Hamdan and Respect for the Geneva Conventions

Wordsmith at Flopping Aces offers a penetrating analysis of anti-Bush hypocrisy, terror trials, and the Geneva Conventions. The prompt is Salim Ahmed Hamdan's conviction today in his military commissions proceedings:

Why is it, that the impression the media leaves me with, is that Hamdan is “just a driver” and a victim of circumstances? Just another tragic pawn and casualty in the illegal and immoral war instigated by the imperialistic, oil-grubbing, human-rights/U.S. Constitution-violating Bush regime?

Well, he’s been found guilty of supporting terrorism, but acquitted on charges of conspiracy to commit acts of terror.

Anyway…

Jonathan Mahler writing last Sunday for the NYTimes Magazine:

The men in the dock might very well be war criminals, the argument goes, but what about the policy makers and interrogators who violated their rights under the Geneva Conventions?

The perception pushed by so many on the anti-Bush side of the argument, is that the detainees held at Guantanamo deserve protection under the provisions provided by the Geneva Convention; and that subsequently, because the Administration had long argued against classifying enemy combatants captured on the Afghanistan battlefield- al Qaeda and Taliban fighters- as having “prisoner of war” status, protected by the 1949 codification of the laws of war (until July 7, 2006, after a Supreme Court ruling), that Bush & Co somehow do not respect the Geneva Convention. The reality, however, is just the opposite. It’s for the same reason that President Reagan decided not to ratify Protocol I, declaring that it, “would undermine humanitarian law and endanger civilians in war.”

Douglas Feith, called the Geneva Conventions “a high-water mark of civilization”. He absolutely supports it, even as he denies its provisions to be extended to non-uniformed combatants who endanger civilians by blending in, and being indistinguishable from civilians, putting innocent lives at risk. To grant them the same legal rights as prisoners of war, grants terrorism legitimacy.

From Douglas Feith’s War and Decision, pg 163,

It would be “highly dangerous if countries make application of Convention hinge on subjective or moral judgments as to the quality or decency of the enemy’s government”- and it would be dangerous, therefore, to claim that the Convention does not apply because the Taliban are “the illegitimate government of a ‘failed state.’ ” Countries typically view their enemies as gangs of criminals. If officials had to certify an enemy as a “legitimate government” to apply the Convention, few countries would ever do so.

“I contended that a “pro-Convention” position, on the other hand, would reinforce U.S. moral arguments in the war on terrorism:

• The essence of the Convention is the distinction between soldiers and civilians (i.e., between combatants and noncombatants).
• Terrorists are reprehensible precisely because they negate that distinction, by purposefully targeting civilians.
• The Convention aims to protect civilians by requiring soldiers to wear uniforms and otherwise distinguish themselves from civilians.
• The Convention creates an incentive system for good behavior. The key incentive is that soldiers who play by the rules get POW status if they are captured.

I've actually been critical of Feith, after first reading stories of his reportedly scored-settling blame-all memoirs from the Bush years, cited above.

Yet, Wordsmith made think more about the issue, and his analysis here, referencing Feith's inside account of Bush administration deliberations, offers a powerful antitode to the left-wing push for war crimes prosecutions against "BushCo criminals."

There's more at the link.

See also, "Bush War Crimes and the Fog of History," which also cites Jonathan Mehlman's shallow grasp of America's legal history of national crises and constitutional accountability.

Cartoon Source: Flopping Aces