For whatever reason, I quite like the term "international pariah."
Now if only someone *ahem* would feed the pariah some poisoned sardines...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
you'll have to pay extra for the happy ending
- birdie
- My name is [redacted] and I'm reclaiming just a bit of my anonymity. I was not harassed by identity theives or stalkers, but have learned that Google is 50% your enemy. I work at an undisclosed location in a green cubicle. I hate bird noises, alien movies and chapped lips. I am consistently mildly cranky. But at least I'm consistent.
4 comments:
I'm more surprised at where the link goes to.
OK, not to be nit picky, but I'm really surprised that two attorneys that work for the U.N. wrote about invoking the "Geneva Convention" when it's actually the "Geneva Conventions".
And while I'm all for punishing the guilty, we can hardly crack on Iran given our own violations of international law in Guantanamo.
laaw yuhr, what laws were being violated in gitmo? cuz last i checked, anyone in gitmo doesn't fall under the protection of the conventions. you can't bitch about someone misstating the conventions, then gripe about non existant violations. read the conventions and learn them. don't just regurgitate. thanks.
Oh drunken chud, there's a difference between regurgitating and simplifying.
There's also a difference between international law not being applicable, and *asserting* that it doesn't apply. The Bush administration has done the latter. Granted, signing a treaty is a voluntary matter, but once a country has done so, it is no longer able to claim that the rules don't apply, or to write a national statute that undermines being a signatory - both tactics that have been used by this administration (See the Yoo Memo, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and Boumediene v. Bush, 476 F.3d 981) It's not so much that international law doesn't apply as we've decided not to apply it. See the distinction? The conventions haven't been altered at all, merely our *interpretation*.
William Howard Taft IV, a lawyer for the State Department, has criticized the Justice Departments tactics saying "In previous conflicts, the United States has dealt with tens of thousands of detainees without repudiating its obligations under the Conventions,I have no doubt we can do so here, where a relative handful of persons is involved."
Whether or not international law applies/has been violated continues to be litigated by people a lot smarter than either of us. Regardless, certainly the spirit of the Geneva Conventions has been defeated by the practices at Gitmo.
More importantly, the reputation of America has been tarnished in the international arena as our country has long been the champion of the conventions. So I was entirely correct, at least in this sense if not the literal sense, to say that we can not play the morality card if we are going to behave immorally on the same issue. We ousted Saddam because he was a torturer. Aren't we supposed to be better?
Chud, if you'd like to discuss further why don't you email me? It would be rude to continue in this format, but since you implied that I made misstatements, I felt I should clarify my position and familiarity with the subject matter for other readers. For the record, I have actually read the Geneva Conventions.
Additionally, using "cuz" is a crime against the English language that I believe should be punished by death.
Apologies, Birdie, for highjacking your comments. I'm behaving like an enemy combatant.
Post a Comment