What Say Those Against Gitmo
To this news:
A Pentagon review of conditions at the Guantanamo Bay military prison has concluded that the treatment of detainees meets the requirements of the Geneva Conventions but that prisoners in the highest-security camps should be allowed more religious and social interaction, according to a government official who has read the 85-page document.
I’m looking mostly at Michael who has come out rather strongly against Gitmo.
February 24th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Mostly I’d say that’s one unnatributed source from an anonymous official who read a hypothetical report of dubious objectivity which we haven’t ben allowed to see, versus, basicallly. every other source of informtaion ever. Why did the previous administration argue so hard that the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to people at Guantanamo if the treatment there already satisfied the conventions?
February 24th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Oh, the Pentagon says it’s fine. I’m sure they have no incentive to bias the findings.
In other news, the National Science Foundation found global warming to be inevitable, so I guess you believe them too? Come on, Steve, when did you start trusting the government?
Look, this is like letting a neuroscientist be his own Ethical Review Board, instead of having an independent panel decide. It’s called a conflict of interest and it’s the reason we have outsiders reviewing the ethics.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Darwin, I think the answer is that the Geneva convention specifies who gets treated how. The argument I’ve heard (yes this is hearsay) is that combatants that don’t follow the rules of war (i.e. wear a uniform, etc) don’t get the same treatment as those who do. So when people say the Geneva convention “doesn’t apply” to terrorists, they mean that the regular protections given to POWs don’t apply.
Michael, good point.
February 26th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Boose, I’m not sure how that addresses my point- I’m saying that Guantanamo Bay probably didn’t meet the Geneva Conventions, because if it did there would be no reason for the big argument about whether or nto the Conventions applied to the people being housed there.