Crimes, War Crimes and the War on Terror

[wm]

The term "kangaroo court" is a dishonest slur on the US attempt to, in fact, bring the detainees before a tribunal to determine their status, in accordance with Art. 5. of the Third Geneva Convention.

If this last is in reference to my use of the phrase 'kangaroo court' in a previous post, please note that I put the phrase in double quotes, which is a fairly common convention for identifying that the wording is being applied in a non-standard way. Double quotes are used to indicate that such an attribution of the noun phrase is a degenerative case, not a standard use for the phrase. I do not view the Gitmo Tribunal as a kangaroo court. I was suggesting that part of the US motivation for holding trials might be very pragmatic--to try to prevent other entities from holding kangaroo court proceedings with US citizens as "defendants." (Please again note the use of the double quotes--a person being charged by a kangaroo court is hardly one to whom the appelation 'defendant' is appropriately applied.)

BTW, I concur with Rex's 4 reasons for abiding by and supporting IHL. I just happen to arrange them in a different priority order. I'd rank the 4 reasons in order of importance as 4, 2, 1, 3 (and 2 is actually a subcategory of 4--it is an example of keeping a promise, which is just another right thing to do.)

BTW, I follow a linguistic convention in the philosophy of logic and language with my use of single quotes. They are being used as a way of differentiating between using a word or phrase as an operative part of a sentence and mentioning that word or phrase--that is, using the words as a name for the word or phrase found inside the single quotes. For example, snow refers to the white stuff on the ground; 'snow' refers to the name we use for the white stuff on the ground.

[Ken White]

As you say, "snow refers to the white stuff on the ground;" or "snow" as you say is the white stuff on the ground while that white stuff that appears on the ground in winter is usually snow.

Yet 'snow' refers to the name we use for the white stuff on the ground while the white stuff on the ground is apparently snow but 'snow' also refers to other white stuff that can put one on the ground.

I'm snowed, I think I'll go get a drink...