Thank you, it is nice to hear clear headed thought on this issue from the more rightward side of the aisle.
Comment by zen_less — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 9:38 am
I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this kind of dialogue going on! The idea that we would even consider something like this scares me half to death. Thank God some people understand that if we destroy the principles that made us a great nation in the name of some faceless fear, that the terrorists will indeed have won.
Comment by Deb — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 10:41 am
A Breath Of Fresh Political Air…
Are we beginning to awaken from the zombie-like stance we’ve had the past five years? Or is the sudden debate over the Administration’s attempt to redefine our interpretation of the Geneva Convention just election year politics?…
Thank God I’m hearing other conservatives taking a stand for true American values. We must do our best to persuade our President that America must stand for morals, values, freedom and what’s right — these god-given assets have made us great and to sacrifice them, even during a time of war, is to lose to Evil before the war is finished. We will win without permitting torture. We will win without the Executive branch taking on unchecked power to tap our phones without court approval. We must continue to stand for the America created by Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln — and never become a nation that believes the methods of tyrants and dictators are superior weapons. Our values have given us victory for more than our 200 years. To lose them, is to lose America itself.
Comment by Marc — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 1:05 pm
Before one starts to slap each other on the back, when were these rules written in regards to detainees? Second, how can rules that are almost 60 years old, 8/12/1949, guide us as a county in a war against an ideology not a state? Unfortunately the Islamofacists could care less about the Geneva Convention and its rules regarding those who are prisoners, they just assume to cut your head off.
Here is the Geneva Convention incase you have not looked at the article in question.
Reading this I don’t see how you can apply it to the situation we are in now. Where do the terrorists fit into the “Prisoners of war”?
Article 4
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.
5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:
1. Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.
2. The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.
C. This Article shall in no way affect the status of medical personnel and chaplains as provided for in Article 33 of the present Convention
The more I read the document murkier it gets. I can see how Pres. Bush needs a clarification. It might be time to amend the document with a new Section.
Comment by c.v. — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
c.v.,
There are issues here, to be sure.
However, the bottom line is this: how are we going to treat, as a matter of policy, human beings under our control? This is no small matter and no just about ideologies or islamofascists. The issue is us and our values.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 2:30 pm
c.v said: “Second, how can rules that are almost 60 years old, 8/12/1949, guide us as a county in a war against an ideology not a state?”
I think a review is certainly fair, but some things are pretty much timeless, like Thou Shalt Not Kill for example.
This torture thing makes my skin crawl, we’ve won other wars without losing our principles and we can certainly win this one.
Comment by Colleen — Saturday, September 16, 2006 @ 12:25 am
[...] Too many (although not all) “conservative” bloggers are siding with the torturers here. There’s something I want to say to them and to Captain Ed, in particular. He writes, We have yet to fight against a wartime enemy that followed the GC with any consistency at all. The Germans routinely violated it even before Hitler began issuing orders to shoot captured pilots, and the massacre at Malmedy only crystallized what had been fairly brutal treatment at the hands of the Nazis for American prisoners (the Luftwaffe was one notable exception). The Japanese treatment of POWs was nothing short of barbaric, both before and after Bataan. The same is true for the North Koreans and the Chinese in the Korean War, and McCain himself is a routine example of the kind of treatment our men suffered at the hands of the Vietnamese. [...]
I still do not have any answers from those have responed back. What is a terrortst’s legal status under the Genva Convention? Once this is clarified then the government will have a way in which it can proceed.
Comment by c.v. — Sunday, September 17, 2006 @ 4:11 pm
c.v.,
You incorrectly frame the debate. While I do not disagree that rules need clarification, the issue at hand goes beyond that. Rather, the administration has argued for a clarification that would allow specific types of treatment and certain rules at trial that are both unprecedented.
This is the heart of the debate–what those rules and parameters should be, not just whether there ought to be any.
I would note that the Senators who object are all veterans and have direct experience with these issues. Ditto Powell and the high ranking military lawyers from various services.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, September 17, 2006 @ 4:36 pm
The real question is who do these laws apply too? Terrorists caught plotting in London or Pakistan are Bristih and Paki law problems. There are few places in the world where a ‘terrorist’ is not a state citizen, subject to someone else’s laws.
This debate matters to those already captured on lawless battlefields in Afghanistan and Pre-Soverign Iraq – and to people apprehended on US soil, citizenship or no.
One question then, isn’t it likely that other governments will be less likely to share access to captured ‘terrorists’ if they think we will ship them off to black holes?
Regarding the ‘clarification’ that the President seeks in the matter, it seems to me the change they wish to make seeks to overide 60 years of internationally agreed objective standards and muddy them with a subjective standard based on a Presidents (or interrigators) assesment of the situation. This, to me, seems not only contrary to the Constitution, but contrary to everything many on the right argue should be the basis for morality in thie country.
