There is a confused item on Media Matters accusing conservatives, including me, of distorting the Geneva Conventions.

It argues that, even if Al Qaeda members aren’t entitled to protections as POWs under Geneva III, they are protected under Geneva IV. But Geneva IV is about protections for civilians. Its title is “Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.” Nothing in its text or negotiating history suggests it is meant to apply to unlawful combantants. That is why Protocal 1, which we rejected, was proposed in the 1970s as an addition to create protections for such combatants. Under Geneva IV there is a provision for holding civilians as security detainees, but only very briefly. If Media Matters is suggesting that unlawful combatants are entitled to this status it would mean that they are preversly entitled to better treatment than POWs–POWs can be held for the duration of the war, security detainees have to be turned around very quickly.

Media Matters also argues that al Qaeda should be protected under “common Article 3″ that is in both Geneva III and Geneva IV. But that article applies to “armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties.” Al Qaeda is a transnational organization, so conflicts involving it are inherently international and this provision doesn’t apply either.

Conservatives are on solid ground here. Its the left that can’t stand the idea that terrorist thugs don’t deserve gold-plated treatment under international law.