ambitious_wench

The US is in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. From an article in the Washington Post dated July 28th, 2003:

Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in."

Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info." They would have been released in due course, he added later.

Geneva Convention, Part III, Section I, Provisions Common to the Territories of the Parties to the Conflict and to Occupied Territories, Article 34: "The taking of hostages is prohibited."

I find this abhorant. Never mind that the Iraqi Lt. general turned himself in--the ends does not justify the means. We have once again presented ourselves as above the Geneva Convention, and so we are now no longer morally eligible for its provisions and protections. We have presented ourselves as breakers of international law, as arrogant and morally bankrupt.

We have become what we supposedly abhor, we have become the enemy.

Col. Hogg will probably not ever be brought to justice, either.