Comment by Chasm — Sunday, September 17, 2006 @ 5:26 pm
Successive British Governments fought the IRA for 30 years without one member of parliament ever suggesting that torture was needed. The IRA bombed, assassinated and even targeted 10 Downing Street itself. They were every bit as deadly and despicable as today’s terrorists. As an Irishman I have always admired Britain’s politicians and people for never allowing themselves to become what they fought, to hold fast to their ideals and remain fearless in the face of an enemy that longed for them to abandon their laws and beliefs.
They didn’t. The IRA is gone. Learn.
Comment by Cian — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 9:06 am
Cian,
As one Irishman to another you should get your facts correct. The reason no British MP’s suggested that torture might be necessary is because thet were already engaged in it!! The British Government did in fact routinely torture suspected IRA internees, The techniques of beatings,sleep deprivation, stress postions, white noise, mock executions etc that we see now in Iraq were routine in the 1970′s. So much so that the Irish government were forced to take the British government to the European Court of Human Rights which ruled in 1978 that Britain had indeed engaged in “inhuman and degrading treatment” Having said that I agree with your general point that torture is almost always counter-productive in fighting terrorist groups
Comment by Emmet — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 9:58 am
Of course you are correct Emmet, and your list doesn’t even include the Bloody Sunday whitewash, internment and the diplock courts. I perhaps over simplified my post to make the point that while, as you rightly point out, these things were occurring in the dark corners of the war, the British never attempted to institutionalise their actions and their people would not have allowed them had they tried. I think that’s fair.
Comment by Cian — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 10:56 am
cv–The debate taking place in Congress and the media etc. actually refers to prisoners covered by Article 3, not 4.
Comment by Chris — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 5:36 pm
It’s funny how Bush defenders continually portray the Geneva Conventions as outmoded, yet insist on following its descriptions of combatants to the letter. Like it or not, not everyone we are fighting (or capturing) in Iraq is a “terrorist.” While it’s convenient to protray them as such, insurgents who are tartgeting our soldiers in an effort to make them leave Iraq are not terrorists. And no, it doesn’t mean I support them, but the fact is that engaging in warfare against troops, no matter how sneaky you are, doesn’t make you a “terrorist.”
Another question I don’t see raised much is our right to unilaterally amend a treaty signed by 188 nations. I don’t believe we were put in charge of the process, with the freedom to alter the treaty as we please. Bush may find it hard to understand that there are no signing stements when you sign a treaty, but that’s the facts, Jack.
Comment by ChrisO — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 11:24 pm
Thank you, it is nice to hear clear headed thought on this issue from the more rightward side of the aisle.
Comment by zen_less — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 9:38 am
I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this kind of dialogue going on! The idea that we would even consider something like this scares me half to death. Thank God some people understand that if we destroy the principles that made us a great nation in the name of some faceless fear, that the terrorists will indeed have won.
Comment by Deb — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 10:41 am
A Breath Of Fresh Political Air…
Are we beginning to awaken from the zombie-like stance we’ve had the past five years? Or is the sudden debate over the Administration’s attempt to redefine our interpretation of the Geneva Convention just election year politics?…
Trackback by The Kudzu Files — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 11:40 am
Thank God I’m hearing other conservatives taking a stand for true American values. We must do our best to persuade our President that America must stand for morals, values, freedom and what’s right — these god-given assets have made us great and to sacrifice them, even during a time of war, is to lose to Evil before the war is finished. We will win without permitting torture. We will win without the Executive branch taking on unchecked power to tap our phones without court approval. We must continue to stand for the America created by Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln — and never become a nation that believes the methods of tyrants and dictators are superior weapons. Our values have given us victory for more than our 200 years. To lose them, is to lose America itself.
Comment by Marc — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 1:05 pm
Before one starts to slap each other on the back, when were these rules written in regards to detainees? Second, how can rules that are almost 60 years old, 8/12/1949, guide us as a county in a war against an ideology not a state? Unfortunately the Islamofacists could care less about the Geneva Convention and its rules regarding those who are prisoners, they just assume to cut your head off.
Here is the Geneva Convention incase you have not looked at the article in question.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm
Reading this I don’t see how you can apply it to the situation we are in now. Where do the terrorists fit into the “Prisoners of war”?
Article 4
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.
5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:
1. Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.
2. The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.
C. This Article shall in no way affect the status of medical personnel and chaplains as provided for in Article 33 of the present Convention
The more I read the document murkier it gets. I can see how Pres. Bush needs a clarification. It might be time to amend the document with a new Section.
Comment by c.v. — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
c.v.,
There are issues here, to be sure.
However, the bottom line is this: how are we going to treat, as a matter of policy, human beings under our control? This is no small matter and no just about ideologies or islamofascists. The issue is us and our values.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Friday, September 15, 2006 @ 2:30 pm
c.v said: “Second, how can rules that are almost 60 years old, 8/12/1949, guide us as a county in a war against an ideology not a state?”
I think a review is certainly fair, but some things are pretty much timeless, like Thou Shalt Not Kill for example.
This torture thing makes my skin crawl, we’ve won other wars without losing our principles and we can certainly win this one.
