A City Founded on Atheism

Uncommon Knowledge Classic: The Sixties with Hitchens and William F. Buckley (25-minutes)

In this rereleased interview from 1998, Christopher Hitchens, a contributing editor of Vanity Fair magazine, is a self-proclaimed radical. William F. Buckley, Jr., editor-at-large of National Review magazine, is one of the most noted conservatives in the country. During the 1960’s, Hitchens enjoyed the counter-culture, whereas Buckley was one of the founders of the politically conservative counter counter-culture. Thirty years later (1998), and Hitchens and Buckley are still wrangling over the Revolution.

The Black Confederate

Rev. Wayne Perryman Speaks With Michael Medved About Historic Democratic Racism

The Rev. Wayne Perryman Speaks With Michael Medved About Historic Democratic Racism from Papa Giorgio on Vimeo.

A History Lesson from BigGovernment.com Via Michael Zak

An important read from BigGov.com:

ObamaCare Is the Democrats’ New Kansas-Nebraska Act 

by Michael Zak

In 1854, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency.  Their top priority was to repeal the Missouri Compromise prohibition of slavery in the northern territories.  The author of this infamous legislation, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was Stephen Douglas, a Democrat Senator from Illinois and owner of a slave plantation in Mississippi.

Senator Douglas claimed the law would be a final solution to the slavery question, so that Congress could move on to other issues.  In fact, the Kansas-Nebraska Act sparked a political firestorm.  Opponents of slavery – and the police state and economic stagnation that went with it – understood that, if unchecked, the slave system would expand throughout the territories and then the entire nation.

As the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court would soon prove with its 7-2 Dred Scott decision (both Republicans dissenting), pro-freedom Americans feared that the judiciary would uphold the expansion of slavery.  Many Democrats were already touting slavery (not for themselves, of course) for poor whites, too.  “Free Society!” declared a prominent Democrat newspaper, “We sicken at the name!”

Every American was forced to choose sides.  One was either for the free market system or against it; there was no middle ground.

As Alexis De Tocqueville observed: “Socialism is a new form of slavery.”  Today’s congressional Democrats who voted to impose socialized medicine on the nation while exempting themselves should bear in mind Abraham Lincoln’s words: “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

Denouncing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln warned against submitting to political masters:

“If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions.

Not all Democrats went along with the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  In protest, Charles Sumner, Salmon P. Chase and others – who would soon join the Republican Party – issued an Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States:

“We arraign [the Kansas-Nebraska Act] as a gross violation of a sacred pledge; as a criminal betrayal of precious rights; as part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own States, and convert it into a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves.

Language fails to express the sentiments of indignation and abhorrence which it inspires; and no vision less penetrating and comprehensive than that of the All-Seeing can reach its evil issues.

We appeal to the people.  We warn you that the dearest interests of freedom and the Union are in imminent peril.

We entreat you to be mindful of that fundamental maxim of Democracy – EQUAL RIGHTS AND EXACT JUSTICE FOR ALL MEN.  Do not submit to become agents in extending legalized oppression and systematized injustice over a vast territory yet exempt from these terrible evils.

We implore Christians and Christian ministers to interpose.  Their divine religion requires them to behold in every man a brother, and to labor for the advancement and regeneration of the human race.

Whatever apologies may be offered for the toleration of slavery in the States, none can be offered for its extension into Territories where it does not exist, and where that extension involves the repeal of ancient law and the violation of solemn compact.  Let all protest, earnestly and emphatically, by correspondence, through the press, by memorials, by resolutions of public meetings and legislative bodies, and in whatever other mode may seem expedient, against this enormous crime.

For ourselves, we shall resist it by speech and vote, and with all the abilities which God has given us.  Even if overcome in the impending struggle, we shall not submit.  We shall go home to our constituents, erect anew the standard of freedom, and call on the people to come to the rescue of the country from the domination of slavery.  We will not despair; for the cause of human freedom is the cause of God.”

Hey, America!  They’re talking to you.

Texas Text Book Wars

Professor Tom Woods On What The American Indians Can Teach Us About Private Property

Some US History and People Taking Pride in Ownereship - Early Jamestown (socialism or capitalism)

This is a partial import from a larger article found at the Hoover Institution entitled, "How Private Property Saved the Pilgrims," by Tom Bethel. This article by Tom is taken from his larger work (book) entitled, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages.

