Lemme see if I got this right: U.S. forces capture two ISIS terrorist assholes — Brits — who have perpetrated all kinds of atrocities in Syria and Iraq:
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were part of the execution cell that included Jihadi John, were detained by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in January.
….but the UK has stripped them of their UK citizenship. So, as they’re stateless assholes, we’re kinda free to do with them what we want (e.g. Guantanamo, execution, etc.)?
One would think so, but:
The British government also wants the US to provide assurances American prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against Kotey and Elsheikh.
It is threatening to hold back important evidence about them as leverage.
Excuse me, morons, but as you’ve stripped these two bastards of their British citizenship, you’ve lost all say as to what happens to them… right?
Frankly, I’m hoping for a “shot while trying to escape” scenario, because that would end the whole sorry episode on a satisfactory note (absent a little vigorous interim scourging, that is). As it is, however, it’s going to be a cluster-fuck, and no doubt these terrorist scumbags will probably end up living in the Bronx on public welfare.
American public welfare.
Me, I’d just hand them over to the Russians to let them deal with the problem. No doubt the Brits would have a problem with this idea, too.
Sentence them to death, then hand them back to the Brits and say “If you don’t want them killed, you deal with them. The next time one of our people finds them outside of your country we’re killing them on the spot”.
If they won’t take them, >>bang<<.
Edited to add:
Well, I guess we should find them guilty FIRST, then impose the sentence.
And why would we treat actual prisoners of war as a civilian criminal matter? That’s the whole problem, which started back in the Clinton era. It’s a military matter. Field execution.
They are non-lawful combatants, treat them the way non-lawful combatants are supposed to be treated (i.e. shot).
The Geneva Conventions are relatively practical documents put together by military men who had experience at war. The basic premise is that to get the protections of a lawful combatant, you had to act like one. By treating non-lawful combatants as lawful combatants, we have turned the incentives upside down. Now those so inclined can act however they want knowing that we will treat them as lawful POW anyway.