[HaveHadEnough]

Yes, they are. They are covered as nonuniformed combatants--terrorists. Guess what? They have no rights. Period. You can kill them at will.

I think this is a dangerous view. It suggests that rights come from pieces of paper, and not from a higher source. If the Geneva Conventions were voted out of existence tomorrow, would that mean that prisoners of war have no rights?

[pgyanke]

I'm referring to law, not moral and religious code. The law regarding treatment of prisoners is spelled out in the Geneva Conventions. If the Geneva Conventions were voted out of existence tomorrow, prisoners of war would have no legal rights... correct. We, however, have always treated our prisoners humanely. The Geneva Conventions came about to deal with the treatment of our soldiers in the hands of enemies.

As I mentioned earlier, the purpose of the nonuniformed combatant rule was to discourage "unlawful warfare" and confine the fighting to the battlefield. The Arab world, on the other hand, recognizes that they can't engage us conventionally. Therefore, they use "nonaffiliated terrorist organizations" to do their fighting. Prisoners taken in such activities should be dealt with harshly... to deter others who would follow suit. In the long run, it is far more humane than allowing such a cancer to fester in civilization.