THE COMMUNAL EXPERIMENT

The Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod in November 1620 with 101 people on board. About half of them died within the first few months, probably of scurvy, pneumonia, or malnutrition. It is not easy for us to grasp the hardships that the first settlers in this country experienced, even in New England, where the native American Indians were relatively friendly. 

By the spring of 1623, the population of Plymouth can have been no larger than 150. But the colony was still barely able to feed itself, and little cargo was returning for the investors in England. On one occasion newcomers found that there was no bread at all, only fish or a piece of lobster and water. “So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery,” Bradford wrote in his key passage on property. 

Having tried what Bradford called the “common course and condition”—the communal stewardship of the land demanded of them by their investors—Bradford reports that the community was afflicted by an unwillingness to work, by confusion and discontent, by a loss of mutual respect, and by a prevailing sense of slavery and injustice. And this among “godly and sober men.” In short, the experiment was a failure that was endangering the health of the colony. 

Historian George Langdon argues that the condition of early Plymouth was not “communism” but “an extreme form of exploitative capitalism in which all the fruits of men’s labor were shipped across the seas.” In this he echoes Samuel Eliot Morison, who claims that “it was not communism . . . but a very degrading and onerous slavery to the English capitalists that was somewhat softened.” Notice that this does not agree with the dissension that Bradford reports, however. It was between the colonists themselves that the conflicts arose, not between the colonists and the investors in London. Morison and Langdon conflate two separate problems. On the one hand, it is true that the colonists did feel “exploited” by the investors because they were eventually expected to surrender to them an undue portion of the wealth they were trying to create. It is as though they felt that they were being “taxed” too highly by their investors—at a 50 percent rate, in fact. 

But there was another problem, separate from the “tax” burden. Bradford’s comments make it clear that common ownership demoralized the community far more than the tax. It was not Pilgrims laboring for investors that caused so much distress but Pilgrims laboring for other Pilgrims. Common property gave rise to internecine conflicts that were much more serious than the transatlantic ones. The industrious (in Plymouth) were forced to subsidize the slackers (in Plymouth). The strong “had no more in division of victuals and clothes” than the weak. The older men felt it disrespectful to be “equalized in labours” with the younger men. 

This suggests that a form of communism was practiced at Plymouth in 1621 and 1622. No doubt this equalization of tasks was thought (at first) the only fair way to solve the problem of who should do what work in a community where there was to be no individual property: If everyone were to end up with an equal share of the property at the end of seven years, everyone should presumably do the same work throughout those seven years. The problem that inevitably arose was the formidable one of policing this division of labor: How to deal with those who did not pull their weight? 

The Pilgrims had encountered the free-rider problem. Under the arrangement of communal property one might reasonably suspect that any additional effort might merely substitute for the lack of industry of others. And these “others” might well be able-bodied, too, but content to take advantage of the communal ownership by contributing less than their fair share. As we shall see, it is difficult to solve this problem without dividing property into individual or family-sized units. And this was the course of action that William Bradford wisely took. 

PROPERTY IS PRIVATIZED

Bradford’s history of the colony records the decision:

At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number.

So the land they worked was converted into private property, which brought “very good success.” The colonists immediately became responsible for their own actions (and those of their immediate families), not for the actions of the whole community. Bradford also suggests in his history that more than land was privatized. 

The system became self-policing. Knowing that the fruits of his labor would benefit his own family and dependents, the head of each household was given an incentive to work harder. He could know that his additional efforts would help specific people who depended on him. In short, the division of property established a proportion or “ratio” between act and consequence. Human action is deprived of rationality without it, and work will decline sharply as a result. 

---

Under communal land stewardship, Bradford reports, the community was afflicted by an unwillingness to work, by confusion and discontent, by a loss of mutual respect, and by a prevailing sense of slavery and injustice.

---

William Bradford died in 1657, having been reelected governor nearly every year. Among his books, according to the inventory of his estate, was Jean Bodin’s Six Books of a Commonweale, a work that criticized the utopianism of Plato’s Republic. In Plato’s ideal realm, private property would be abolished or curtailed and most inhabitants reduced to slavery, supervised by high-minded, ascetic guardians. Bodin said that communal property was “the mother of contention and discord” and that a commonwealth based on it would perish because “nothing can be public where nothing is private.” 

Bradford felt that, in retrospect, his real-life experience of building a new society at Plymouth had confirmed Bodin’s judgment. Property in Plymouth was further privatized in the years ahead. The housing and later the cattle were assigned to separate families, and provision was made for the inheritance of wealth. The colony flourished. Plymouth Colony was absorbed into the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and in the prosperous years that lay ahead, nothing more was heard of “the common course and condition.”