Comment by Colleen — Saturday, September 16, 2006 @ 12:25 am
[...] Too many (although not all) “conservative” bloggers are siding with the torturers here. There’s something I want to say to them and to Captain Ed, in particular. He writes, We have yet to fight against a wartime enemy that followed the GC with any consistency at all. The Germans routinely violated it even before Hitler began issuing orders to shoot captured pilots, and the massacre at Malmedy only crystallized what had been fairly brutal treatment at the hands of the Nazis for American prisoners (the Luftwaffe was one notable exception). The Japanese treatment of POWs was nothing short of barbaric, both before and after Bataan. The same is true for the North Koreans and the Chinese in the Korean War, and McCain himself is a routine example of the kind of treatment our men suffered at the hands of the Vietnamese. [...]
Pingback by The Mahablog » Desperation — Saturday, September 16, 2006 @ 8:30 am
I still do not have any answers from those have responed back. What is a terrortst’s legal status under the Genva Convention? Once this is clarified then the government will have a way in which it can proceed.
Comment by c.v. — Sunday, September 17, 2006 @ 4:11 pm
c.v.,
You incorrectly frame the debate. While I do not disagree that rules need clarification, the issue at hand goes beyond that. Rather, the administration has argued for a clarification that would allow specific types of treatment and certain rules at trial that are both unprecedented.
This is the heart of the debate–what those rules and parameters should be, not just whether there ought to be any.
I would note that the Senators who object are all veterans and have direct experience with these issues. Ditto Powell and the high ranking military lawyers from various services.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, September 17, 2006 @ 4:36 pm
The real question is who do these laws apply too? Terrorists caught plotting in London or Pakistan are Bristih and Paki law problems. There are few places in the world where a ‘terrorist’ is not a state citizen, subject to someone else’s laws.
This debate matters to those already captured on lawless battlefields in Afghanistan and Pre-Soverign Iraq – and to people apprehended on US soil, citizenship or no.
One question then, isn’t it likely that other governments will be less likely to share access to captured ‘terrorists’ if they think we will ship them off to black holes?
Regarding the ‘clarification’ that the President seeks in the matter, it seems to me the change they wish to make seeks to overide 60 years of internationally agreed objective standards and muddy them with a subjective standard based on a Presidents (or interrigators) assesment of the situation. This, to me, seems not only contrary to the Constitution, but contrary to everything many on the right argue should be the basis for morality in thie country.
Comment by Chasm — Sunday, September 17, 2006 @ 5:26 pm
Successive British Governments fought the IRA for 30 years without one member of parliament ever suggesting that torture was needed. The IRA bombed, assassinated and even targeted 10 Downing Street itself. They were every bit as deadly and despicable as today’s terrorists. As an Irishman I have always admired Britain’s politicians and people for never allowing themselves to become what they fought, to hold fast to their ideals and remain fearless in the face of an enemy that longed for them to abandon their laws and beliefs.
They didn’t. The IRA is gone. Learn.
Comment by Cian — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 9:06 am
Cian,
As one Irishman to another you should get your facts correct. The reason no British MP’s suggested that torture might be necessary is because thet were already engaged in it!! The British Government did in fact routinely torture suspected IRA internees, The techniques of beatings,sleep deprivation, stress postions, white noise, mock executions etc that we see now in Iraq were routine in the 1970′s. So much so that the Irish government were forced to take the British government to the European Court of Human Rights which ruled in 1978 that Britain had indeed engaged in “inhuman and degrading treatment” Having said that I agree with your general point that torture is almost always counter-productive in fighting terrorist groups
Comment by Emmet — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 9:58 am
Of course you are correct Emmet, and your list doesn’t even include the Bloody Sunday whitewash, internment and the diplock courts. I perhaps over simplified my post to make the point that while, as you rightly point out, these things were occurring in the dark corners of the war, the British never attempted to institutionalise their actions and their people would not have allowed them had they tried. I think that’s fair.
Comment by Cian — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 10:56 am
cv–The debate taking place in Congress and the media etc. actually refers to prisoners covered by Article 3, not 4.
Comment by Chris — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 5:36 pm
It’s funny how Bush defenders continually portray the Geneva Conventions as outmoded, yet insist on following its descriptions of combatants to the letter. Like it or not, not everyone we are fighting (or capturing) in Iraq is a “terrorist.” While it’s convenient to protray them as such, insurgents who are tartgeting our soldiers in an effort to make them leave Iraq are not terrorists. And no, it doesn’t mean I support them, but the fact is that engaging in warfare against troops, no matter how sneaky you are, doesn’t make you a “terrorist.”
Another question I don’t see raised much is our right to unilaterally amend a treaty signed by 188 nations. I don’t believe we were put in charge of the process, with the freedom to alter the treaty as we please. Bush may find it hard to understand that there are no signing stements when you sign a treaty, but that’s the facts, Jack.
Comment by ChrisO — Monday, September 18, 2006 @ 11:24 pm