well be deeply humiliating. Similarly, there are cultures where a hostile, “good cop/bad cop” style of interrogation would be considered humiliating or degrading. Something similar may be true even of ordinary military training methods. The United States uses highly stressful training programs on its own troops, particularly its special forces. Other countries view such training as humiliating; yet these differences of opinion do not mean that the U.S. must adopt the most stringent standard in the world in order to be compliant with its Geneva obligations.
Third, defining the requirements of Common Article 3 in relation to U.S. standards, and making those standards clear, would not endanger American soldiers now or in the future. This is one of the most often articulated arguments against the administration’s War on Terror policies, and one of the most specious. American troops are currently and will continue to be legally entitled to the highest level of protection under the Geneva Conventions because they meet the basic criteria of lawful combatants: They are subject to a regular command structure, wear uniforms, carry their arms openly, and conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war (including the injunction against targeting civilians). In any future conflict, any state inclined to obey the Geneva Conventions will make this distinction between American troops and al-Qaeda fighters – both because it is the law and because the forces of our future nation-state enemies will almost certainly be entitled to POW treatment as well.
Comments