September 15, 2006
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Just A Reminder...
Article 3 of the Geneva Convention is not vague or ambiguous.
It's a fact that the CIA operates secret torture prisons. It's a fact that the military and the CIA use torture on detainees. These are not in dispute.
The question is now: Are these things illegal?
And the answer is yes. They are, according to the Geneva Convention. And they are illegal with good reason which anyone with a lick of sense understands.
And if you don't get it yet: If Article 3 is vague, then why does the CIA engage in expensive, annoying, legally-and-politically-risky 'renditions,' in order to bypass it?
What's about to happen is that the United States Congress is going to pass the very first law *ever* to contradict the Geneva Conventions.
It's important to be clear about one thing: The question is not simply whether, in the abstract, it would be a good or acceptable idea for the United States to use such techniques in certain extreme circumstances on certain detainees. [..] Instead, the question must be placed in its historical and international context -- namely, whether Congress should grant the Executive branch a fairly unbounded discretion to use such techniques where such conduct would place the United States in breach of the Geneva Conventions. And that, of course, changes the calculus considerably. Does Congress really want to make the United States the first nation on earth to specifically provide domestic legal sanction for what would properly and universally be seen as a transparent breach of the minimum, baseline standards for civilized treatment of prisoners established by Common Article 3 -- thereby dealing a grevious blow to the prospect of international adherence to the Geneva Conventions in the future?
The question in a nutshell: Do your representatives in Congress believe the Geneva Convention matters, at all?
Call 'em up and find out.
Comments (3)
As long as every member of Congress and the White House staff who advocates "reconsidering" Article 3 puts themselves in front-line combat positions from now until military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq end - while allowing those troops who wish to leave, to leave - I think they are entitled to be treated by anyone capturing them by whatever standards any government considers "fair."
But these are - as always - Chicken Hawks. Cowardly bastards who've never taken a physical risk in their lives, but who are willing to put the lives of every American soldier at risk now and into the forseeable future so that they can get their kicks imagining that they're CIA "operatives" holding electrical wires to some guy's balls.
Anyone who votes for any congressperson who supports Bush on this should be immediately drafted into active service. That would be the only justice.
The answer: No. They don't believe the Geneva Convention matters. And in a practical sense, they are right. Nobody is going to enforce it against the US.
The Geneva Convention isn't 'enforced,' it's recognized. If the US stops recognizing it, then others will, too. And what happens then is that US soldiers will be put at risk, because the US stopped recognizing the Convention.
It won't be 'enforced against the US,' it will be 'violated against US soldiers.'
Comments are closed.