It depends on how it's done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it.
rudy g.
Would Jack Bauer do it?
That's the only way to answer this, and all other related questions.
We had a substantive discussion of that, where I got kind of schooled by Idealist. Comes out to 'depends', IIRC. Think, e.g., a sleeping sentry.
In Will Bird's To the Other Shore there's an anecdote of my uncle Ralph's kicking some sleeping Germans awake and pointing his Sten at them. They must have been nearly as exhausted at the Germans, during the richly pointless battle between the German 15th Army and the Canadian 2nd, on the Scheldt Estuary, which had already been bypassed by the main armies.
I think people sometimes bomb places where other people may be sleeping. "Combatant" status does not entitle a party to a "fair fight," whatever that means, or superior weapons systems (armor, armor-piercing, etc.) would be perforce outlawed.
In Bill Mauldin's Up Front, which is, the Willie & Joe cartoons aside, one of the best books about WWII that I have read, he relates the tale of a friend who found two Germans sleeping in the field, spooning for warmth. He cut the throat of one for the other to find when he woke, to scare the other Germans in the area.
'Enemy combatant' doesn't sound like it should be synonymous with 'prisoner' but it probably is.
Upon consideration, the fact that someone is doing a google search for the answer might be the most disturbing part of this.
7: Eh, this is something people in the military take classes on, and take tests about. I was googling things like that in the argument I'm recalling, and coming up with Army training stuff. Someone who's studying might easily be looking for materials online.
6: Exactly. I guess I could imagine an active warfare scenario where it might (I emphasize might) be legally permissible to kill a sleeping sentry.
But when "enemy combatant" means "someone we are holding in indefinite detention because we've decided to call him an 'enemy combatant' though we've yet to actually bring charges against him" ...
I don't know why you would think "enemy combatant" means "prisoner" here. That's an extremely uncharitable interpretation.
Yeah. Once someone's a prisoner, I can't imagine anyone worrying about the legal import of whether they were awake or not. The question doesn't make much sense in the 'prisoner' context.
It's just that every time I've been exposed to the word, it has been a euphemism for "prisoner who we want to be able to torture and detain indefinitely." But I suppose it may mean something else.
Yeah, I kind of agree with Ned's 10. I mean, I know that the term has become intolerably stretched, but I doubt that Gitmo guards are googling to find out whether or not they should murder their prisoners in their sleep, or when they're awake. If you're talking about killing a prisoner, asleep vs. awake is not the relevant moral inquiry.
14--
try to stay awake, okay?
otherwise, you could get killed around here.
A field agent who's stumbled upon an AQI nest and, in a crisis of conscience, dialed up Unfogged on his Helio? Nah. Five will get you ten it's Jonah Goldberg playing Halo 4: Keyboards Rising.
Of course it's sometimes OK to kill sleeping combatants. The worrying thing, as already mentioned, is that someone's googling for it.
What if the enemy combatant looks like he's awake, but he's really sleepwalking because he's been taking Ambien. Also, he's naked.
10, 12: I think the customary term is "combatant," with qualifications for legal and illegal, and distinctions drawn between combatants and noncombatants (prisoners, medical personnel, civilians).
The Administration uses the term "enemy combatant" for the usual Administration reasons. See the "Chickenshit" chapter of Paul Fussell's Wartime for similar lies, damned lies and euphemisms (cough ethnic cleansing cough)
17: I'd rather people google this sort of thing, or seek legal advice elsewhere, than shoot from the hip, literally or otherwise.
he's really sleepwalking because he's been taking Ambien. Also, he's naked.
What if he's in a wheelchair and writing a nasty op-ed column in his sleep. Naked.
I'm not so much worried that someone from a .mil address googled it but that they clicked on Unfogged. Hoo boy.
I think Unfogged has a moral duty to get to #1 on all such google searches.
The answer should be "Baby Jesus doesnt want you to kill."
I wonder whose counsel he ended up taking. My guess is bob mcmanus's.
1. A person who is recognized or who, in the circumstances, should be recognized to be hors de combat shall not be made the object of attack.
2. A person is hors de combat if: (a) He is in the power of an adverse Party; (b) He clearly expresses an intention to surrender; or (c) He has been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and therefore is incapable of defending himself; provided that in any of these cases he abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape.
the other deeply disturbing thing about that google search is how many common words were left in, to no good effect.
i don't think you'd get any different hits with:
illegal kill enemy combat asleep
though i will defer to others' google-fu if i'm wrong.
