I don't get it either, Steve. How can the benefits possibly outweigh the costs in terms of our national prestige? If we have some existential problem with the "quaint" Geneva Conventions, ought we not to recommend changes to them rather than continue to undermine them?

I wish people would realize that if the US doesn't follow them, other countries won't treat American POW's under the Geneva Convention guidelines.

We shouldn't assume that the Bush fanatics don't know exactly what they are doing.

In the minds of the American supremacists in the Bush administration, the argument that we should afford the Geneva protections to the people we detain so that the same protections will be afforded to detained Americans carries little weight. Their solution to the problem of protecting Americans is simple: we must maintain unrivaled American military superiority in perpetuity, so that protecting American prisoners isn't an issue. If there are few American prisoners to begin with, then there are few American prisoners who need protection via some tit-for-tat arrangement. And the unconventional terrorist warriors who are not deterrable by conventional military means will not abide by the Geneva rules anyway. So it is felt that the gains to be had from taking the gloves off with the prisoners we've taken are not offset by commensurate losses in the treatment of Americans.

I think we have to remember that many of the Bushites are not just *willing to risk* a breakdown in the reigning international legal order in order to pursue their ends. They actively *want* such a breakdown. They want to deligitimize much of international law, and the institutions that underpin it, because they imagine that in a world in which the US is the dominant power, the Lilliputian constraints and restraints imposed by the prevailing legal order are mainly a hindrance to the ruthless US pursuit of its national interest, a hindrance that isn't paid for in compensatory benefits.

Law, in their pseudo-sophisticated Nietzshean minds, is for the weak and decadent. It a conspiracy of the weak to protect themselves from the depradations of the mighty. According to this line of argument, in a world where the constraints of law are removed, the power of the strongest is amplified and the power of the weak is further diminished.

Bush's ideologues came in with the grand ambition of replacing the existing postwar legal order with its broadly republican ideological underpinnings, and its implicit assignment of co-equal status to the five permanent members of the UN security council, with an American imperium, one in which the US assumes a privileged monarchical position and a unique prerogative to make the law of its choosing. In the fantasy world of the "unipolar moment" and the New American Imperium, we Americans *are* they law. Thus, we don't need no stinking badges.

The ideologues also don't care much about national "prestige" if by that one means a reputation for decency, restraint and benevolence. You don't need to be respected or admired, they would say, so long as you are feared. Soft power is a a luxury item whose loss can be compensated by amassing ever larger heaps of hard power.

Of course they do tend to imagine that, in the long run, America will regain some of the respect it has lost, once others come to appreciate that the world has benefitted from the forced extention of liberalism, capitalism and democracy through the ruthless use of American power. But until then, they argue, we will just have to tolerate the natural resentment and animosity of the vassals and plebians toward their overlords as we march them toward the future.

The outlook is based in large part on an absurd overestimation of the extent of American power and dominance, and of the opportunities offered by the mythical "unipolar moment". It is rooted in the notion that America no longer needs soft power because it possesses such a superabundance of hard power.

It is also based on the bizarre American absorption of the Israeli view of the world, a phenomenon for which there appears to be little historical precedent - one in which a very strong state has adopted the stance of a very weak state as a model for its own behavior.

Israel has long accustomed itself to its rogue status and isolation. Many Israelis hate Europe, which they remember mainly as the anti-Semitic setting of genocide against the Jews. They revile the UN, and the international law that has proceeded from it, because they see the UN as a body that has persecuted them for years with a series of increasingly hostile resolutions. Since Israel is so widely villified, many Israelis have little hope of exerting soft power and are resigned to a course of self-reliant military strength and ruthless defense of their existence and security through violence and stealth. They rationalize their crimes by convincing themselves that the world "hates them not for what they do, but for who they are", thus elevating anti-Semitism from the staus of a contibuting cause of anti-Israeli sentiment to that of the total cause.

Just replace "anti-Semitism" with "anti-Americanism" in the above, and you get the worldview of much of the contemporary American right. When you marry the Israeli feelings of persecution, friendlessness, weakness and existential dread, with the American sense of vaulting military confidence and omnipotence, you get the monstrosity of the Bush administration - a wounded giant run amok.

Once again, Kervick has offered an admirable wrap-up. Yes, the miscalculation of the Geneva Conventions' cost-benefit ratio is most definitely part and parcel of ideological (or psychopathological) groundwork. It's worth remarking that just at the moment when the Bush jurists were working their casuistry, back in 2002, interestingly enough, propaganda papers were being issued by think-tanks. The example that comes to mind is Cliff May's Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, for which Fredric Smoler wrote a paper against the International Court and, together with Andrew Apostolou, an article titled "The Genenva Convention Is Not a Suicide Pact."
Preparing the terrain...

