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Re: The Geneva Convention
by Andy Horbal
Sunday, Mar. 23, 2003 at 4:03 PM
arh6@pitt.edu Oakland
You had to see it coming, though: Rumsfield finally uses the Geneva Convention crutch . . .
Secretary Rumsfield was quoted today in an article in the New York Times (3/22, "Bush Expects Iraq to Treat Prisoners Humanely") as saying, "`That's a violation of the Geneva Conventions, those pictures you show, if, in fact, those are our soldiers," in regards to television footage of captured soldiers.
Here is a link to an Op-Ed piece originally published on the Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel website on February 6, 2002 that reminds us that our own government's treatment of prisoners taken in Afghanistan violated the Geneva Conventions.
First of all, I'm not certain how the television footage to which Mr. Rumsfield refers violates the Convention. However, even if it does is it valid for a nation that does not honor the Conventions to complain when they are violated? The major media, of course, has not breathed a word of this hypocrisy. I believe that it is a very important issue; this is one of the fundamental ways in which the United States government is making a mockery of international law and cooperation. We need to be talking about this; the people need to know.
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