Year: 2005

“Art 13. Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity … No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.” – Geneva Conventions, which even Donald Rumsfeld concedes apply in Iraq.

“Why babble about brutality and get indignant about tortures? The masses want them. They need something that will give them a thrill of horror.” – Adolf Hitler.

One of them testified only recently that photographing or mistreating the corpses of the dead on the battlefield violates the Geneva Conventions. Eric Muller wants a statement from him on the “corpses-for-porn” scandal, now swept deep, deep, deep under the rug of Pentagon denial.

Look, I despise him for all the usual reasons: his ruthless partisanship, his fusion of conservatism with corporate cronyism, his proud gerrymandering, his homophobia, his view of ethics as things to get around rather than enforce, and on and on. But I’m still unsure why he’s been landed with a criminal indictment rather than something a little more appropriate for what he appears to have done. Here’s a must-read WaPo editorial:

This was an obvious end run around the corporate contribution rule. The more difficult question is whether it was an illegal end run — or, to be more precise, one so blatantly illegal that it amounts to a criminal felony rather than a civil violation. For Mr. DeLay to be convicted, prosecutors will have to show not only that he took part in the dodge but also that he knew it amounted to a violation of state law — rather than the kind of clever money-trade that election lawyers engineer all the time.
Mr. DeLay’s spokesman said this month that “to his knowledge all activities were properly reviewed and approved by lawyers” for TRMPAC. If so, the criminal law seems like an awfully blunt instrument to wield against Mr. DeLay.

We’ll see, I guess.

Those are two words you are apparently not allowed to write at Bucknell University.

Here’s some disturbing news about the tactics the anti-gay forces are now reduced to in Massachusetts.

We really are in a new church. A priest who had differed from his own church’s stance on a political matter – the Massachusetts state constitutional amendment to ban marriage rights for gays – was yanked from mass last Sunday, and replaced by a bishop who reprimanded him to his parishioners. Message: no political deviation allowed.

The following commitment was made in the 1994 Republican Contract with America:

A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.

It was the first item. Just decide now whether to laugh or cry. Robert A. George wonders if this is the end of the Republican era.

The new research makes a lot of epidemiological sense. Viruses that kill their hosts very quickly have much less chance to pass on to other hosts. Successful viruses keep their hosts alive and well in order to propagate more successfully. And the HIV strains resistant to medications are also less potent than the wild virus a couple of decades ago. HIV is adapting – and, in many ways, that’s good news. This doesn’t mean, of course, that it isn’t still life-threatening, if untreated. It does mean that many people can be off drugs for longer, that those on drugs can take breaks, and that the entire idea of “Super-AIDS” defies epidemiological experience. (The usual cavet here: everyone is different and I’m talking about averages here.) Still I expect the usual health authorities to keep the hysteria up, because they haven’t been able to develop more reality-based prevention models. I wonder if the NYT will cover this story.

That was quick. Remember that appalling revelation that U.S. soldiers were posting pictures of mutilated corpses of dead Iraqis on a website in order to get free access to amateur porn? It was clearly a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and a horrifying insight into the culture that has been allowed to percolate in the military in Iraq. After this blog and others raised the alarm, there was an investigation. It lasted a few days. It’s done now:

The Army Criminal Investigation Command in Iraq conducted the preliminary inquiry within the past week but closed it after concluding no felony crime had been committed and failing to determine whether U.S. soldiers were responsible for the photos and whether they showed actual war dead, Army officials said.
Col. Joe Curtin, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said there currently was no formal investigation into the matter.

Violation of the Geneva Conventions? Who cares? This is the Bush administration. The Geneva Conventions are a dead letter to them. Decisions like this send a further message to the troops. This stuff ain’t no thing. And we wonder why the allegations of abuse and torture keep coming. If the military spent an ounce of the effort they are now deploying to break the will of Ian Fishback on ridding the military of men who violate the Geneva Conventions, we might get somewhere. But just remember who ultimately sets the tone for the military: the Pentagon and the White House. And the message has gotten through loud and clear.