Let’s shift focus, at least for a moment or two, away from Joe Lieberman and back towards George W. Bush, who seems to have some interesting ideas about the War Crimes Act.
The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments.
Officials say the amendments would alter a U.S. law passed in the mid-1990s that criminalized violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties governing military conduct in wartime. The conventions generally bar the cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment of wartime prisoners without spelling out what all those terms mean.
The administration is reportedly willing to narrow the scope of potential criminal prosecutions to include incidents such as torture, murder, and rape, but omit what the Geneva Conventions refer to as “outrages upon [the] personal dignity” of a prisoner and deliberately humiliating acts. By this standard, the WaPo noted, it would be legal to tie detainees to dog leashes and force male prisoners to wear women’s underwear, which of course happened at Abu Ghraib.
Because nothing says “respect for American values” like forcing women’s underwear onto foreign prisoners.
James Joyner, whom I enjoy reading despite his conservative approach to politics, accurately described this as “a mistake.”
The problem is not that existing law is too strict but that the policy in question is wrongheaded. Following the Geneva Conventions is not only something the United States is obligated to do — indeed, the Constitution explicitly states that simple legislation can not override treaty commitments — but unquestionably in our own best interests.
Joyner also noted Gary Farber’s compelling take.
Because if American power to engage in forced nakedness of prisoners, to put them on dog leashes and in women’s underwear isn’t preserved, god help the survival of our nation. And its ideals.
If America isn’t about putting people on dog leashes and in women’s underwear, what is it about?
As for the administration’s argument that the Geneva’s Common Article 3 is overly vague, and therefore needs to be touched up by Bush administration lawyers, retired Army Lt. Col. Geoffrey S. Corn, who was recently chief of the war law branch of the Army’s Office of the Judge Advocate General, said the wording was “left deliberately vague because efforts to define it would invariably lead to wrongdoers identifying ‘exceptions,’ and because the meaning was plain — treat people like humans and not animals or objects.”
I’m afraid that’s pre-9/11 thinking, according to the Bush gang.