There has been a lot of
discussion lately, at least in moderate and left-wing circles, about
the growing evidence of the Bush Regime's deliberate abrogation of the
Geneva Conventions, on the basis that respecting it compromises the
'war on terror'. The best report was Friday on Bill Moyers NOW on PBS, which included a lengthy interview with Scott Horton, the lawyer for the NY Bar Association, about the Association's report
on the Bush Regime's arguments for ignoring the Conventions, and their
implication for the safety of American troops, and the integrity of
international law. The report was commissioned in part because of
concerns expressed by the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) office about
alarming and inconsistent instructions that military personnel were
receiving about non-application of the Conventions. These concerns
stemmed from a whole series of classified memoranda from the very top
of the Bush Regime, justifying widespread setting aside of the
Conventions on flimsy grounds, notably a memo
from Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo developed to
pre-justify systematic contravention of the Conventions. Or as Newsweek
puts it
"a legal framework to justify a secret system of detention and
interrogation that sidesteps the historical safeguards of the Geneva
Conventions."
There is a great deal more on this story. The NOW site above has links
to additional stories. And Joe Conason at Salon.com has a good summary of it this week.
So the question is: Why is John Kerry not raising this as a serious campaign issue,
a defining distinction between his policy and Bush's? In the interview
with NOW, Horton says that all the major media, especially the TV
networks, have refused to provide significant coverage of this issue
because "it is too complex to be understandable or of interest to the
public." This is an astonishing position for the media to take, and a
total abrogation of their journalistic responsibility. So, for the
benefit of these media, allow me to make it simple, so that even a
media mogul could understand it:
- The primary purpose of the Geneva Conventions is as a
mutual code of civility, to safeguard prisoners on all sides from
torture, murder and atrocities. As long as all sides in a war agree to
be bound by the Conventions, the war is unlikely to deteriorate into
gruesome and barbaric abuse and slaughter of the innocent. But when one
side, as the US has now done, disregards the Conventions, it provokes
the other side to abrogate the Conventions as well. So the first
consequence of the Bush Regime's decision that the Geneva Conventions
does not apply in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and other secret US
prisons in the ill-defined and boundaryless 'war on terror', is to imperil the lives and safety of American troops, peacekeepers and civilians worldwide. We have already seen some despicable instances of this.
- Respect for and adherence to the Geneva Conventions is a
backbone of international law, but it is equally enshrined in American
law. Secret papers calling for the ignoring and abrogation of the
Conventions, from the highest levels of the Bush Regime, are in fact instructions
to commit illegal acts, and a statement that this government considers
itself above, and not bound by, the rule of law in America.
So we have a government that, by its actions, is threatening the lives
and safety of American troops, peacekeepers, and civilians worldwide,
and putting themselves outside and above the law by commissioning
illegal acts. Surely this is simple enough for anyone to understand,
and surely it is grounds for Kerry to express outrage, demand an
impartial and unimpeded investigation (not another of these farcical
and impotent commissions we have seen so far), and in fact seek
criminal charges against the people responsible. The NY Bar Association
believes there are ample grounds for this, and they should know
something about the law.
If we reserve our outrage and only prosecute those on the front lines
that follow the orders they are given, and even then only when there
are provocative photos, and if by our inaction we actually encourage
those that commission the illegal and dangerous acts, give the orders,
and then hide behind executive privilege and secrecy, what does that
say about us?
It's time for John Kerry to speak up.
Photo: Interrogation room at Guantanamo, where Bush has declared that no prisoners are protected by the Geneva Conventions.
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