Our founding fathers believed that the rights that they included in our Constitution and Bill of Rights were human rights. I think that this "unlawful combatant" thing is an underhanded word game that the Bush administration is playing. Most of the people in Gitmo, according to the government, were picked up in combat in Afganistan. They were fighting against the US. If this is a war on terror, then these people sound like POW's to me. Citizens that are imprisoned there, who were arrested by their countries but were not in active combat, should be given trials by a jury of their peers. Military tribunals are not for civilians.

ok, i've been off for a while and don't have time right now to respond to all arguments, so i'll make it short: they don't deserve POW stat. because under the geneva convention, int.'l law, they don't qualify. second, they are under enemy conbatant status because that is the only thing they do qualify as. these people are not american citizens, therefore our civil liberties do not apply. they are under our jurisdiction and int.'l law states that in times of conflict people can be detained indefinitely. now i'm done with debate for the year because i'm not going to districts but i have the affirmative case on it, saying everything you guys say. so i'd like to see some negative arguments because nobody we ran it against could come up with any. i'm not going to argue it anymore because we ran it a lot this year, i'd like to see some other people's takes on it. thanks guys, it's interesting to read.

Is there such a thing as "enemy combatant status" as an ACTUALLY CODIFIED legal status?
Or is it just something America has made up in order to negate them as counting as something else?

What exactly is required for them as an "enemy combatant"?
They don't get "due process". Are we required, under any law or international code, to do ANYTHING for them?
If there is no real answer, and they are in "legal limbo" because of it, I don't see why we should allow them to be classified as such.

It's an excuse. Not a classification.


What international law states that?
I find it incredibly hard to believe that any "international law" would say what you describe...


hehe.
Personally, not having to argue a side I don't support / believe in is one of the things I do NOT miss about debate.

On another level, I think that the discussion centers too much around what we can get away with and why...
Not why we should do one thing or another...
Or the impact / meaning of doing it one way or the other.

You talked about how we could hold them "indefinitely"?
Does it really make sense for us to hold somebody until they just die of old age in a prison? Without ever granting them a trial?
Or does it make sense for us to say that we ARE ABLE to do that, and pretend that it makes sense?

Due process is based on the fifth amendment, which starts out "No person shall be ..."
Note: Not "No American citizen shall be...", but "No PERSON shall be..."

If the civil liberties we have in the constitution only apply to Americans, and other people are exempt, what does that say about us as Americans?

And how grossly could the situation we are talking about be abused?
If a Mexican man came to this country with a passport, and then was arrested under suspicion of rape, could we just hold him indefinitely and never actually charge or try him with anything?
He's not an American citizen...

This is setting up a dangerous precedent that I don't think people should take lightly.

We shouldn't be looking for excuses for how we can get away with something, but rather for WHAT SHOULD we be doing, as a supposed "leader of the free world", in the first place....

once again, that was one of my AFFIRMATIVE cases! i've made all these arguments in rounds! i just wanna see some better negative arguments than we heard because we almost never lost an affirmative round with that case, unless they tried to change our harms to abuse but that's a different story. so i know where you're coming from, we've personally made those arguments. i'd like to see some negation.

Ah. I misunderstood what you said in your earlier statements.
My apologies.

It's something I'ld have to think about.
It's kind of a "slippery slope" way of thinking for me. I could try to give some arguments with some degree of opposition, but the further a position comes to polar opposite of all this the less and less I can think of to justify it...


And you may have given it before, but if it's not too much trouble, could you please explicitly state the "Resolution" that this is covering?
I'm just curious.

I would like to start off by stating that you should drop formal and/or official debate style for this message board. I'm not familiar with your format, and the format I'm used to is waaay too structured to work on a message board. Also, if you're using this board to help your debates, well, you shouldn't tell us that. It's kind of lame, no offense, to go to a message board for help on a school or club assignment in most cases. You should read people who are waaay smarter than anyone here. Your school library probably carriesa series of books called "Opposing Viewpoints" that have essays and speeches by those people.

I'm no fan of terrorists, nor should any other American. The only reason they don't qualify under international law is because the Bush administration says so, and I don't think the Bush administration dictates international law. International law applies to these people.

Now, here's where I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I actually agree with George W. Bush on something: Democracy and freedom should be spread throughout the world, and are the optimum form of government. I may not agree with the man's methods, but I agree with the idea. Basically, I believe that civil liberties are not just American rights, they are human rights that every human being should have the right to enjoy.

Now you're picking and choosing. First, you say that international law doesn't apply to these people because they don't deserve it. Then, you use international law to justify detaining them indefinitely. Pick one! You can't just pick the things you like, and ignore or discredit the things that you don't. It's hypocritical.

i'm not using any style, i'd just like to see some negative argumentation, that's all. no specific attacks on harms, inherency, workability, solvency, or d/a's, just maybe a negative viewpoint? and i'm not using it to help my debates, because that resolution is done for the year as am i, no more tourneys. i don't need help, i just want to see what some of you guys think. second, the BA isn't changing int.'l law. geneva convention is int.'l law, and it applies here, the BA didn't write the geneva convention laws. i'm trying to say that int.'l law applies to these people only in relation to their status, because under that law the only thing they qualify for is enemy combatant and enemy combatants don't have due process rights. now is there absolutely anyone who sees the negative point of view?!?!?

"Enemy combatant" is a term that the Bush administration made up to get around the Geneva conventions.

that's because POW status is a lawful combatant. "the "Detaining Power" may choose to accord detained unlawful combatants the rights of prisoners of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so." wikipedia, i hate it but for now it'll do.

A source or a link for that would be really nice. I'd like to see it in context, and the Geneva convetion definition of lawful versus unlawful combatant.