If you're a prisoner you cease to be a combatant. Enemy is redundant; I'd be more worried if they wanted to know whether you can legally kill a FRIENDLY combatant while they're asleep.
Did the "enemy combatant" thing have any legal reality? I mean, they decided they didn't want to treat them as either prisoners of war or common criminals, but I don't know whether that phrase had any legal meaning or whether Rumsfeld just pulled it out of his arse.
I think it's more worrying that the dude thought Unfogged might have an answer to his completely understandable google search.
What if he's in a wheelchair and writing a nasty op-ed column in his sleep. Naked.
Damn you Apo, do you have any idea what image you just made me visualize? Eeegads, now I've got to go rinse my mouth out or something.
what image you just made me visualize?
Just get the laptop placed strategically.
4: not pointless, as without the clearing of the Schelde estuary, the Antwerpen harbour could not be used. Also, but this is a minor point, it saved my father's family from the famine winter of 44-45. But yes, the fighting there was horrible, coming in from the east through the neck of Beveland with not enough room for fancy moves so every assault was a frontal assault on defended positions.
Continuing 24: I mean, who better to advise on an ethical question than one of the few non-anonymous commenters here, who also has sterling moral credentials?
Is it legal to kill an enemy combatant when you're sleeping?
Is it legal to kill an enemy combatant when you're sleeping?
Once again, the presence or absence of Ambien determines the answer to this.
I don't think it's that worrisome nor odd that someone from a .mil is googling that. A number of military members have some moral questions about what it is they are told to do. A number of military members also wonder what the public opinion on such matters is. Some, of course, couldn't care less. Not all soldiers, sailors, etc. are in the military to kill them some terrorists. Some of them take their oath to defend the US Constitution quite seriously. It's shameful that their loyalty is being exploited by an administration that uses the Constitution as a dart board.
The first sentence of 16 would be cool, though.
31: Perhaps necessary, and I'm glad about your family. Ralph was killed later that month and another uncle never recovered, physically or psychologically, from his injuries incurred there.
For Canadians, it's the Vimy Ridge of WWII: something to be proud of militarily, but was it worth it?
#27: the phrases "enemy combatant" and "unlawful combatant" don't appear in so many words in the Geneva Conventions but they do appear quite often in US jurisprudence and it's not unreasonable to use the phrase "unlawful combatant" to describe someone like a mercenary who is specifically described as not having the right to be treated as a combatant but nevertheless obviously is one in the ordinary meaning of the word. It is pretty difficult though to get from the normal meaning of "unlawful enemy combatant" to what the Bush/Cheney gang wanted to make it mean - historically, if you weren't a combatant, you were an ordinary criminal to be tried as such.
16--
"A field agent who's stumbled upon an AQI nest and, in a crisis of conscience, dialed up Unfogged on his----?"
shoe-phone.
"is that you, chief?"
38: Hence the extensive debates about the status of partisans and other irregular forces and the requirement of identifying uniforms, badges, etc.
Now I'm all worn down by weepin'
My eyes are filled with tears, my lips are dry
If I catch my opponents ever sleepin'
I'll just slaughter them where they lie
38: So can Blackwater guys be considered "unlawful combatants", in as much as they are mercenaries?
I believe that the "unlawful" combatant definition comes from a single U.S. case from WWII -- disguised spies and saboteurs. The case has never been tested by U.S. courts, IIRC, and has no standing in international law. Furthermore, the defendant in that case weren't much like al Qaeda; they were undercover, pretending to be Americans, and travelling under false papers.
38: Best of both worlds from the administration's perspective. They're combatants, so they can be shot rather than arrested and booked for trial, but they're unlawful, so the administration doesn't have to worry their pretty little heads about humane treatment.
Answer: Praps. Define mercenary.
*multiyear inconclusive debate turning on status of Gurkhas, Foreign Legionaries, recent immigrants to the US who join the armed forces*
However, more importantly, the forces who are likely to capture'em show no sign of taking any interest in the conventions whatsoever, so the question is more than a little academic.
The army has a unit devoted in part to answering questions like this.
Off topic, but every once in a while a decision comes down that reminds you that the purpose of the courts is to deliver justice, as the Georgia Supreme court has just done.
