Quote:Now that's a strange remark, if you think about it. You think that people in a military uniform have more Human Rights then others? Does that mean that all Americans with a weapon and not in the army should be considered 'unlawful' combatant, if some enemy military force would set foot on American soil? And what happened the right of civilians to remain silent, because "... anything you say, can and will be used against you"?It's not a "strange remark". It's the nature of international law, where the UN has passed a series of moderately strong treaties governing human rights generally, but the Geneva Conventions have even stronger prohibitions against mistreatment of POWs. I don't believe that this is how things ought to remain, but then, you were arguing about what is legal under international law. Uniformed soldiers have more rigorously protected rights under *international* law than do most civilians.
As for "unlawful combatants", I personally think the phrase is a piece of sophistry that ought to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Either someone is a POW, in which case they must be treated as such, or they are a civilian prisoner, and are entitled to the rule of law according to the country holding them captive. It would probably be quite a stretch to say that they are entitled to strict Miranda rights on a battlefield halfway around the world. What they are entitled to would be determined (in this case) by US law, not by international law, so long as the one did not violate the other.
By the by, militias, even ones which have not had reasonable time to form into orderly troops, are covered by the Third Geneva Convention. "Americans with guns" would be POWs if they were organized in militias, or if it were unreasonable to expect them to have organized yet. If they were just random people taking potshots, then they would be civilian prisoners (or "unlawful combatants", if you like.)
-Jester