Geneva Convention? We Thought You Said Geneva Chocolate

David Swanson

Do you get the impression that President Bush has spent as much time in Law School as he's spent in the Alabama Air National Guard? I've never spent a minute in either, myself, and claim no particular expertise at interpreting the Third Geneva Convention, but they do seem to have written the thing in English (albeit British English), and it is possible to read it. However, Anne Plummer Flaherty, of the Associated Press, reported today as "news" the following: " The Bush administration, called to account by Congress in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling blocking military tribunals, said Tuesday all detainees at Guantanamo Bay and in U.S. military custody everywhere are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions ... Daniel Dell'Orto, principal deputy general counsel at the Pentagon, said he believes the current treatment of detainees - as well as the existing tribunal process - already complies with Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions." Remember, these are the detainees who are locked in cages, paraded around naked, sexually humiliated, whose religious beliefs are used to humiliate them, who are water-boarded during interrogations, whom the International Red Cross has said are tortured, and who are force-fed when they try to starve themselves to death...

continua / continued