you can use it when it is convenient for you, but others cannot when it is not convenient for you. Consistency?

So why exactly do they have any standing at all under the conventions which is an agreement between member states?

Do you consider them to even be a "party to the conflict" as discussed in the conventions?

Please excuse me for not taking your reading seriously when it conflicts with both with the commentary to the Fourth Convention and with Judicial history since (which you would have seen if you hadn't dismissed my sources outright).

Fair enough. So this is now the point where we get to agree to disagree as neither side will yield.

That's the direct commentary to the Fourth Convention, and as you were so enamored of Toensing's claims about legislative intent in the Plame case (intent articulated some two decades after the fact), I can't imagine you'd have any objection to intent actually listed as commentary with the publication of the convention. It's there in black and white whether you like it or not. The Celecibi Judgment furthermore confirmed the legitimacy of this commentary.

Please don't think that I didn't take your points seriously. I did. They prompted me to do about 5 hours of my own research into the details of the Geneva Conventions including the commentary you refer to. This is why I referred to your response as "a respectable effort on your part" (which in GoRight-ese means you made a very good case ... annoyingly good).

I will give you this much at this point. Of the two cases presented, yours and mine, as an objective observer I agree that you have the stronger case, and that the weight of the historical evidence leans more towards your side than mine.

My reading of the convention is clearly strained as the follow on commentary with knocienz demonstrates, and this is the place where historical precedent works in your favor.

This does NOT mean, however, that I concede the point outright.

I do not believe that the conventions truly considered the case of an organization like al Qaeda at the time of their writing and so some latitude in the reading of the text is justified. You are free to disagree, of course, and until an appropriate authority is compelled to make a judgement on this point we are at a bit of a standoff. Hence my offer to simply agree to disagree.

I admit that I did not consider the details of the Celecibi Judgment in my previous post so let me do so here. IMHO the events considered in the Celecibi Judgement are not analogous to our situation with al Qaeda. From the Indictment in that case (use the table of contents on the left to find it near the bottom):

BACKGROUND

1. The Konjic municipality is located in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the 1991 census, the population of Konjic municipality, which includes Konjic town and surrounding villages including Celebici, was approximately 45,000 persons, with the ethnic distribution being approximately 55% Muslim, 26% Croatian, and 15% Serbian. Konjic was of significance because it contained a large factory for arms and ammunition, as well as several military facilities, and because it was a transportation link between Mostar and Sarajevo.

2. Beginning in the latter part of May 1992, forces consisting of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats attacked and took control of those villages containing predominantly Bosnian Serbs within and around the Konjic municipality. The attackers forcibly expelled Bosnian Serb residents from their homes, and held them at collection centres. Many of the women and children were confined in a local school or in other locations. Most of the men and some women were taken to a former JNA facility in Celebici, hereafter referred to as the Celebici camp. There, the detainees were killed, tortured, sexually assaulted, beaten, and otherwise subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment. The majority of detainees were confined at Celebici from approximately May 1992 until approximately October of 1992, though some remained until December 1992. Detention facilities within the camp included a tunnel, a hangar, and an administration building. After their confinement in Celebici, the majority of the detainees were moved to other detention camps, where they were imprisoned for periods of up to 28 months.

The facts in this case are clearly different from the case of our pursuit of al Qaeda. We have not simply taken over the homes and businesses of an otherwise lawful group and falsely imprisoned them without cause. We clearly have cause and the people in question are not "otherwise lawful". Is it possible that some innocent people will get mistakenly caught up in the conflict? Of course. Does this make the plight of those innocents less of a tragedy on a personal level? No. Do those people represent examples of war crimes? Not in my book.

The fact that you seek to equate our purpose and our actions with those of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam, and the perpetrators at Celecibi is repugnant to the very concept of a free society, IMHO.

This is the reason that I don't accept your analysis as the definitive interpretation. You are taking a case that ruled that lawful people living in their own homes are covered by the Geneva Conventions (which I agree with, BTW) and trying to use it as a justification for extending those protections to unlawful people who are advocating committing murder on a mass scale. In this respect, if anyone in this conflict is analogous to Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Saddam it is al Qaeda NOT the US, yet you seek to protect them (maybe not by direct intent but certainly by ancillary effect).

On the issue of legislative intent and the Commentary sections of the Geneva Conventions, I am not clear who wrote those sections and to what extent that are directly addressing the intent at the time of the conventions, and more importantly the extent to which that commentary is limited to the intent at that time.

In the Plame case, my argument for giving weight to Toensing's testimony was going directly (in the strictest sense of the word) to the point that she was articulating what she considered to be the intent of the original drafters at the time of the drafting. I have clearly made the case the Toensing is a direct material witness to those proceedings and alluded to the fact that her testimony was only significant to the extent that it can be substantiated by other records from the time which are not generally available to us on the Internet.