Georgia Supreme court has just done.
4-3 vote.
So can Blackwater guys be considered "unlawful combatants", in as much as they are mercenaries?
Surprisingly, no. It is a little known fact (particularly little known to the Iraqis) that Iraq is not actually at war and the Blackwater contractors are operating by specific permission of the Iraqi government, with their immunity from Iraqi law guaranteed by a decree of the Coalition Provisional Authority which is itself Iraqi law.
43: the term itself does, but the general principle that disguised spies and saboteurs can't demand to be treated as prisoners of war is a solid one. Of course it was envisioned in the Geneva Conventions that this would mean that they were tried as normal criminals rather than shifted into a sort of Twilight Zone of human rights.
After 9/11 the Bush team grabbed every scrap of justification they could find anywhere for every authoritarian thing they could do, and then asked for more from Congress. The consistent aim was to put their acts outside any legal purview or oversight of any kind. For example, Guantanamo is controlled by the US but not US territory and so (supposedly) not subject to American law.
I believe that Blackwater employees can, in fact, be penalized for murders, rapes, grand theft and the like if they are transported back in time to the point where the Coalition Provisional Authority still existed. But sadly, the CPA had no judicial system, so that is only technically true.
Of course it was envisioned in the Geneva Conventions that this would mean that they were tried as normal criminals rather than shifted into a sort of Twilight Zone of human rights.
Hmm... from reading books about commandos in my teenage years, I thought the concern was always being caught out of uniform (or in German uniform) and then being shot as a spy. Was this just the nature of the local criminal justice system?
I think sies are summarily shot only in the battle zone. Of course, the battle zone is everywhere now, the enemy is undefined, and victory is logically impossible. The war will last forever. Chavez: Islamofascist. Kim: Islamofascist. Act Up!: Islamofascist. Earth First!: Islamofascist.
being shot as a spy. Was this just the nature of the local criminal justice system?
Oh no. "Shot for being a spy" is universally-accepted, and even mall cops have the right to do this. It's a tribute to these fine men and women that so few cases of mistaken identity end in tragedy.
Oh, just say it already:
John Emerson: Islamofascist!
since the original search was so entertaining for ogged, don't we really owe it to the guy to come here via the goofiest searches we can come up with?
i mean, i've got the front page bookmarked, so i could just use the bookmark.
but that would be so *boring*. and it wouldn't put a smile on ogged's face!
what we all need to do is come here via the weirdest searches we can--and then add more weird content so it will come up on more weird searches! and then everyone happy!
"Shot for being a spy" is universally-accepted, and even mall cops have the right to do this.
Not true! They first have to hand them over to ugly, menacing guys in trench coats who interrogate them under a bright light and say "Vee haf vays of making you talk!"
Don't you know anything, JRoth?
Chavez: Islamofascist.
Kim: Islamofascist
Yes, and deterrence hasn't worked.
Even worse - Chavez is a Kimjongilofascist as well!
s/b
Even worse - Chavez is a Kimjongilofascist as well!
Not true! They first have to hand them over to ugly, menacing guys in trench coats who interrogate them under a bright light and say "Vee haf vays of making you talk!"
Don't you know anything, JRoth?
I never studied corporate law.
re: 58
Or if the spy is from the other side, the interrogators saying things like, 'So jerry, you thought you'd get away with it, eh? Only a foreigner would stir Earl Grey with a teaspoon instead of a sterling silver bergamot-fork. And any fool knows that tiffin isn't observed on Whitsun.'
Ruprecht is of course right. Outside the battle zone it's extremely important to debrief captured spies as far as possible. During WWII the overwhelming majority of German agents captured in Britain were turned (on the basis of knowing what was good for them, not because they suddenly saw the light) and fed false information to the German government for years.
re: 58 As I kid I was convinced that I would be shot because I didn't know who won the World Series in 1942.
The correct answer to the googled question is kill them all and let God sort it out.
55: We are all Spartacus Gary Farber Islamofascist.
63:St Louis Browns? Without googling.
The St. Louis Browns never won the world series.
The USA has always had the death penalty available for spies (viz, the Rosenbergs) and so I'm guessing that Germany did too.
67:they won the pennant in 44, tho.
