kill more people - they were arrested again, charged again, and the whole process started anew. There was a cost in lives, but it made a clear distinction between who was respecting the rule of law and who was not, and helped in the long term to bring the violence to an end.

[Tsukiyumi]

Honestly, and no offense to anyone, but comparing the IRA to Muslim extremists is a poor choice of example. Infiltrating and sabotaging an extremely religious group of pure zealots like Al Qaeda or Hamas is near impossible, even assuming we feel like waiting forty years and through a number of attacks. Tracking their location and activities, and seizing their assets is a much better option.

[Graham Kennedy]

Honestly, and no offense to anyone, but comparing the IRA to Muslim extremists is a poor choice of example. Infiltrating and sabotaging an extremely religious group of pure zealots like Al Qaeda or Hamas is near impossible, even assuming we feel like waiting forty years and through a number of attacks. Tracking their location and activities, and seizing their assets is a much better option.

I don't see why it would be near impossible. Any organisation has to recruit - if it doesn't then it will die, and your job is already done. Not saying it's as easy as answering a "Terrorists Wanted" ad in the paper, but there's no reason it can't be done.

[Tsukiyumi]

Honestly, and no offense to anyone, but comparing the IRA to Muslim extremists is a poor choice of example. Infiltrating and sabotaging an extremely religious group of pure zealots like Al Qaeda or Hamas is near impossible, even assuming we feel like waiting forty years and through a number of attacks. Tracking their location and activities, and seizing their assets is a much better option.

I don't see why it would be near impossible. Any organisation has to recruit - if it doesn't then it will die, and your job is already done. Not saying it's as easy as answering a "Terrorists Wanted" ad in the paper, but there's no reason it can't be done.

The question in this case is finding enough young Arabic men willing to infiltrate. It's one thing to send white operatives to infiltrate a white organization, but here you can't just send Billy Caucasian in. Finding enough people of the "correct" ethnicities would be a serious challenge.

It does happen, though. A friend of my family worked for the CIA in his home country of Lebanon for years. So, it's possible, but a lot more difficult.

[Aaron]

The question in this case is finding enough young Arabic men willing to infiltrate. It's one thing to send white operatives to infiltrate a white organization, but here you can't just send Billy Caucasian in. Finding enough people of the "correct" ethnicities would be a serious challenge.

It does happen, though. A friend of my family worked for the CIA in his home country of Lebanon for years. So, it's possible, but a lot more difficult.

Part of the problem is that America is just plain bad at that sort of thing, having long since abandoned it for technology. It is possible to do but it's largely left for her allies, the SAS have been doing some of it by using Bisto to blend in.

[Tsukiyumi]

...the SAS have been doing some of it by using Bisto to blend in.

Bisto? What is it, tanning spray? Even if their accents are good enough, and their features are similar, most folks we'd want to infiltrate probably have poor dental practices, and a lot of rotten teeth. Rule out anyone with good dental hygene. There are a lot of factors that would give them away on careful examination; the best way is to find people of the same ethnicity, and like I said, that's tough to do.

[Captain Seafort]

Ahh, Bisto

[sunnyside]

I'd be interested to hear more about this SAS infiltration.

I've heard that infiltrating Al Queda is considered much harder than the old Kremlin because for one new recruits are highly disposable and at the least expected to engage in combat, whereas the IRA spent most of its time wanking around.

But also that the upper reaches of Al Queda are extremely hard to penetrate due to their tribal nature. And no amount of Bisto will have made you grow up in a certain tribe so people know you.

[Aaron]

I'd be interested to hear more about this SAS infiltration.

I've heard that infiltrating Al Queda is considered much harder than the old Kremlin because for one new recruits are highly disposable and at the least expected to engage in combat, whereas the IRA spent most of its time wanking around.

But also that the upper reaches of Al Queda are extremely hard to penetrate due to their tribal nature. And no amount of Bisto will have made you grow up in a certain tribe so people know you.

They do more of it against the Taliban I'm told than AQ, who are pretty much a minority in both Iraq and Afghanistan and apparently quite unpopular with the locals.

[Tsukiyumi]

I'm finding it quite amusing that they use powdered gravy for skin coloration.

Just don't use the pork flavor!