Is Teaching American History Unconstitutional?

 The Following is an email sent to me from Wall Builders:

Occasionally, the Secular and Religious Left go beyond their normal anti-religious bigotry to make claims that are just too outrageous to be ignored. This week provided such an example. (While this email is longer than normal, I think you'll find it filled with useful and interesting information.)

Several months ago, I was one of six expert reviewers appointed by the 15-member elected Texas State Board of Education to give input into the drafting of the 2010 history and social studies standards for textbooks. (This is a task I have previously performed in other states.) Although these standards we formulate will initially apply to Texas students, they will soon become the standards used in textbooks across the nation.

Last year, writing teams of Texas teachers drafted the 2010 proposed standards. We, the expert reviewers, were asked to point out where we thought changes should be made; the State Board of Education would then make their decision about which (if any) of our hundreds of proposed suggestions to adopt.

When I reviewed the proposed standards, I found many reasons for concern. The writing teams had recommended the removal of Nathan Hale, Daniel Boone, and General George Patton; they eradicated Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Day, and Christmas (but they did add Diwali as a holiday). They also declared that to say there was "an American love of individualism, inventiveness, and freedom" was to express inappropriate "value language," and they also rejected the concept of identifying specific beliefs that contributed to our "national identity." In fact, they declared that students needed to be shaped "for responsible citizenship in a global society," but not citizenship in American society. And instead of an emphasis on the positive things about America (i.e., American Exceptionalism), America was often shown as fault-ridden – as a global villain.

I made known my opposition to these and other positions in my official reviews and offered suggestions for positive change. My first review (from July, 2009) is posted on the state website, as is my second review (from September 2009).

Those two official reviews were 43,538 words in length, and contained three mentions of Christianity. In the first review, I pointed out how early colonial Christian leaders such as William Penn and Roger Williams insisted on having written constitutions to limit the government; I also showed how American Christians and Jews cooperated together in the American Revolution. In the second review, I noted the current polling on religious affiliation in America to demonstrate that the mention of Christmas should be reinstated in the standards. Those three simple mentions of Christianity caused the Left to explode.

Groups such as the Texas Freedom Network (the state arm of the radical People for the American Way) joined with other radicals in the Religious Left to denounce my mentions of Christianity. They nationally distributed a press release of outrageously false claims that were soon parroted by ABC, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, etc.

On Wednesday, January 13, the Texas State Board of Education met to begin the process of voting on the final recommendations for social studies textbooks; many of the board members know me very well and are very familiar with the lies of the Left (having themselves been subjected to them on many occasions). Hopefully, they will reinstate traditional American heroes and patriotic values, focus on the teaching of history rather than modern pop culture, and include coverage of good characteristics about America. Not surprisingly, however, the anti-religious secularist bigots made known their presence (and their ridiculous claims) at the meeting.

One of those in the Religious Left is Christian secularist, Dr. Derek Davis, Dean of Humanities at Mary Hardin Baylor (a Baptist University) and director of the school's Center for Religious Liberty. Although he heads a department at a major Christian university, he is a national evangelist for a completely secular public square; and based on his previous statements, he apparently wants to see all mentions of Christianity confined, like pornography, to the privacy of one's own personal life.

Dr. Davis amazingly asserts in the Houston Chronicle that a mention of Christianity in American history standards will "violate the Constitution" because it will portray "the United States as a Christian nation in some legal sense."

While there is no such recommendation in the standards, consider the stupidity of what he purports. According to Dr. Davis, it would "violate the Constitution" if the history texts were to include information from the more than 300 court rulings over the past two centuries that have declared America to be a Christian nation. Imagine! He believes it would be unconstitutional to let students know what courts have affirmed for 200 years!

