(Cross-posted here, at Phillybits.)
I'm not very familiar with this case and am posting it for introspection while I try to find a little more time to read a little more about this case.
I just came across
this via a link in Brad Blog's comments section from a few days ago. I'd never heard of this case before but reading the post, it does paint a scary picture in terms of applying or not applying the rules of Geneva.
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court relisted - postponed decision - for the third time on whether to review a case called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The case involves a man held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay for the better part of four years who challenges the legality of special military commissions that have been established to review charges against him. On trial before the first commissions of their kind in the United States since World War II, Mr. Hamdan faces a possible sentence of life imprisonment - whether or not he is found guilty.
-snip-
Instead, Mr. Hamdan will be tried in a system where the Executive Branch has written all of the rules for trial, picked judges who sit at the trial and on review, and defined both the crimes for which one can be convicted and the punishments one can face. And even these rules have been a moving target. Since the commissions were announced by the President in November 2001, commission rules have been reissued, revised, or amended no fewer than eight times, most recently following the submission of Mr. Hamdan's petition for review to the Supreme Court. Commission rules purport to reserve to the President the discretion to further change the rules at any time, and deny to Mr. Hamdan any rights under the terms of `commission law.' If the idea of the rule of law includes, at a minimum, a system of publicly known regulations, set in advance, applied without arbitrariness, and enforced by fair and independent courts - the commissions fall short in every respect.
-snip- The scary part
This argument is among the most deeply troubling the Administration makes - not just as a matter of law, but as a matter of military need. This argument implies that any Executive officer, anywhere in the world, has the power to say the same when our own troops are captured. If our President can strip someone of Geneva Convention protections at any moment, so can any leader of any other country. The Geneva Conventions were written to preclude such political interference - ensuring that the law in war is as independent of political interference as is the law in peace. The U.S. negotiators of the Conventions understood the logic of reciprocity, including that the U.S. military has the most to lose by taking stunted views of the laws of war.
Hey it might be great for BushCo. and their war on terror but...what happens when some other radical leader (yes, I said some
other radical leader) decides to pull Geneva protections off of our troops?
How will America respond in the face of an adversary committing the same acts under the same guise of "protection" as the US has applied itself?
Not saying it hasn't happened, what with the beheadings that have occured but...what type of precedent does this really set especially considering the current anti-torture bill that has much support from Senators but is facing veto from the President and exemption from the CIA by Cheney?