Minimum Standards

[WilliamPitt]

Minimum Standards
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Wednesday 12 July 2006

BBC News reported it this way: "All US military detainees, including those at Guantanamo Bay, are to be treated in line with the minimum standards of the Geneva Conventions. The White House announced the shift in policy on Tuesday, almost two weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled that the conventions applied to detainees."

A small thing, one would think. We have been told time and again, after all, that we are engaged in a "War on Terror," and the rules of war should therefore apply. The fact that we are also fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan further simplifies the issue.

With the Bush administration, however, nothing is so straightforward. The administration argument, on the surface, has been that because "terrorists" are affiliated with no official government, they do not fall under the umbrella of Geneva protections.

The real reason for the denial of protections, though, was the Cheney-born insistence that the powers of the executive are plenary and not to be restricted in any way. Holding people indefinitely without trial while subjecting them to torture, therefore, was a marvelous way to establish the precedent of limitless power.

We caught a glimpse of the mind-set behind this whole process on Tuesday afternoon. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Hamden v. Rumsfeld Supreme Court ruling, the one that has ostensibly turned the Bush administration's war doctrine on its ear and has motivated them to grant minimum Geneva protections to prisoners.

Senator Patrick Leahy was grilling Steven Bradbury, acting head of Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, on the legal and ethical basis for Guantanamo in general and the treatment of prisoners specifically. Pressed into a corner by Leahy's questioning as to whether Bush was right or wrong in his decisions on the matter, Bradbury finally stated, "The president is always right."

Mr. Bradbury, it appears, did not get the memo.

More: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071206J.shtml

[Cleita]

1. So is this empty rhetoric or will the Red Cross or UN observers

be allowed to monitor and do inspections to make sure they are in fact honoring the Geneva conventions? You don't seem to think that in your final words.

[Generic Other]

2. My cousin a US pilot was a POW in Germany

He committed suicide after the war. Humane treatment of POWs is the hallmark of a civilized people. Otherwise, we might as well just torture and kill them on the spot (like the terrorists do).

Every American who defends Guantanamo should spend a few weeks there. Starting with Bradbury, Gonzales and Clarence Thomas.