He similarly believes that it would be unconstitutional for students to see the public declarations of American presidents on the same subject – declarations such as:

Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on that God Who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty [i.e., the Civil War]. ¹ PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

No candid observer will deny that whatever of good there may be in our American civilization is the product of Christianity. ² The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. ³   PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT

America was born a Christian nation – America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture. ⁴  PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON

American life is builded, and can alone survive, upon . . . the fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago. ⁵  PRESIDENT HERBERT HOOVER

If the spirit of God is not in us and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction. ⁶  We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a Nation without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. ⁷  PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

This is a Christian Nation. More than a half century ago that declaration was written into the decrees of the highest court in this land. ⁸  In this great country of ours has been demonstrated the fundamental unity of Christianity and democracy. ⁹  PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN

We are Christian nations, deeply conscious that the foundation of all liberty is religious faith. ¹⁰  PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

In these last 200 years, we have guided the building of our Nation and our society by those principles and precepts brought to earth nearly 2,000 years ago on that first Christmas. ¹¹  PRESIDENT LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON

Let us remember that as a Christian nation . . . that we have a charge and a destiny. ¹²  PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON

Of the many influences that have shaped the United States of America into a distinctive Nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible. ¹³  PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

According to Dr. Davis, it would "violate the Constitution" to present these, or the hundreds of similar statements by our elected presidents, or to tell students what our federal and state courts have repeatedly declared! Amazing!

Apparently, Dr. Davis (and the others among the growing group of militant so-called "Christian" secularists) has not read the Constitution – or even the decisions by modern liberal Supreme Courts that have held that history cannot be censored simply because it is Christian. Nevertheless, Dr. Davis and his cohorts have found it a useful tactic to claim that something with which they disagree is "unconstitutional."

We need to stop the use of this ridiculous tactic. How?

FIRST, begin with the wise recommendation of Founding Father John Jay:

Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country. . . . By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated and be the better prepared to defend and assert them. ¹⁴

SECOND, the next time the Left claims something is "unconstitutional," insist that they prove it by citing the relevant part of the Constitution.

FINALLY, when the intolerant anti-religious bigots try to intimidate Americans from presenting an accurate view of American history, let's make our voices heard on talk shows and in letters to the editors, denouncing their attempt to rewrite American history and censor expressions of religious faith.

It's time for some new voices to be heard in the debate – the voices of common sense, well-informed citizens who have no agenda but to see the best for our great country. It's time for your voice to be heard!

God Bless!

 David Barton

_______________________________________________________
[1] Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, editor (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), Vol. IV, p. 271, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.
[2] "Our Nation, A Product of Christianity," Springfield Republican, 1884.
[3] Theodore Roosevelt: The Man as I Knew Him, Ferdinand Cowle Iglehart, D. D. (New York: The Christian Herald, 1919), pp. 307-311.
[4] Woodrow Wilson, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Arthur S. Link, editor (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1977), Vol. 23, p. 20; "An Address in Denver on the Bible, May 7, 1911."
[5] American Presidency Project, "Herbert Hoover: Radio Address to the Nation on Unemployment Relief, October 18, 1931" (at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=22855).
[6] American Presidency Project, "Franklin D. Roosevelt: Address at Dedication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, September 2nd, 1940" (at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16002).
[7] American Presidency Project, "Franklin D. Roosevelt: Statement on the Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Printing of the English Bible, October 6th, 1935" (at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14960).
[8] American Presidency Project, "Harry S. Truman: Exchange of Messages With Pope Pius XII, August 28, 1947" (at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=12746).
[9] American Presidency Project, "Harry S. Truman: Address at the Lighting of the National Community Christmas Tree on the White House Grounds," December 24, 1946" (at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=12569).
[10] American Presidency Project, "Dwight D. Eisenhower: Address Before the Council of the Organization of American States, April 12th, 1953" (at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9816).
[11] Presidency Project, "Lyndon B. Johnson: Remarks at the Lighting of the Nation's Christmas Tree. December 22, 1963." (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26587).
[12] American Presidency Project, "Richard Nixon: Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, February 1st, 1972" (at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3597).
[13] American Presidency Project, "Ronald Reagan: Proclamation 5018 – Year of the Bible, 1983, February 3rd, 1983" (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40728).
[14] John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1890), Vol. I, pp. 163-164, from his Charge to the Grand Jury of Ulster County, September 9, 1777.

WWII, Nazi's, Torture, & Rights (4 Imported Articles -- Very Important Read To Formulate Proper Views of History and Responses to Revitionist History)

MIRANDA RIGHTS FOR TERRORISTS?
By Neal Boortz

It turns out that it is true .. the Obama administration has been reading Miranda rights to detainees that are captured and held abroad. But apparently this isn't new, according to ABC's Jake Tapper. The Bush administration did so as well "to preserve evidence for a potential prosecution."

Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller says, "While there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects overseas, at both Bagram and in other situations, in order to preserve the quality of evidence obtained, there has been no overall policy change with respect to detainees."

