Talk:Enemy combatant

Merge with Unlawful combatant
See discussion on merger at: Talk:Unlawful combatant/Archive 4'' --Assawyer 01:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
This presents little to no discussion on opposing viewpoints on the abuse of enemy combatant status. '' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.126.138.6 (talk • contribs) 16:25, 2006 October 4

Legal status
Removed parts of "legal status" for blatant non-NPOV anti-US/anti-Bush statements, until further edits can be made to fix it. Anapologetos 16:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Removed the rest of the section. The term "unlawful combatant" is not used in the 1949 Geneva conventions, it does not mean that the concept does not exist under international law. (The legal situation of unlawful/unprivileged combatants (IRRC March 2003 Vol.85 No 849)). unprivileged belligerent/unlawful combatant is a well known concept under international law. See for example the Hostages Trial "We are obliged to hold that such guerrillas were francs tireurs who, upon capture, could be subjected to the death penalty. Consequently, no criminal responsibility attaches to the defendant List because of the execution of captured partisans." Furthe both Protocol I article 47 ""A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war." and Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, (1989): "State parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities" are international recognition that not all combatants are privileged. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Globalize-USA
I've added the Globalize tag because the article overwhelmingly addresses the issues related to the USA. I would appreciate very much if the editors globalize the article rather than remove the tag without discussion. --Javit 11:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, although there is some content in this article I could not even rate it start class because of this very biased view. Arnoutf 15:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Globalize? This term exists in US law, and, so far as I know, in no other nation's laws.  So then what, exactly, would it mean to globalize this article?  It would make as much sense to globalize the so-called "World Series".  ( No.  I am not an American. )  Geo Swan 20:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Enemy combatant my be a term that exists under US law, but it is a general term for a hostile combatant as opposed to a friendly combatant. As the US use it in a legal framework there needs to be a section on the term from a US perspective, but the term is already globalised. So I am removing the American spelt globalize template. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Spelling of Al-Qaeda
I propose changing the spelling of al-Qaida to al-Qaeda. Any objections?  Lester  20:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you talking about in this article? Or everywhere?


 * The DoD spells it "al Qaida" or "al-Qaida" about 99% of the time. I think any instance that quotes a DoD document should spell it as it was spelled in the original.


 * Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. Fair enough :)  Lester  21:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Treaty of Westphalia
In this interview, Morris Davis states that the Treaty of Westphalia legitimizes the detention of enemy combatants by nations. Is this mentioned in the article? Badagnani (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Makes no sense
The judges considering the captives' habeas petitions would be considering whether the evidence used to compile the allegations the men and boys were enemy combatants justified a classification of "enemy combatant".

What? I don't even know what s/he is trying to say here. SineSwiper (talk) 22:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree, I cant parse that sentence at all.Bonewah (talk) 18:12, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Combatant in State of War
A historic example of a combatant in civil versus military justice:

Following a 29 Dec 1890 clash at Wounded Knee Creek, a Sioux Indian Plenty Horses (of Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota) shot and killed a US Army Officer Lt Edward W. Casey. The Army arrested Plenty Horses and jailed him at Fort Meade. The Army considered him a combatant and the killing an act of war; once the state of war was over, the Army felt that Plenty Horses should have been sent back to the reservation. Somehow, murder charges were filed in civilian court and Plenty Horses was tried in criminal court and convicted of murder. A federal judge who heard the appeal of the murder conviction ruled that criminal law on murder did not apply to a combatant during a state of war, and Plenty Horses was released, since the war was over. (Robert M. Utley, Peace on Paper, War on the Plains, Wild West, Oct 2008, p. 37) Historically for a lawful or even unlawful combatant, being tried for an act of war in court martial can be different from being tried for murder in court civil. Naaman Brown (talk) 13:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Party to the Conflict
The final sentence of the lede graf makes a claim I cannot parse. 'In the case of a civil war or an insurrection the term "enemy state" may be replaced by the more general term "Party to the conflict"'. On first reading it, I thought that the phrase "enemy of the state" was removed. But then I opened the documents to which the footnote links and the word "enemy" doesn't even appear. It speaks of "enemies", but the quotation argues for a high level connection. I'm no expert on the subject, and it may be simply an inaccurate link, but the point isn't even clear. Perhaps there's some point about non-state actors differing from agents of an "enemy state"? Can anyone clear this up?Czrisher (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

"Historically"
Is it even remotely accurate to describe a phrase as being used "historically" when it goes back less than a decade, and, at the same time, appears to overthrow centuries of historical language usage? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JoshNarins (talk • contribs) 21:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The first paragraph is about its historical meaning, the it one had and has on the rest of the planet outside the USA. The second and third paragraph describe its usage in the USA under the Bush administration and its abandonment by the Obama administration. So in the context of the article its usage in the first paragraph relates to its usage that goes back decades if not centuries, it is therefore historical. For example here is a quote from a book written in 1918:

":The Prussians in 1870 required every enemy combatant not merely to have evidence of his enrolment in a military force organized by the French government, but also to wear a distinctive uniform or mark of dress."


 * --PBS (talk) 21:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * --PBS (talk) 21:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Moving definition
The introduction refers to differing meanings over time. But what is not clear is whether these are legal definitions or "officialise"/slang, and whether they apply only to the USA or are definitions under international law.119.224.100.246 (talk) 02:32, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

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