Padilla NOT an enemy combatant?

[Xiahou]

Seconded.
Try him for treason.
How do the charges that they have been able to file after such a long effort have anything to do with treason ?
Is there any statute covering treason and plotting to kill people in another country ?

He's accused of being part of a domestic terror cell, in addition to providing material support to our enemies.
Being in a local terror cell and providing support to terrorist organizations sounds similar to treason to me.

[QwertyMIDX]

Treason is a silly concept anyway, just because I was born between some arbitrary set of lines I'm not allowed to want the violent overthrow of a particular government. It's a strange world we live in.

[Watchman]

Well, maintaining a certain amount of monopoly on violence is sort of one of the defining features of modern states. They also tend to get a little irate over the idea of their own citizens conspiring violence against them - no news there.

That aside, IMHO the whole "enemy combatant" deal is about the damn biggest piece of absurd, baseless and purposefully idiotic legalist mumbo-jumbo in quite a while. Grade A+ organic fertilizer, expect I suspect anything grown with it will end up crooked...

[QwertyMIDX]

Well, maintaining a certain amount of monopoly on violence is sort of one of the defining features of modern states. They also tend to get a little irate over the idea of their own citizens conspiring violence against them - no news there.

Obviously not suprising, doesn't make it any less strange though.

[Redleg]

That aside, IMHO the whole "enemy combatant" deal is about the damn biggest piece of absurd, baseless and purposefully idiotic legalist mumbo-jumbo in quite a while. Grade A+ organic fertilizer, expect I suspect anything grown with it will end up crooked...

So presedence based upon actions of enemy agents attempting sabatoge is absurd in your opinion. You might want to just criticize how the Bush Adminstration is applying the standard of the presedence.

It presedence was used to try two German agents who attempt sabatoge in the United States during WW2.

[QwertyMIDX]

Whenever this kind of terminology is used it's nothing more than exploiting a legal loophole in order to avoid treating prisoners by the standards outlined in the Geneva Convention.

[Redleg]

Whenever this kind of terminology is used it's nothing more than exploiting a legal loophole in order to avoid treating prisoners by the standards outlined in the Geneva Convention.

Ah but you are mistaken - the term was used to actually comply to a higher standard then both the Hague Convention and the Geneva Conventions. It was establish with valid presedence in the trail and execution of German spies caught in the United States conducting an act of Sabatoge.

There is valid criticism on how the Bush Adminstration has used the term - but don't let the Bush Adminstrations use of the term fool you on the legal validity of the term.

[Hurin_Rules]

I think we probably disagree on this, Redleg, but it might help me if you could provide some examples of usage of the term 'enemy combatant' before the present controversy over the 'War on Terror'?

It seems to me that much of the present policy was simply 'made up' by Gonzalez, Rumsfeld, et al. in the last few years. I don't see the phrase anywhere in the Geneva or Hague Conventions (correct me if I'm wrong). Moreover, it seems to me that the saboteurs in WWII were still given rather speedy trials, defenders, charges, etc.-- all of which the 'enemy combatants' in Guantanamo have been denied. If there are firm rules for this sort of thing, then where are they, beyond the musings and loophole-exploiting of the Bushites (little of which, it would seem, is able to pass muster in a court of law, as the Padilla case and the supreme court rulings have indicated).