The Death of International Humanitarian Law

Media Matters has an article about the misrepresentations of the position and role of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) regarding the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In essence, the Bush regime and other right-wingers are trying to paint the ICRC as some sort of radical organization for doing what it always does, checking up on those taken prisoner by a nation in wartime. That is what it is chartered to do, and, in fact, what the US agreed to let it do by signing the Geneva Conventions. The US never made a fuss about such requests in the past, in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War... so why the hell is the Bush regime trying so hard to tarnish the reputation of the ICRC?

Is he trying to cover something up? Or is it just the ideologue in him that says, since he is Right, that even asking to see the prisoners at Gitmo, as required of the ICRC by the Geneva Conventions, is somehow questioning his righteousness and can't be allowed? I dunno.

All I do know is that, before the Geneva Conventions, being a prisoner of war was a much worse proposition than it usually is now. The Conventions protect American POWs as well. But not once the Bush regime gets down tearing them down. Someday, American soldiers will pay for Bush's arrogance when the Geneva Conventions aren't there to protect them. And that will be a dark day for all America, especially for the right-wingers who left our soldiers out there unprotected because of their own arrogance and disprespect for International Law.