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Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin
This is a very complex issue. On the one hand, we are dealing with terrorists that may have information about pending terrorist plots that may kill thousand of Americans. When we capture these terrorists, we need to interogate them aggresively and try to get information. This can save the lives of thousands of Americans. Some of the rules in the Geneva Convention are very vague. It says that you can't humiliate the prisoners but it isn't specific. When CIA agents do interrogations, they are very aggressive. They are going to do whatver they can, short of torture, to try to get information out of thse terrorists. The CIA agents are very concerend that they could be sued or even put in jail over their interogation practices if they don't have specific guidelines as to what is permisable and what is not. If they insult a prisoner as part of the interrogation technique, is that "humiliation"? If it is, then the CIA agent could be sued or go to jail for violating the Geneva Conventions.
What these agents want the Bush Administration to do, is to clarify the Geneva Convention. They want to know speciically what is permissable when interrogating a prisoner. I can totally understand why they want the rules of the Geneva Convention to be clarified. The problem is that if the Unites Staes clarifies the rules of the Geneva Convention, that means they are chaging the rules. How can we change the rules of international laws?
If we change the rules of the Geneva Convention by changing the wording to make the rules more specific, this sends a very negative message to the rest of the world. It makes it sound like we won't abide by the Geneva Convention and we will treat prisoners however we want. You could argue that if any of our soldiers are ever captured, that they maybe tortured if our enemies think that we are torturing their people.
On the other hand, who are we dealing with these days? If we were just in a normal war with another country, this wouldn't even be an issue. We wouldn't need to change the rules of Geneva. But we are not dealing with another country. We are dealing with terorists and they don't obey the rules anyway. If they catch one of our soldiers, they will often cut his head off. The whole purpose of Geneva was so that captured soldiers are treated well in "civilizied wars", if there is any such thing. At least if we were at war with a normal country, there would be a chance that they would obey Geneva and treat our soldiers alright if they captured them. we would do the same thing if we captured any of their soldiers. But we are not at war with another country. We are at war with terrorists and these terrorists do not abide by any laws.
Anyway, it's a complicated issue. I'm not sure what the answer is. There are pros and cons on both sides.
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Thanks for your input. I agree that it is a complicated issue.
I'd also like to remind you that those we have labeled as "terrorists" don't consider themselves as that, any more than our "benificence as liberators" is considered by those wherein we impose our will is seen as "occupiers".
Word games and propaganda cloud constructive thought.
I also don't know the answer.
This issue should be brought to the Hague, not Congress.
Shucks, the US has lost far too much credibility in the views of the many countries.
We should ally, not dictate.