Geneva for Dummies

The administration is now bent on "defining", or as they like to say, removing the vaguery from Geneva Article III. The only problem is....the article was meant to be vague. The question for those who drafted the Geneva Accords was how to keep future regimes from engaging in activity that, for most reasonable people, is tantamount to government-sponsored torture. The answer was time-tested. Make the language as vague as possible.

Bush keeps asking the question, "How do we know what defines an affront to human diginity? The language is too vague." Or at least he keeps asking a question that somewhat resembles this in English. But how does one go about making sure no one transgresses the idea of human dignity? Think about it. If one is not sure whether one is actually violating an international treaty that prohibits things like...um....torture, then the logical conclusion a reasonable person should come to is that, well.....one is. Or at least one should conclude that it's better not to risk it. But, oh no, not the Bushies.

Here's their logic:

"We know we are in violation of the treaty that, according to the Constitution, is U.S. law, making us technical war criminals. So what should we do? Stop?!! No, that would mean we cannot continue to violate the treaty and U.S. law. But we don't want to get busted. So we should "define" the treaty under our concocted law, using our lackey Congress, in order to make whatever we do legal."

In other words, the Bushies are, for all extensive purposes, attempting to opt out of the Geneva Accords, just as they "opted" out of the Non-proliferation Treaty and the Kyoto Accords. But they can't tell us that. That would be.................fascist. So instead, they claim they want to more clearly define the law. But there's another problem.

Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution prohibits the Congress from passing ex post facto laws. The Latin phrase means that they may not pass laws "after the fact." The administration knows it has transgressed Geneva and their answer is the same as always, i.e. change the law. See, in order to make themselves immune from prosecution for engaging in torture, they want the U.S. Congress to, as they did, break the law. Unfortunately, there are far too many members, Republicans I should say, that are ready and willing to subvert the justice process and let these criminals walk at the expense of our law, our reputation, our tradition and the safety of our troops. Although a few old-school Republicans are blocking the administration's attempts at bullying a co-equal branch of government, we must conclude that our democracy is headed for disaster as long as the Repugs control government.

If an attempt to legalize a globally accepted crime on Nature is not enough to wake the American public out of its stupor, what is?