Terrorists and the Geneva Conventions
by Bob Clasen
To be covered by the Geneva Conventions, a combatant has to have
(a) a commander who is responsible for his subordinates;
(b) formal recognizable military insignia;
(c) weapons that are carried openly, and
(d) an adherence to the laws and customs of warfare.
Terrorists have none of these. As I understand the Geneva Conventions, they are treaties that civilized countries at war with one another enter into to try to insure the mutual fair treatment of their prisoners of war. If two countries are signatories to this treaty, then their prisoners will be extended these special privileges.
Terrorists do not have a country, do not carry weapons openly, and only promise to torture and behead the captured enemy. So far they have carried out these promises. Why in God's name would we extend the protection of the Geneva Convention to captured terrorists? Please explain this to me if you disagree. If we unilaterally extend the privileges of the Geneva Convention to terrorists who do not extend the same courtesies to us, what motivation do they have to change their ways? We have given away our bargaining chip for free.
This is not to say that I am in favor of torturing terrorists (under most circumstances) but I have no compunctions about making their lives a little uncomfortable in order to extract information. Just as criminals have foregone the protection of the ordinary laws and can be locked in a cell, terrorists have foregone the protectionn of civilized societies that create the rights they wish to destroy. As non citizens and sworn enemies of our country, our only duty is to protect our country from further violence at their hands. (In my opinion, sawing the head off a living man is torture; piling naked bodies into a pyramid is not.)
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To be covered by the Geneva Conventions, a combatant has to have
(a) a commander who is responsible for his subordinates;
(b) formal recognizable military insignia;
(c) weapons that are carried openly, and
(d) an adherence to the laws and customs of warfare.
Terrorists have none of these. As I understand the Geneva Conventions, they are treaties that civilized countries at war with one another enter into to try to insure the mutual fair treatment of their prisoners of war. If two countries are signatories to this treaty, then their prisoners will be extended these special privileges.
Terrorists do not have a country, do not carry weapons openly, and only promise to torture and behead the captured enemy. So far they have carried out these promises. Why in God's name would we extend the protection of the Geneva Convention to captured terrorists? Please explain this to me if you disagree. If we unilaterally extend the privileges of the Geneva Convention to terrorists who do not extend the same courtesies to us, what motivation do they have to change their ways? We have given away our bargaining chip for free.
This is not to say that I am in favor of torturing terrorists (under most circumstances) but I have no compunctions about making their lives a little uncomfortable in order to extract information. Just as criminals have foregone the protection of the ordinary laws and can be locked in a cell, terrorists have foregone the protectionn of civilized societies that create the rights they wish to destroy. As non citizens and sworn enemies of our country, our only duty is to protect our country from further violence at their hands. (In my opinion, sawing the head off a living man is torture; piling naked bodies into a pyramid is not.)
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Comments
I am no scholar on this subject, but I believe what is generally referred to as the Geneva Convention not only covers military personnel but civilians. The term enemy combatant is new.
I too think there are circumstances that allow some "pressure" to be put on people to gain information.
However, I think you are getting sucked into this semantic argument that opens the door to torture in any case that doesn't fall squarely into conventional soldiers.
First, with respect to those captured in Afganistan, they didn't declare war on us in any traditional sense. I don't even know if the Taliban had military uniforms. Certainly, the foreign "arab" fighters didn't.
So now that you capture a large group of them, are we free to do anything we want to them? Should there be some procedure with checks and balances, or can we just dig a ditch, machine gun them, and push in the dirt.
Even a civil liberarian like Alan Dershowitz believes torture might be justified in some circumstances, like the location of a nuclear weapon.
However, as a couple of low level Miliary Policeman go off to prision as a result of Abu Garib, shouldn't there be some accountability for those that might have encouraged that behavior.
Our soon to be attorney general apparently encouraged govenment attorneys to allow the president to order people to commit illegal acts, yet they are not automatically immunized for "following orders".
This is a real slippery slope. Focusing on why terrorists are not covered by Geneva rather than defining what is OK to do to terrorists is the better discussion point.