Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Sully on Guantanamo, Etc.

Andrew Sullivan makes a good point about some of the arguments relating to the use of the Geneva conventions (or of any concepts of humane treatment of prisoners) in the War on Terror. (See the post "THE QUESTION OF RECIPROCITY").

Some of the arguments against restricting how prisoners can be treated seem to rest on the premise that there is no transcendent reason to be concerned with the treatment of the enemy; the only concern is with whether or not it will influence how they treat us. In other words, seeing as terrorists in Iraq beheaded their prisoners, therefore we know that we will not be shown mercy by the enemy if captured, therefore there is no reason to show mercy to any of the enemy we capture.

This has very dangerous implications, particularly if we wind up capturing people who are not actually terrorists/insurgents/combatants.

I'll try to post more on this later.

That is all.

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