Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Anglin, for appearing before us today.
You co-wrote an article in the National Review in which you wrote, and I'm quoting from an excerpt of that article--I think this will allow you to expand on some of the points you mentioned:
The terrorists we fight today, by contrast, are not dutiful conscripts or professional soldiers; they are would-be martyrs motivated by a fanatical and uncompromising ideology. Granting them the panoply of rights under the Geneva Conventions is inconsistent with the history and underlying assumptions of those treaties.
My questions today are in that regard and in relation to your testimony today. I appreciate you mentioned that there's nothing that bars the prosecution of a child soldier such as Omar Khadr. Assuming that such prosecution is lawful, would you regard him as a terrorist or illegal combatant unworthy of Geneva protections? Or are you saying, more broadly, that the Geneva conventions are not applicable to illegal combatants and that Omar Khadr is such an illegal combatant?
My final question, if time will permit--you can assimilate it into your remarks--is whether you are suggesting that the law of armed conflict, presupposed conflict, between states and their respective combatants is effectively inapplicable to asymmetrical warfare involving terrorists as illegal combatants.