Apparently McCain, Graham and Warner have compromised with the President on his effort to ignore the General Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.
I’m torn between lauding the compromise and disappointment that McCain in particular gave the President too much.
I’ve been having a furious email debate with my old sparring partner Vic on this subject. In the lastest exchange today Vic asked me if I would oppose “judicious” torture of Osama bin Ladin if he was sitting on a nuclear bomb that was about to kill millions of people.
I replied as follows:
“Perhaps the Geneva Convention needs an elastic clause. If so its too bad that the US has given such a bad example of how we would make us of such flexibility.”
The “elastic clause” is the all purpose clause in the US Constitution which Congress has always gone to to get things accomplished which are not specifically approved of or forbidden by the rest of the Constitution.
It says:
“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. “
To start out with, I believe President Bush was asking the Congress to exercise its necesssary and proper powers under Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 to define what exactly Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions means. Those opposed to him didn’t want to define what the murky common article meant. For them, Common Article III should remain elastic enough to allow trials for Americans for undefined crimes whenever they fall into the hands of those inclined to do so. They would claim that they want to protect Americans but with no standard set in advance anything goes.
Turning to the proposal to have an ‘elastic clause’ for the Geneva Conventions. Who exactly would exercise powers under such a clause? These Conventions are negotiated among sovereign nation-states and approved by them as provided for by their domestic laws regarding treaties. There is no congress or assembly that has been conferred powers to legislate globally under them. Any provision creating such an assembly would have to be approved by each nation-state before it applied to it. Would you give the power to the United Nations? Which part of it? And what about those not represented in the United Nations like terrorist groups? Since this matter deals with protecting their ‘rights’, should they be represented in approving all necessary and proper actions carrying out provisions of the Conventions? To ask the question is to demonstrate that this whole approach is nonsense. The non State terrorists aren’t parties to the Conventions; for the most part they do not apply to them; they have no intention of obeying them; and while they should probably be given some minimal level of humane treatment they do not and should not have the rights of either honorable recognized combatants or common criminals.
Thank you Lance. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
Sending out blog comments has been a little like sending out the greetings from mankind sent out on the pioneer satellite. I’ve been waiting for some voice from beyond.
(Mel and Chris you guys just don’t count since you’re part of my campaign)
Lance, My email debate’s with Vic are kind of like arguments between kids in which neither one will let the other have the last word. My comment on the “elastic clause” was half tongue and cheek because, well, if torturing someone was the only option to prevent a nuclear war it certainly would be the least of two evils.
I don’t like tampering with the Geneva Convention. Period. I like altering it by fiat even worse. Who the Heck made the United States the policeman of the world. If we’ve simply done it ourselves then why do we have to act like Bull Connor? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor