Color me simple
Sep. 26th, 2005 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI'm a simple guy. I figure the law is the law. When a law is bad, one ought to advocate for it's abolition, rather than just ignoring it. Certainly I think as a matter of official policy this is the way to go about things. When the Gov't goes about playing scofflaw, well the social contract is then in some jeopardy.
Which is part of my annoyance at the present administration's cavalier attitude toward the Geneva Conventions(anyone who's been around, or seen me in other places knows I have strong feelings about them for other reasons to, but that's not the issue at present; recent allegations of more widespread abuse than was previously admitted notwithstanding).
Because, you see, the Conventions are the law of the land. Gonzales saying some of them are quaint is amusing, perhaps, but ought not be relevant, because a previous president signed them and a previous senate ratified them. The only piece of law which can trump them is the Constitution.
The UCMJ doesn't have a magic code-phrase which lets soldiers ignore treaties, nor does the US Code say... "treaties only count when the next administration likes them."
So John McCain finally gettting religion and putting an amendment to a defense bill which says we have to, wonder of wonders, obey the extant law, well it ought to mean as much as the President making a proclamation that he'll be upholding anf defending the Constitution while he's in office. Nice to know and all, but it's one of those things he has to do, and if he doesn't we get to impeach, try, remove and imprison him for failing to do.
So far so good. McCain wants (because it's hurting our image) to pass this bit of lily-painting, who am I to complain?
Well, you see the White House says it'll veto any such bill which crosses the desk in the Oval Office. Not only is that apalling (after all, this is already the law of the land, signing it won't change a damn thing, but if Bush does veto it, this will be his first use of that power), but (and here's the kicker) McCain says he doesn't think he has the votes to overide a veto.
What the Fuck? If I were a Senator, even a Republican senator of the Frist and Lott stripe, I'd be all over this. Because this is a treaty. Bush is saying, because the background on this has been the Conventions don't apply; that he refuses to let the White House be held to the law. That's the first thing, as a Senator, I'd want to nip in the bud. The second is he's saying none of the treaties we've signed are worth more than snot-rags. He isn't willing to repudiate it, no, he's trying a pocket-veto trick ("Mr Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it). It isn't that this hasn't happened already, and it isn't as if he's the first president to do this. But the blatantness of it.
McCain, sadly, is a day late and a dollar short. He abnegated his responsibilty in this matter when he said yea to the nomination of the Attorney General. Having approved the present holder of that office, knowing what he'd written; and having heard his non-answers on the question of his present opinions on torture, he lost his moral standing.
The rest of the Senate... they were once players in the political scene. Now they have become pawns, simulacra of real actors; whipping boys and lackeys of the White House.
Which is part of my annoyance at the present administration's cavalier attitude toward the Geneva Conventions(anyone who's been around, or seen me in other places knows I have strong feelings about them for other reasons to, but that's not the issue at present; recent allegations of more widespread abuse than was previously admitted notwithstanding).
Because, you see, the Conventions are the law of the land. Gonzales saying some of them are quaint is amusing, perhaps, but ought not be relevant, because a previous president signed them and a previous senate ratified them. The only piece of law which can trump them is the Constitution.
The UCMJ doesn't have a magic code-phrase which lets soldiers ignore treaties, nor does the US Code say... "treaties only count when the next administration likes them."
So John McCain finally gettting religion and putting an amendment to a defense bill which says we have to, wonder of wonders, obey the extant law, well it ought to mean as much as the President making a proclamation that he'll be upholding anf defending the Constitution while he's in office. Nice to know and all, but it's one of those things he has to do, and if he doesn't we get to impeach, try, remove and imprison him for failing to do.
So far so good. McCain wants (because it's hurting our image) to pass this bit of lily-painting, who am I to complain?
Well, you see the White House says it'll veto any such bill which crosses the desk in the Oval Office. Not only is that apalling (after all, this is already the law of the land, signing it won't change a damn thing, but if Bush does veto it, this will be his first use of that power), but (and here's the kicker) McCain says he doesn't think he has the votes to overide a veto.