Yankees-Cards, Yankees-Cards,Browns-Cards
Din't look up 45
#56: back in the day, there was a popular British website which had in its right hand sidebar a list of the ten most recent referrers. I always used to make a point of visiting it via the search term "tnuc a si llatsroW" just in order to see it up there for a few minutes.
As I kid I was convinced that I would be shot because I didn't know who won the World Series in 1942.
Y'all are surely familiar with the story of the U.S. Army in the Battle of the Bulge, where English-speaking German commandos breached the American lines with compromised passwords. The G.I.'s improvised with questions like "Who is the Brown Bomber" and "How much is a shave and a haircut?"
The one I heard was that American GIs asked suspected German spies to sing all four verses of the "Star-Spangled Banner." If the suspect knew the words, he was a spy for sure.
The thread he found is called "George Bush is Evil." I bet he didn't stay long.
by the logic of the administration, though, the Iraqi gov't would be within its rights to revoke that immunity & say that Blackwater mercenaries are unlawful combatants. The U.S. takes the legal position that if you're not a member of a force that: (a) carries arms openly, (b) wears uniforms or other fixed sign, (c) takes orders from a chain of command responsible for its subordinates' conduct, (d) obeys the law, then it is a war crime for you to shoot U.S. soldiers when they storm your family compound. So you'd think that shooting at civilians as they flee would be right out. But consistent, non-blatantly self-serving legal arguments have never been this administration's strong point.
Wartime collaborators are the grey area, I think. In WWII, one of my grandfathers poisoned men who fed names to the gestapo with a C. botulinum culture, and then explained to the coroners that the deaths should be accidental.
The Iraqis who translate for the US go to extraordinary lengths to preserve anonymity. To get a visa to come here in exchange for helping Americans, they have to get to Jordan. The border is closed. By doing nothing about visas, we are sentencing them to death. This is a fine-print page 17 problem, not part of US discourse.
Was Blackwater's keeping video cameras out of New Orleans ever legally justified, does anyone know? I suppose there was never a written order.
74. I don't know Katherine. Blackwater seems to carry their arms pretty openly. I do like their new logo.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/blackwater-logo.html
In WWII, one of my grandfathers poisoned men who fed names to the gestapo with a C. botulinum culture, and then explained to the coroners that the deaths should be accidental.
What country was that in? Because in Holland that was not allowed.
74: Does the government of Iraq possess the sovereignty necessary to declare anybody a legal or illegal combatant?
79: in theory, yes. in practice, doubtful.
I don't actually endorse the Bush admin. view about the existence of "unlawful combatants" in legal no man's land. Nor do I trust the Iraqi court system very much (to put it mildly).
Laura Bush: Islamofascist.
Despite you traitors we are winning
http://sgtgrumpy.blogspot.com/2007/10/inshallah.html
Naomi Wolf at FDL is calling for a General Strike!
Kinda. Looks more like a monthly picnic in the park to me. A purely symbolic action, and general strikes shouldn't be symbolic but materially damaging and overtly threatening. Better is to rile em up til they walk spontaneously, with of course, the avoidance of violence against people & property. Of course.
I find much wrong here, but it's a start.
It's not completely clear what she would be striking for, but that is fine. Better that the rage remains inchoate and underarticulated.
"by organizing enough strikers to completely paralyze the state and corporate apparatus" ...Wikipedia
Part of the problem is that Naomi & Ezra in their posts about protest seem to think the purpose of protest is to engage the media, to gain publicity.
Wrong.
I'm picturing a squad of marines coming upon a sleeping insurgent caught in a moral dilemma: "Quick, ask the Mineshaft, before he wakes up!"
Would Jack Bauer do it?
I saw a What Would Jack Bauer Do? bumper sticker for the first time yesterday, on the back of an SUV, next to another sticker advertising membership in a local Methodist congregation. I couldn't decide in what spirit the message was intended.
88:Yeah. I am watching the EurusD=x to see if it breaks 1.44, messing with Petey at MY, and waiting for the weather to break 65 for a dog walk.
The Mass Strike ...Rosa Luxenburg at MIA
"In a word, the mass strike, as shown to us in the Russian Revolution, is not a crafty method discovered by subtle reasoning for the purpose of making the proletarian struggle more effective, but the method of motion of the proletarian mass, the phenomenal form of the proletarian struggle in the revolution."
"When a man has been wronged, he no longer cares about danger... You go through life being told there's justice, then you learn the only real justice...is the justice you take."
Eric Cartman