Steve,

The Nov 8 issue of "The American Conservative" magazine has published an articulate and persuasive article that should be a MUST read for undecideds i.e. conservative Republicans and independents ( which I am ).

Kerry’s the One
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html

Excerpts:

Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation’s children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can’t be found to do it—and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail.

During the campaign, few have paid attention to how much the Bush presidency has degraded the image of the United States in the world....

Bush’s public performances plainly show him to be a man who has never read or thought much about foreign policy. So the inevitable questions are: who makes the key foreign-policy decisions in the Bush presidency, who controls the information flow to the president, how are various options are presented?

The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.

If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong.

George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.

My thoughts...

Many conservative and moderate Republicans and independents are turned off or horrified by another Bush term of domestic failures, fiscal irresponsiblity, belligerent Christian conservatism, and messianic interventionism abroad.

Take these folks plus the solid Dem base including new/undercounted Dem voters ( esp. 18-29 yrs ) and you get a Kerry victory.

Bottom line is if Bush has a problem with you he's eventually going to invade and kill you. The niceties of how you're treated before your eventual death or permanent incarceration are not to be bothered with. If you're not white, Christian, straight and opposed to taxes just go ahead and surrender, lay your head on the chopping block, and get it over with. Also, don't talk, e-mail, write, read, mail or otherwise communicate your displeasure about all this. He has all that monitored. And give him your oil or he'll bomb the next wedding you attend for good measure.

"They increasingly realize that Bush may not be an anomaly or accident and that their calculation of self-interest requires new bets on alternative alliances and the development of new competencies to constrain the power and behavior of the U.S."

So I gather they're not enthusiastic or hopeful about Brzezinski's ideas. Well, the Europeans see enough cable news coverage, read the polls, and understand that roughly half the country is certifiable. We are so screwed.