I disagree with the policy, whether Bush's or Obama's. If the world is so sure that these Islamic goons have Geneva rights, let's give them those rights. Under the Geneva Convention enemy combatants dressed in civilian clothes can be summarily executed. No Miranda rights necessary. "You have the right to stand up against this wall. We have the right to put a slug in you. Stand by for your rights."

-- How Torture Helped Win WWII --

(The Daily Beast import)

Fretting over waterboarding, writes British historian Andrew Roberts, obscures the fact that "enhanced interrogation techniques" have saved thousands of lives in every war. Plus, read Michael Korda's review of Roberts' book Masters and Commanders: How Churchill, Roosevelt, Alanbrooke and Marshall Won the War in the West, 1941-45.

 

A slight air of unreality has permeated the debate over “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the war against terror, with historians embarrassedly studying their toecaps over the issue. For the truth is that there has not been a war in history in which torture has not been employed in some form or another, and sometimes to excellent effect. When troops need information about enemy capabilities and intentions—and they usually need it fast—moral and ethical conventions (especially the one signed in Geneva in 1929) have repeatedly been ignored in the bid to save lives.

In the conflict generally regarded today as the most ethical in history, World War II, enhanced interrogation techniques were regularly used by the Allies, and senior politicians knew it perfectly well, just as we now discover that Nancy Pelosi did in the early stages of the war against terror. The very success of the D-Day landings themselves can largely be put down to the enhanced interrogation techniques that were visited upon several of the 19 Nazi agents who were infiltrated into Great Britain and “turned” by the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) between 1939 and 1945. Operation Fortitude—the deception plan that fooled the Germans into stationing 450,000 Wehrmacht troops 130 miles north of the Normandy beaches—entirely depended upon German intelligence (the Abwehr) believing that the real attack was going to take place at the Pas de Calais instead. The reason that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, was utterly convinced of this, was because every single one of his 19 agents, who he did not know had been turned, told him so.

If anyone believes that SIS persuaded each of these 19 hard-bitten Nazi spies to fall in with Operation Fortitude by merely offering them tea, biscuits, and lectures in democracy, they’re being profoundly naïve. An SIS secret house located in Ham Common near Richmond on the outskirts of London was the location where the will of those agents was broken, using advanced interrogation techniques that reportedly started with sleep deprivation but went on to gross mental and physical abuse. The result? Many thousands of Allied servicemens’ lives were saved because the German 15th Army stayed well away from beaches such as Omaha, Utah, and Sword. And another 100,000 others were stationed in Norway for another attack that never came.

The wartime SIS being what it was, full firsthand details of the enhanced interrogation techniques have not emerged, either from the British or the German side since the war. In a country where the very existence of the wartime decryption operation known as Ultra was successfully kept secret until 1971, it was never likely that former SIS officers would have revealed precisely how the Abwehr agents were turned, but the talk and gossip in the intelligence community is another matter. Ham Common undoubtedly saw gross violations of the Geneva Conventions, as every means was used—fair and foul—to ensure the safety of Great Britain. Today Fortitude is generally considered to be the most successful strategic deception operation in the history of warfare.

Elsewhere, one only has to read George MacDonald Fraser’s excellent autobiography, Quartered Safe Out Here, with its description of the ill treatment of Japanese POWs by Indian soldiers of the 17th Division, to recognize that not all torture was committed by the Axis in WWII.

Did Winston Churchill know what was going on in the cellar-dungeons of the house in Ham? Of course he did, but like Nancy Pelosi and other politicians he understandably preferred not to dwell on this less auspicious side of the defense of freedom. As I show in my recently published book, Masters and Commanders—reviewed here yesterday by Michael Korda—Churchill always advocated the toughest option in any issue that came before his War Cabinet, be it over the bombing of German cities, allowing Mahatma Gandhi to die in his hunger strike, retaliating over the destruction of the Czech village of Lidice, and so on. The idea that he would have balked on ethical grounds over the breaking and turning of Abwehr agents—knowing how vitally necessary that was for the liberation of Europe—is ludicrous.

So, when we wring our hands about the waterboarding that took place at the hands of the CIA and their proxies in secret locations around the world, let us not pretend that such techniques are in any way historically exceptional, for in fact they constitute the norm. The only surprising thing is the extent of the information that we have been given about such unpleasant but ultimately necessary practices. Sometimes the defense of liberty requires making some pretty unpalatable decisions, but it was ever thus.