What the Fuck? If I were a Senator, even a Republican senator of the Frist and Lott stripe, I'd be all over this. Because this is a treaty. Bush is saying, because the background on this has been the Conventions don't apply; that he refuses to let the White House be held to the law. That's the first thing, as a Senator, I'd want to nip in the bud. The second is he's saying none of the treaties we've signed are worth more than snot-rags. He isn't willing to repudiate it, no, he's trying a pocket-veto trick ("Mr Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it). It isn't that this hasn't happened already, and it isn't as if he's the first president to do this. But the blatantness of it.
McCain, sadly, is a day late and a dollar short. He abnegated his responsibilty in this matter when he said yea to the nomination of the Attorney General. Having approved the present holder of that office, knowing what he'd written; and having heard his non-answers on the question of his present opinions on torture, he lost his moral standing.
The rest of the Senate... they were once players in the political scene. Now they have become pawns, simulacra of real actors; whipping boys and lackeys of the White House.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-27 12:55 pm (UTC)I don't have much knowledge of the details of the Geneva Conventions, but my impression is that they're based on the ... ummm ... conventions of traditional warfare and specifically apply only to uniform-wearing members of organized armed forces -- the ways European cultures played The Game of War a century or more ago. They don't consider guerrilla warfare, cultures in which Warriors don't wear uniforms, or situations combining internal popular rebellion or Resistance movements with foreign intervention -- the kinds of things we're involved with in Afghanistan & Iraq, and which the nations of the world should have dealt with at the close of the Viet Nam era. It looks to me as though the NeoCons _do_ have some legalistic backing for their position (which I happen to consider Morally Wrong).
But to respond more directly to your question: I think we've become a Nation that has given its governance over to petty, sly, opportunistic, ruthless, morally-blind people who are operating on the basis of their own selfish agendas that have nothing to do with the long-term well-being of either our nation or the majority of the American people. And (as a rather conservative old fogy) I don't see much prospect of this situation changing until or unless some drastic changes are made in the socio-political-economic system that gives Big Money so much Power in our Government -- which I don't expect to see happening within my lifetime. Which might be just as well, considering that we've been manipulated so far that such a Change would stand only about a 50% chance of being effected without violence. We seem to have become a nation that condones, accepts, and even glories in the idea of sneakily evading the Spirit of the Law, whether or not we hew to the letter of it.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-27 03:07 pm (UTC)Since I do have familarity with the Conventions, I can address this.
They do deal with all of those.
The Conventions ratified between the World Wars dealt with immediate popular resistance to invasion (the leveé en masse which had been the francs tireurs in Belgium of the First World War) as well as partisan movements (from the various Resistance of the Second).
Requirements for consideration as a combatant (note there is no lawful/unlawful distinction):
1: Bears arms openly
2: Has officers, or others who are appointed/elected, and who are responsible for those serving under them
3: Has a uniform, or other device, recognizable at a distance.
4: Obeys the Laws of War.
If those things apply (to the person in question) he's a POW. It used to be the US afforded POW status to anyone who met one of those four (there were selfish reasons, which were of benefit to us, and perhaps deprived the prisoner of a couple of things. The trade off was, IMO, worth it and all to the good, in the aggregate).
If they don't, he is a criminal.
In either case one of two things is supposed to happen, he is held as a POW, or he is held as a common criminal. If held as a common criminal, the Occupying/Belligerent Power holding him is supposed to 1: apply insasmuch as is possible, the law of the occupied country; the Occupying/Belligerent's Law, International Laws.
The Neo-cons have no legal standing for their arguments. 1: Geneva prohibits what they are doing. 2: Even if Geneva didn't apply (or wasn't, by virtue of its ratification, law in equal standing with the US Code) extant US law prohibits what they are doing.
So, if they have't repudiated the treaty, and repealed the law; what they are doing is criminal.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-10-02 06:54 pm (UTC)