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Dec. 7th, 2004 10:17 amI'm completely fascinated by an article in today's SMH defending the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. So fascinated, I'm afraid I may worry at it for some time, like a dog with a particularly knotty snake.
The article's defends the mistreatment with these arguments:
- The mistreatment was not severe enough to meet the definition in the UN Convention Against Torture.
- The mistreatment was merely "mild discomfort".
- The Convention Against Torture says governments should "undertake to prevent" torture, it doesn't actually ban torture.
- Torture should be acceptable in a "ticking bomb" situation, to prevent another 9/11.
- The Geneva Convention, which bans all mistreatment of POWs, does not apply to Al Qaeda, as they are not signatories to the Geneva Convention and don't adhere to its principles.
There is another, unstated assumption:
- Torture is a way of extracting accurate information.
Let me start by examining the last argument in the list: The Geneva Convention does not apply to Al Qaeda. This strikes me as a dangerous argument for the US, which has been doing a bit of Geneva Convention violating itself - kidnapping Iraqi insurgents' families to make them talk; failing to meet their obligations regarding hospitals, resulting in numerous civilian deaths; complaining about the humiliating parading of US POWs while parading Iraqi POWs.
The article fails to mention that, until a prisoner's status has been determined by a "competent tribunal", they are to be presumed to be POWs and treated accordingly. The Guantanamo detainees have faced no such tribunal and therefore must be treated as POWs; by mistreating them, the US is again violating the Geneva Convention. Leaving out this pertinent fact is deliberately misleading. If we apply the article's logic, then since the US violates the Geneva Convention, it is giving up its own soldiers' right to protection under the Convention - not a situation that anyone would want.
More later.
The article's defends the mistreatment with these arguments:
- The mistreatment was not severe enough to meet the definition in the UN Convention Against Torture.
- The mistreatment was merely "mild discomfort".
- The Convention Against Torture says governments should "undertake to prevent" torture, it doesn't actually ban torture.
- Torture should be acceptable in a "ticking bomb" situation, to prevent another 9/11.
- The Geneva Convention, which bans all mistreatment of POWs, does not apply to Al Qaeda, as they are not signatories to the Geneva Convention and don't adhere to its principles.
There is another, unstated assumption:
- Torture is a way of extracting accurate information.
Let me start by examining the last argument in the list: The Geneva Convention does not apply to Al Qaeda. This strikes me as a dangerous argument for the US, which has been doing a bit of Geneva Convention violating itself - kidnapping Iraqi insurgents' families to make them talk; failing to meet their obligations regarding hospitals, resulting in numerous civilian deaths; complaining about the humiliating parading of US POWs while parading Iraqi POWs.
The article fails to mention that, until a prisoner's status has been determined by a "competent tribunal", they are to be presumed to be POWs and treated accordingly. The Guantanamo detainees have faced no such tribunal and therefore must be treated as POWs; by mistreating them, the US is again violating the Geneva Convention. Leaving out this pertinent fact is deliberately misleading. If we apply the article's logic, then since the US violates the Geneva Convention, it is giving up its own soldiers' right to protection under the Convention - not a situation that anyone would want.
More later.