If you can demonstrate that the Commentary section associated with the actual convention text is roughly comparable to that which I am relying on in the Plame case (i.e. direct discussion of the original intent at the time of the drafting) I will adjust my weighting of that commentary accordingly. Even so, I have acknowledged above that this does have the effect of pushing the weight of the evidence to your advantage, just not conclusively so, IMHO.

(By the way, I'm getting tired of this b.s. about rejecting interpretive sources outright - if I'm sending them your way, it's because I think they offer an important perspective to the discussion. If they're providing their own unsourced facts, you can question their legitimacy, but if not, take it for granted that I'm sending them your way for a reason.)

OK, fair enough. I don't believe that you have used the "biased source defense" against me in the past so this is a fair criticism. I will attempt to refrain from further uses of this technique against you personally.

(Also, it's not a case of begging the question. At worst, it's an unfair assumption about your motivations.)

It is a case of begging the question in the sense that you asked an obviously loaded question. Your question clearly implied what you believed to be my intent and in so doing it begged the question. Besides, by the "implications are statements rule" on this site you were clearly stating that was my intent, were you not? :) [ 99.5% joking ]

(Also also, "begging the question" isn't a logical fallacy per se. Try reading through the very link you provided me.)

Whatever, I stand corrected (without reading further) as it does not matter. The point is that it is not a valid debating technique and does not support your conclusion.

I wonder why. Do you have something to hide (as many here like to imply about Bush)?

round up Iraqi's off the streets and torture them

There was no torture.

I reached around and patted myself on the back!

And I am frequently debating both of you at the same time so, yes, you do tend to get muddled in my mind. It is not an intentional slight or anything, merely a simple mistake.

I stand corrected, I have invoked the the Specter defense.

BTW, 'severe' is not in every one of the definitions, so what about the rest?

"Severe" appears in both of the main clauses (1) and (2) which is sufficient for my purpose. The sub-clauses of (2) are thus irrelevant to the point being made.

Why are you advocating torture?

You are begging the question here, which is a logical fallacy as you might know, and I reject your premise that I am "advocating torture." I am doing no such thing as my argument clearly illustrates. Rather, I am rejecting the false characterization of our interrogation techniques as constituting torture, which is a completely different point.

But my point still stands as far as I am concerned.

Point 1:

I have argued elsewhere and I will reiterate here that I do not consider stories based on anonymous sources to be valid evidence of anything.  We have no idea if the author talked to anyone at all, nor can we evaluate the credibility of the sources under these circumstances.  I reject this article on its face for this reason, but it contains a number of additional points which are worth noting given that others may choose to consider this article credible.

Point 2:

The interrogation techniques were "authorized by top officials of the CIA", not the White House as some here would claim.  Such claims are therefore lies by the prevailing definition in use on this site by most liberals.

Point 3:

"Contacted after the completion of the ABC News investigation, CIA officials would neither confirm nor deny the accounts. They simply declined to comment."

Point 4:

"The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets ..."

So, the claims and implications of widespread abuses by the proponents of this meme are thus revealed as lies using the prevailing definition used on this site by most liberals.

Point 5:

"When properly used, the techniques appear to be closely monitored and are signed off on in writing on a case-by-case, technique-by-technique basis, according to highly placed current and former intelligence officers involved in the program. In this way, they say, enhanced interrogations have been authorized for about a dozen high value al Qaeda targets -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed among them. According to the sources, all of these have confessed, none of them has died, and all of them remain incarcerated."

So this is hardly "the norm" as the proponents of this meme would like people to believe, and thus any such implications are lies.

Point 6:

"The sources told ABC that the techniques, while progressively aggressive, are not deemed torture, and the debate among intelligence officers as to whether they are effective should not be underestimated. There are many who feel these techniques, properly supervised, are both valid and necessary, the sources said. While harsh, they say, they are not torture and are reserved only for the most important and most difficult prisoners."

So, the CIA denies that the techniques constitute torture.

Point 7:

"According to the sources, when an interrogator wishes to use a particular technique on a prisoner, the policy at the CIA is that each step of the interrogation process must be signed off at the highest level -- by the deputy director for operations for the CIA. A cable must be sent and a reply received each time a progressively harsher technique is used. The described oversight appears tough but critics say it could be tougher. In reality, sources said, there are few known instances when an approval has not been granted. Still, even the toughest critics of the techniques say they are relatively well monitored and limited in use."

Point 8:

"ABC was told that several dozen renditions of this kind have occurred. Jordan is one country recently cited as an "emerging" center for renditions, according to published reports. The ABC sources said that rendition of this sort are legal and should not be confused with illegal "snatches" of targets off the streets of a home country by officers of yet another country. The United States is currently charged with such an illegal rendition in Italy. Israel and at least one European nation have also been accused of such renditions."