Bush a War Criminal?
That’s the question that Rosa Brooks asks in this morning’s LA Times. Here’s the basis for her ‘case’:
The provisions of the Geneva Convention were intended to protect noncombatants, including prisoners, in times of armed conflict. But as the administration has repeatedly noted, most of these protections apply only to conflicts between states.
That’s true as far as it goes; unfortunately, it doesn’t go far enough. While it’s true that part of the Geneva Convention meant to protect citizens as much as is possible in war, it didn’t stop there. Ms. Brooks either intentionally or incompetently stopped there. That blockquote above is part of Article 3 of the Convention. Let’s see what Article 4 has to say:
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.
This section essentially says that people only qualify for Geneva Convention protections if they’re wearing a uniform that has “a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance.” They don’t have to be part of a nation’s military but they have to be visibly identifiable as being combatants in a conflict.
Clearly, Hamdan wasn’t wearing a “a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance.” In fact, I’d bet the ranch that nobody being held at Gitmo was wearing anything that’d fit these requirements. Furthermore, Fred Barnes said that he’d talked with someone from the Reagan administration yesterday afternoon about terrorists being covered. This Reagan administration official said that the subject came up in the eighties and that it was summarily rejected.
The implication of this is monumental: the four liberal idiots, joined by Justice Kennedy, ratified unilaterally a new ‘treaty’ that gives terrorists rights that the Geneva Convention says that they aren’t entitled to having. In that light, it’s impossible to figure out how the Bush administration could be war criminals when SCOTUS wrote new law yesterday.
In closing, it’s clear that Ms. Brooks either needs (a) to be more thorough in researching the Geneva Convention so she knows what she’s talking about or (b) to stop selectively choosing which Geneva Convention rules she’ll apply to terrorists. In short, she’d be wise to tell the whole truth, not just the convenient truth.
Technorati Tags: LA Times, Hamdan, Guantanamo, Terrorist, Supreme Court, Geneva Convention
Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog
June 30th, 2006 at 8:39 am
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
I don’t see much about IED-killings, suicide-bombers, and civilian mayhem as a part of the “laws and customs” of war.
The Court f*’d up, Big Time.
June 30th, 2006 at 10:39 am
But the Court didn’t apply Article 4. The Court said that Article 3 applied. That’s the part that talks about people NOT in uniform.
Your post is just flat misleading.
June 30th, 2006 at 10:58 am
You accuse anyone who has a differing point of view as either an “idiot” or “stupid” or otherwise sharing in your superior intellect. Then, you go on to say “tell the whole truth, not just the convenient truth” whilst only pointing out the one provision of the Geneva convention that supports your arguement. What part of “stupid” and “idiot” escapes your brilliant mind? Gary, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
But I’m sure the Fred Barnes, expert on all things republiCON, is right: terrorism in the Reagan years was summarily rejected.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court did not write any new law, nor any new treaty, as you suggest. (Again, whenever anyone disagrees with the CONmen, its “judicial activism!”) The Supremes merely said that W overstepped his bounds by acting without the authorization of Congress. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why; this rubber-stamp congress will give him anything he wants, and yet W (and the brain, and the devil, or whatever cute nicknames we’re using today) continue to go behind Congress’ back.
The entire republiCON party needs to go back to basic civics to learn the role each branch of government plays. I would have said learn but its cleear none of them paid any attention in the first place.
BTW, DirtCrashr, how does using dogs to scare enemy combatants, and forcing them to pile on one-another without clothes (among the most well known and yet lesser acts the US routinely commits) fit with the “laws and customs” of war? I’m not suggesting any moral equivalence between, for example, employing scare tactics and beheadings; but just because they do it doesn’t mean we should, either.
Let the name calling and finger pointing begin!
June 30th, 2006 at 11:40 am
As explained by a Constitutional Law expert on CSPAN this morning:
-The Geneva Convention now applies to detainees.
-The Geneva Convention prevents degrading interrogation techniques (like waterboarding).
-There is a Congressional law stating that violation of the Geneva Conventions is a war crime punishable by life in prison or execution!
End result, Bush administration is in trouble if they keep this up….
June 30th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
That law was written after this case (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) was put into the system. Ergo, you can’t break a law that didn’t exist at the time.
As for your constitutional expert, he’s wrong because we’re talking about terrorists in this instance. If terrorists were covered by the Geneva Convention, then there wouldn’t have been discussions in the 80’s about whether terrorists should be protected by the Geneva Convention.
Furthermore, if we didn’t sign newer versions of the Geneva Convention, then those newer rules wouldn’t be American law.
What must it be like to hate Bush so much that you think he’s breaking the law with his every action? What a pathetic existence!!! I won’t even call it a life.
June 30th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
This is why spies can be summarily executed, since they do not enjoy the protections of the Geneva Convention. And given the protections that the Dems and the liberal members of the SCOTUS want to provide our enemies, perhaps our soldiers in the field won’t go through so much trouble to capture them in the first place.
But hey… I’m not some tool who thinks that increase tax revenues is sufficient justification for invalidating someone’s property rights.
Sounds like there’s some more work to do on the Supreme Court, eh?
June 30th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
The Day After
In the end this is going to force those in Congress to choose sides, and in an election year. How much you want to bet the majority will not side with Al-Qaeda?
…
July 2nd, 2006 at 3:03 pm