Excerpt from stranda's excerpts:

~~~~~~~snip~~~~~~~~~~

Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can’t be found to do it

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now that's interesting.

Student visas are down, so less brain is coming into the country. Instead we are apparently importing untrained workers.

Now I am not one to denigrate "untrained workers" as anything less than good and decent humans deserving of a living wage (haha)...

But...but...

In a sense what we have here is sort of an back-door brain drain...

And...and...

The importation of serfs to support the corporate gentry.

Not only is that a phenomenally mean-spirited way to run a country, it is the straightest path to a banana republic.

Quote:

"Devil May Care" by Tucker Carlson, Talk Magazine, September 1999, p. 106

"Bush's brand of forthright tough-guy populism can be appealing, and it has played well in Texas. Yet occasionally there are flashes of meanness visible beneath it.

While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder.

'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'

I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking.

'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.' As it turns out, the Larry King-Karla Faye Tucker exchange Bush recounted never took place, at least not on television. During her interview with King, however, Tucker did imply that Bush was succumbing to election-year pressure from pro-death penalty voters. Apparently Bush never forgot it. He has a long memory for slights." [Carlson, Talk, 9/99]

Torturing prisoners. It's tough stuff, but Bush's job is to get even.

If Bush gets elected the international community only needs to play their own version of "Starve the Beast," by cutting back on buying US debt notes, ie., bonds, and increasingly begin denominating the trade in oil in euros rather than dollars. By bankrupting US they can control US, and its fully within their power. Those who live in glass houses ........ and who's your daddy, as the US whimpers "please don't kill me."

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Recall:
According to the "Fuehrer principle," Hitler stood outside the legal state and determined matters of policy himself.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/

Running around on the internet[s] is this pretty picture:
http://snipurl.com/a42l

Has anyone seen the Opinion? I've looked for links but have found none.

Hey Y'all

I gotta compliment MrKervick. Not a posting thats filled with nuance. But definitely in the '9 ring' at least. (Any target shooters here?)

About the Geneva Conventions, though. I think to be honest they are a 19th century European phenomenon. And IMHO, have virtually nothing to do with the GWOT. No one believes I hope that the US can protect any GIs that fall into Jihadists hands by following the Geneva Convention?

Whether this amounts to the 'Mother of all Clashes of Civilization' that Huntington predicted or is just one more bad spot on the human journey--wars between peoples of different cultures are bad bad bad wars to be a POW in.
The Allied (WW2) POWs held by the Japanese died in much much larger numbers than those held by the Germans. And if you were a miserable German soldier captured by the Russians, well, the philosopher Hobbs described your life---'nasty, brutal and short.'

This is NOT to advocate treating captured enemies in the GWOT like the Bushies do. There really needs to be a written and agreed upon body of law (even if its only US law) that lays out their rights and our responsibility for them.

But as much as I hate to agree with anything the Bushies do or say, the Geneva Convention is out-of-date for the present circumstance.

So says this ol' boy
JohnMc

It is posts like those of kervick, standa, bakho, and others that make this the first blog I go to when I get home. Intellegent discussion is so hard to find.

Mark
greatwhitebear.blogspot.com

The Justice Department has advised the White House that President Bush (and those who follow his orders) may contravene treaties, U.S. law and international law under the broad doctrine of "necessity."

This advice contrasts sharply with that of an earlier White House, under Lyndon Johnson, during the Vietnam War. In that war, the decision was made to employ the full powers of the commander in chief to buttress and reinforce the Geneva Conventions and the criminal sanctions under the U.S. Code that followed from these conventions. Attorney General John Ashcroft and others in the administration have suggested that the recent disclosures about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison are simply a reflection of the universal "hard side" of war. It was ever thus and will forever be is the implication. Yet the record of the U.S. military in Vietnam, not our most glorious military undertaking, suggests otherwise.

Far more attention was paid in Vietnam than in Iraq to ensuring an environment in which every American combatant understood the basic rules of the Geneva Conventions. These principles were part of universal military training, reinforced by the chain of command in the field and largely, although certainly not universally, adhered to by the troops.

The International Red Cross sought assurances in December 1964 from the U.S. and Vietnamese governments that their armed forces were abiding by the Geneva Conventions. These requests prompted a policy review that led the U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam to appoint a joint U.S.-Vietnamese military committee in September 1965 to work out details on the application of the Geneva Conventions in Vietnam. Every draftee and volunteer was given, during basic training, mandatory instruction in the principles of the conventions. Soldiers were tested on that training, and the results were recorded in their personnel jackets. This training was repeated at successive stages, and all soldiers arriving in Vietnam received orientation in the Geneva Conventions during their initial processing.

Every soldier also received a plastic pocket card bearing the signature of our commander in chief, Lyndon Baines Johnson. It was headed "The Enemy in Your Hands" and summarized the conventions in simple, clear language. Item No. 3, "MISTREATMENT OF ANY CAPTIVE IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE. EVERY SOLDIER IS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENEMY IN HIS HANDS," was followed by this unambiguous guidance: "It is both dishonorable and foolish to mistreat a captive. It is also a punishable offense. Not even a beaten enemy will surrender if he knows his captors will torture or kill him. He will resist and make his capture more costly. Fair treatment of captives encourages the enemy to surrender."

A program of instruction for all U.S. and Vietnamese military units was established in Vietnam to teach the basic rules for handling prisoners. Regulations were promulgated instructing U.S. units and advisers to identify and keep records of all captives turned over to the Vietnamese, including specifying to whom the captives were transferred.

The signed order from President Johnson in our pockets was a critical element of accountability and personal responsibility. In the event that any of us might be instructed to treat prisoners in an inhumane manner, we were in a position to recognize and refuse an unlawful order that contravened a signed direct order from the president.

There were, of course, American abuses in the handling of prisoners in Vietnam, as there were in World War II and all other wars. But U.S. soldiers who violated the policy on torture and prisoner abuse in Vietnam knew precisely where the lines were drawn, and they knew that they could not hide behind either an ambiguous Army policy or the defense that they were "just following orders." Serious departures from policy were far more prevalent in the undeclared and covert theaters of the Indochina war (Laos and Cambodia), where accountability was reduced, the lines of military authority often obscure, and external oversight from the legislative branch and from the press nonexistent.

The Defense Department has established a military environment in Iraq that is more reminiscent of those covert wars than of the overt war in Vietnam. The White House legal counsel's written opinion that the Geneva Conventions are now "obsolete" and have been rendered "quaint" diminishes accountability and personal responsibility for our soldiers in Iraq. The suggestion that the doctrine of "necessity" has broad application to our military interrogation of prisoners in Iraq is worrisome.

The Indochina war was not the U.S. Army's finest hour, but the occupation of Iraq may, in at least some respects, be remembered as one of its darkest

Ahem... Article VI of the Constitution of the U.S. provides that ratified treaties are the ``highest law'' of the land. At least the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), as well as the Torture Convention, and also the United Nations Charter, are ratified treaties. [I don't know about the earlier Hague and Geneva conventions, I should note.] The Convention on Torture, FWIW, explictly disallows ''necessity'' defenses.

The point is that the President takes an oath to ``faithfully execute'' the laws of the U.S. He has broken that oath, both in invading Iraq, and in allowing torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewheres.

It isn't just a matter of International Law: Bush has violated solemn undertakings we have given the rest of the world and made a part of our law.