Bush And The GOP Revolt Over Article 3
As I see it, Bush’s difficulties in convincing Congress that they need to provide an interpretation of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is the easy part. The real trick is to get those guys who recently captured, tortured, killed, mutilated and booby-trapped two American uniformed soldiers to sign on to the conventions.
I suppose Bush could hand that assignment off to John Kerry, who seems to think dialogue is the answer to any problem and he’s the guy with the brains and charisma to wow the other side with his nuanced and well-reasoned arguments. When he’s achieved success there, perhaps he could also pressure Hezbollah, al-Qaida and the myriad Islamic jihadi organizations to adopt Article 4 of the conventions and draft some specific provisions about flying civilian airliners into buildings, launching Katyusha rocket attacks on retirement homes in Haifa and threatening death to people who happen to have a different view of the prophet and his religion.
You know, the Geneva Conventions are great and will probably remain a useful standard for some future conflicts internationally. But, I just wonder how many of those wars will actually be fought between nations with uniformed armies — those who sign on and submit to the conventions for fighting a civilized war. Perhaps there needs to be two sets of rules governing warfare — one for conventional warfare and one outlining the treatment of prisoners and rules of engagement when dealing with terrorist organizations.