There are accepted & binding Laws of War that violation of, can (& have) resulted in the death penalty to the violator.
Ha! I always get a kick out of this. Who's "law?" The Western world's law? The Geneva Convention of the West? Because half the players in the war do not hold themselves accountable to our laws, our ethics, our codes, nor our manners. How arrogant are we that we create a bunch of codes and laws in the wake of European civil war and expect the rest of the world to fight as gentlemen and in accordance to what we believe.
You see, half the members of this war do not subscribe to such western "rules" like fighting under a banner or in a uniform. Or that the difference between a civilian and a soldier even makes a difference. In fact, half of this war's membership prefers to destroy civilians because it is easier and it gets a bigger bang for their buck in the media.
So we don't consider them combatants, just international thugs and criminals. YET, they consider themselves fighting a war as soldiers for God against heathens, non-believers, heretics, and enemies of God. Their reasons for war may be twisted, hypocritical, and flat out retarded, but they consider themselves as much a military organization as the U.S. Marine Corps or Army. Do they get to be charged for breaking the rules of war under the Geneva Convention or do we simply pick and choose which Geneva rules allow us to play with manners while seeking ways to ignore the rules they break every damn day? Or do they have their own set of rules that counter the arrogance of the West's who assumes their rules work for all?
Hmmmm. Quite the dillema. Do we hold them as prisoners of war or do we place them in a New York courtroom to be released to kill another day? Perhaps we can assign them lawyers and pretend they are just gang members. They seem to like the idea. They get to kill Americans and then wait for Americans to protest their incarceration while lobbying to send them a fleet of American lawyers to free them. All in the name of being a part of some BS higher moral fiber which amounts to nothing when they lose interest, get bored, and switch the channel.
Wait..wait...wait. Perhaps I misunderstood you. When you stated "Laws of War" I automatically thought of military personnel. It's the CIA being accused and harrassed of using decades old techniques (only under Bush though). Do they wear uniforms? Do they operate under "Rules of War" (ROE) like those in uniform? Or are they something else? With Islamic religious prescriptions being met, square cultural diets every day, and medical aid being provided, I would state that no American prisoner ever had it so good. But a few were waterboarded and the whole world (including weak kneed Americans) behave as if they were thrown in the iron maidens, or in the German ovens, or destroyed in a tower in New York.
There seems to be more confusion than clarity in this matter. I find it pathetic how so many people think they got it figured out.
