An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.
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Some human rights groups and independent experts say they oppose undermining the reach of the War Crimes Act, arguing that it deters government misconduct. They say any step back from the Geneva Conventions could provoke mistreatment of captured U.S. military personnel. They also contend that Bush administration anxieties about prosecutions are overblown and should not be used to gain congressional approval for rough interrogations.
"The military has lived with" the Geneva Conventions provisions "for 50 years and applied them to every conflict, even against irregular forces. Why are we suddenly afraid now about the vagueness of its terms?" asked Tom Malinowski, director of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch.
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The War Crimes Act, in contrast, affords access to civilian courts for abuse perpetrated by former service members and by civilians. The government has not filed any charges under the law.
The law's legislative sponsor is one of the House's most conservative members, Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-N.C.). He proposed it after a chance meeting with a retired Navy pilot who had spent six years in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton," a Vietnamese prison camp. The conversation left Jones angry about Washington's inability to prosecute the pilot's abusers.
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The law initially criminalized grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions but was amended without a hearing the following year to include violations of Common Article 3, the minimum standard requiring that all detainees be treated "humanely." The article bars murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, torture and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." It applies to any abuse involving U.S. military personnel or "nationals."
Jones and other advocates intended the law for use against future abusers of captured U.S. troops in countries such as Bosnia, El Salvador and Somalia, but the Pentagon supported making its provisions applicable to U.S. personnel because doing so set a high standard for others to follow. Mary DeRosa, a legal adviser at the National Security Council from 1997 to 2001, said the threat of sanctions in U.S. courts in fact helped deter senior officials from approving some questionable actions. She said the law is not an impediment in the terrorism fight. my emphasis
So, the law, as basically run through the congress unanimously in the '90s now has the BunnyPants administration terrified? Could it be that they are less scared of the consequences of the application of the statutes to members of the military, about whom they really don't give a rats-ass, but to themselves?
Our Glorious Decider-in-Chief loves to dress up in the uniforms he disgraced back in the 70's when he could not even obey a simple order to get a mandatory Flight Physical. Perhaps his attorneys, from Abu Gonzales on down are telling him that his role as Asshat-in-Chief might leave him open to prosecution in the Hague for War Crimes even under existing US law, and that he better cover himself retroactively as long as he's got a rubber-stamp Congress to do it with.
The military did the right thing in accepting an imposition of higher standards for itself. Too bad that their current civilian leadership in comprised essentially of self-serving invertebrates and sycophants whose ideas of patriotism is sending the other guy's kids off to die in misbegotten adventures, so theirs can stay home and make a buck or six million.