Historian Andrew Roberts' latest book, Masters and Commanders, was published in the U.K. in September. His previous books include Napoleon and Wellington, Hitler and Churchill, and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts.

Xtra Insight: The Daily Beast's Michael Korda reviews Andrew Robert's book, Masters and Commanders: How Churchill, Roosevelt, Alanbrooke and Marshall Won the War in the West, 1941-45.

If The World Treated WW2 Like the War On Terrorism

If the world treated WW2 the same way we treat the "War on Terrorism" and the "conflict in the Middle East" this is what it would have been like...

• March 15/16, 1939: Nazis take Czechoslovakia. (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi attack but urge Czechoslovakia to be restrained in their response.)
• May 22, 1939: Nazis sign 'Pact of Steel' with Italy. (Other nations declare that Italy and Germany signing pact to help each other take over the world "not helpful to the peace process.")
• Aug 23, 1939: Nazis and Soviets sign Pact. (The world heralds signing of treaty as a sign of Hitler's good intentions. He wouldn't be signing a peace treaty if he wanted war would he?)
• Sept 1, 1939: Nazis invade Poland. (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi attack but urge rest of the world to be restrained in their response.)
• Sept 3, 1939: Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany. (World condemns these nations for declaring war. This may cause unrest in Europe!)
• Oct, 1939: Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany. (World mildly condemns this but declares that we must understand the actions of Germany in the context of the horribly unfair treaty of Versailles.)
• April 9, 1940: Nazis invade Denmark and Norway. (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi attack but urge rest of the world to be restrained in their response.)
• May 10, 1940: Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi attack but urge rest of the world to be restrained in their response.)
• June 14, 1940: Germans enter Paris. (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi attack but urge rest of the world to be restrained in their response.)
• July 10, 1940: Battle of Britain begins. (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi attack but urge Britain to be restrained lest they further the "cycle of violence.")
• Aug 23/24: First German air raids on Central London. (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi attack but urge Britain to be restrained lest they further the "cycle of violence.")
• Aug 25/26: First British air raid on Berlin. (World outraged at British attacks! Civilians may have been killed by irresponsible British attacks! World votes 453-4 to condemn Britain!)
• Sept 13, 1940: Italians invade Egypt (Other nations give mild condemnation of Italian attack but urge rest of the world to be restrained in their response.)
• Nov 20, 1940: Hungary joins the Axis Powers. (World excited! Hopes Hungary may now have the influence to help move the peace process forward. World publicly says they applaud the peace effort they are sure Hungary will soon begin!)
• Nov 23, 1940: Romania joins the Axis Powers. (World excited! Hopes Romania may now have the influence to help move the peace process forward. World publicly says they applaud the peace effort they are sure Romania will soon begin!)
• Dec 9/10: British begin a western desert offensive in North Africa against the Italians. (World outraged at British attacks! How will we ever have peace if Britain keeps attacking the other side?)
• March 11, 1941: President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act. (World criticizes Americans for selling weaponry to combatants! Announces they should only give food, blankets, and tents if they're going to get involved at all.)
• May 10/11, 1941: Heavy German bombing of London; British bomb Hamburg. (World is outraged by British attack on Hamburg! Civilians may of been injured! World condemns Britain in strongest terms and demands they stop bombing anywhere civilians might be!)
• June 14, 1941: United States freezes German and Italian assets in America. (Americans accused of "hating all Germans and Italians". 32 lawsuits filed.)
• June 22, 1941: Germany attacks Soviet Union as Operation Barbarossa begins. (World upset that treaty broken. They urge president Roosevelt to personally sit down with Stalin and Hitler to negotiate new treaty.)
• Sept 29, 1941: Nazis murder 33,771 Jews at Kiev (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi murders but urge rest of the world to be restrained in their response.)
• Dec 7, 1941: Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor (Other nations give mild condemnation of Japanese attack but urge United States to be restrained in their response.)
• Dec 8, 1941: United States and Britain declare war on Japan. (Other nations outraged! Accuse United States of furthering "cycle of violence". World says that Roosevelt calling Dec 7, 1941 "a date which will live in infamy" is "simplistic" and "not helpful.")
• Jan 20, 1942: SS Leader Heydrich holds the Wannsee Conference to coordinate the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." (World declares plan to kill all Jews is "not helpful". Urges Hitler to declare that exterminating all Jews is wrong in German.)
• Aug 17, 1942: First all-American air attack in Europe. (World outraged at American aggression! Suggests putting Roosevelt up for war crimes trial!)
• