Geneva and the enemy

Andrew McCarthy:

So, al Qaeda has done what al Qaeda does. It tortured and murdered our two soldiers. Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker never had a chance once they fell into the jihadists’ savage hands.

Meanwhile, some time in the next few days, the Supreme Court will decide the most important case of its term, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the personal driver and confidant of Osama bin Laden, claims his “rights” would be infringed if he is subjected to a military commission of the type President Bush authorized in late 2001 — the type that has from a time out of memory been imposed on those who violate the laws of war. Hamdan demands, instead, a court martial, with all the elevated protections afforded to our own forces by our own military — if not a full-blown civilian trial, before a federal judge, with all the protections afforded by our Constitution to American citizens accused of crimes.

Of course, a Yemeni national captured in Afghanistan whose only connection to the United States is to wage war against her has no rights under our Constitution. The entitlements Hamdan insists he rates can only come from international law: specifically, the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war.

Except there’s a problem … actually several problems. Al Qaeda, being an atrocious international terrorist network rather than a nation, is not a “high contracting party” to the Convention. It has no general or presumed claim on the treaty’s protections.

This does not necessarily mean it could never claim Geneva rights. But it does mean those rights must be earned. Geneva’s Golden Rule is earned reciprocity. Article 2 of the Convention makes it very clear: a non-party may earn the privileges and immunities of the treaty if it “accepts and applies the provisions thereof.”

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There is much more. The media's willful ignorance on the Geneva Convention is one of its many failing in this war. Many in the media have this vague goo-goo feeling that the US is violating the Gevena Convention, which is clearly not, while at the same time they do not think the enemy has any responsibility under the convention because of their goo-goo feelings about the US. Read the whole piece. It is outstanding.