The Geneva Conventions are from another era. They're outdated. They're elegant remnants from a more civilized age. Clearly, the signers of those ancient treaties could never have foreseen what kind of horrific challenges we face in the modern world. Our parents and grandparents could never have imagined how uniquely evil our current enemies are. It just doesn't make sense for us to be bound by old-fashioned ideas about warfare.
Sound familiar?
Of course it sounds familiar. It's what they're
ranting about today at the National Review. It's what the wingnuts and Republicans have been saying to us for the last three years. It's how they
defend and justify torture. It's the last defense of charlatans and moral cowards.
And always, it's the same fucking argument: that never before in the annals of human history has anyone ever had to face such an evil, existential threat. How can we not torture people, when the very survival of the Republic is at stake?
The conservatives will point out that the Geneva Conventions require soldiers to act in certain ways in order to be entitled to the protections due to prisoners of war. They will point out that Article 4.2.d requires soldiers to "conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war", and that Article 4.2.b requires that they "have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance". Thus, they will argue, our enemies are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They are not soldiers; they are "enemy combatants", whatever that means. And in one cold and calculating sense, they are correct. But they completely miss the point.
It is regrettable that the poverty of our political language has made "abide by the Geneva Conventions" a synonym for "treat people in a chivalrous and Christian manner". But there is a far greater moral poverty that comes when we look to the law in order to find excuses to torture people. And this is the poverty of Alberto Gonzales and George Bush. "Trust us," they say, "for we would use our power wisely and justly." I don't believe them.
The unspoken assumption behind the conservative argument is American exceptionalism. It is the idea that all the history of the world is one of the ascent of man. We always improve, the present is always better than the past, and sitting atop the pinnacle of humanity is the uniquely virtuous and trustworthy American government.
But the present isn't always better than the past. The present is what we make it. We can learn from the past. We can improve on the past. We can look hopefully to the future. But in the end, the present is what we make it. And right now, we're doing a pretty poor job.
So here is my attempt to kill this bizarre temporal chauvanism: most of the good things in the world today were created in the past.
A short list might include: the Constitution (all of it, including those pesky Amendments like I, IV, and IX), the Bible, the Enlightenment, national parks, the New Deal, Social Security, public education, libraries. Faith, hope and charity. The Geneva Conventions.
We are not so uniquely enlightened as we think we are. We should not abandon the progress and the virtues of the past, for the expediency of efficiency and wrath in the present.
Yes, the terrorist attacks of September 11 were horrific almost beyond imagining. Yes, the unbidden reaction comes: "blow them all to hell; God will know his own." But that's a primal howl of anger, not a thought. It's a black rage, an evil to be suppressed, not a policy to implement.
You can understand where the conservatives are coming from. In the midst of destruction and war, we see justice through a glass, darkly. In the end, we will understand fully. But our trial is here and now. How will we react at this moment?
We will be judged as a nation by how we act today. We cannot stand mute and dumb while our opponents reward those who permit and justify and encourage torture. We cannot stand idly by while our sense of right and dignity and chivalry is debased by countrymen bearing leashes and hoods and electrodes. We will not be good Germans.
We say loud and clear that torture is always wrong. It is never justified. It is never acceptable. It is never civilized. Torture is always wrong. And Alberto Gonzales should never be our Attorney General.