I’m getting a lot of email like this in response to my post yesterday on how I’m waiting to hear outrage over the fact Iran violated the Geneva Conventions:

No, there’s not going to be any outrage over the Iranians not adhering to the Geneva Conventions, in much the same way you rarely see newspapers expending a great deal of their news hole to “Dog Bites Man” stories. While this may be a tough concept to get your head around, the fact that Iran tortures its prisoners is not news. I’d categorize it as something as a given. I’d even say their record on the subject helped them when it came time to decide if they were eligible for charter membership in the Axis of Evil (btw, if you argue that their current conduct is just more justification for the coalition to invade Iran, I expect you’ll have no problem if Canada and Australia—whose citizens were tortured while in U.S. custody—declare war on the U.S.) As for why the press spent so much ink when it was discovered the U.S. condoned torture, well, that was news…and aren’t we supposed to be “better” than our enemies? I’d also remind you that those who support the Administration lack, shall we say, moral standing on this issue, given that so many on the right have argued that torture is A-OK, just as we’re the ones doling it out.

Or this slightly more intelligible email:

Of course you knew that wouldn’t be the way it would be put… how can we insist on the geneva conventions when we (and by that i mean mostly you) disdain them?
The british soldiers were in uniform… representing a nation-state… and not plotting attacks against civilians… how Quaint!
Am i to assume your position on this is consistent, and that the Brits can be appropriately treated “with the gloves off” without a bunch of sniveling?
The Left’s position is pretty consistent, I think. Torture bad. for us and them.
I think your position is the more cramped.

Me: First, the Geneva Conventions are slightly more than a global writ against torture.

Second, the idea that conservatives — presumably like me — have contempt for the Geneva Conventions is a grotesque distortion — often deliberate — of the argument. The folks around here, as far as I am aware, have never shown “disdain” in any serious way for the Geneva Conventions. Rather our argument has been that they should apply to people who sign them. The whole point of treaties is that they are binding on all parties who agree to them.

While I think it is perfectly honorable and morally serious to argue that we owe prisoners certain minimal standards of decency, I think it is grotesque to argue that groups like al Qaeda deserve to be treated like signatories to the Geneva Convention. What is the point of having such an agreement if there is no reciprocity? And there can be no reciprocity with al Qaeda and similar groups because if al Qaeda adhered to the Geneva Convention they would have to disband immediately and turn themselves in. One could argue that the people who have real contempt for the Geneva Convention are the people who see it as a symbol of Western do-gooding and nothing more. After all, they find it almost reassuring — and certainly not scandalous — when countries like Iran behave badly.

Third, the torture issue is not central to the debate over the Geneva Conventions. Long before allegations of torture emerged, Gitmo was derided as a violation of the Geneva Conventions. If you want to make this all about torture, that’s your prerogative, but it truncates, distorts and circumscribes the debate in all sorts of ways.

Fourth, How exactly does this work? This “first strategic crisis of the Bush-Cheney torture regime” is supposedly the result of Bush ordering the mistreatment of non-Iranian terrorists from non-signatory terrorist organizations. This has somehow created an incentive and excuse for Iran, a GC signatory, to mistreat British soldiers illegally captured in Iraqi waters? Talk about blaming America first.