We're not capturing them on a battlefield, while waging war in a war zone, but instead, are picking them up from their homes, work, off the streets. If you concentrate hard, you might start to realize the difference in terms of the potential for extreme abuse and error.

Asymmetrical warfare is going to lead to non-traditional circumstances of capture. But so what? That doesn't mean that the US forfeits the right to hold prisoners of that conflict for the duration. Really, that's a fairly moderate step: since these people are fighting without uniforms and acting under cover of a civilian populace, we would theoretically be well within our rights to make the determination at capture that they are spies and simply shoot them and be done with it.

The bottom line: this isn't a law enforcement issue, and prisoners of war do not have to be tried to be detained.

...are not entitled the protections accorded POWs under the Geneva Conventions. Obama (and for that matter, Bush) is being magnanimous in the extreme to simply place them in preventative detention: under the circumstances, we would be well within our rights simply to execute them as spies.

You couldn't be more wrong. Start citing something more than your gut. No military has the option of arbitrary executions under the thought that they have caught a spy, particularly in the context of how many at Guantanamo were detained. Again, please cite the law where you are supposedly pulling this from.

The US certainly executed captured Germans in the aftermath of Operation Greif with no legal repercussions. To receive the protection of the Geneva convention, a combatant must be in uniform and cannot act under the cover of the civilian populace (in and of itself a war crime). Had we simply shot these people out of hand, it wouldn't have been a problem. The issues arose when we used half-measures to try to have our cake and eat it to.

By your logic, if this is all just a war and not a law enforcement issue (and I notice you keep moving the goal posts from post to post) then the al Qaida assholes have every right to kill Americans (even on 9/11), if you are declaring this an asymmetric war and they are therefore also released from the "rules" (as you seem to want America to be released from the rules).

Wrong. No one is entitled to deliberately target civilians. And, unlike al-Qaida, our troops operate openly and in uniform, not under cover of the civilian populace.

You are correct only in technicality; they don't have the specific protections of POWs - they have the slightly lesser protections of anyone not engaged in combat, whether through injury, capture, being a non-combatant in the first place. Non-uniformed combatants are, once captured, afforded all the protections of Common Article 3. Only uniformed POWs are afforded the greater protections of Common Article 4.

"Non-uniformed" combatants are - by definition - war criminals. It is against the laws of war to operate under cover of a civilian populace. Moreover, there is a several hundred year tradition of armies (including our own) summarily executing enemy combatants caught operating in civilian guise as spies (also combatants captured during 'false flag' operations - that is, wearing the uniform of their enemies for the purpose of deception - are also liable for execution as spies). The US executed German combatants in WWII for precisely this reason. You are simply wrong.

Eulogy, tell that to the people of Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki--and don't try and get out of it, because we have all the documentation on the motivation for those attacks and the complete disregard for civilian deaths in all three cases. The idea that throwing ordnace around and killing civilians is just fine "if you don't really mean it" is bullshit and you would never buy it for a second if the US was being bombed by some other country claiming that they were only interested in "military" targets (like "our boys" bombing the water treatment plants and pumping stations in Iraq--ciritcal military targets, for sure).

World War II crimes do not justify al-Qaida's current crimes. Moreover, international strictures against the deliberate aerial bombing of civilian targets emerged after the Second World War. Hiroshima was perfectly legal at the time the action was taken.

...classic example of the typical racist skinhead: bald, offensive in desperately unsuccessful sort of way, and suspiciously dark skinned. As a friend once told the folks on New Saxon (right before they banned him for "racism against fellow whites"): "You shave your heads to hide the shame of being fucking Wops!"

At some point the US governement will have to plan decisive action against the radical right - now is the time: whether neo-Nazis in the army and elsewhere, KKK or cult-like right-wing Republicans- democracy is anthema to these people. Democracy must protect itself-

So what did you have in mind, there? Maybe round them up, concentrate 'em in camps, that kind of thing?

What do you EXPECT when you go to an all-volunteer army? You're going to end up with an army of people who WANT to go and kill, for whatever reason. How could you possibly think this would end well?

The only way to ensure this doesn't happen is to re-institute the draft. As distasteful as it is, it's the only way to be sure that we do not keep waltzing into wars we shouldn't be in. When anyone's kid could be hauled away to kill and be killed, the support for military action will not be nearly as blind.

Because, God knows, American history provides ample proof that the government won't commit draftees to protracted and ill-advised foreign adventures. I mean, it's not like we had the draft during Korea or Vietnam.

Oh, wait...

While it's tempting to blame "abstinence-only" sex ed curricula, we need to be honest with ourselves here. This is mostly about changing demographics (specifically, the influx of Latinos) more than it is about education policy.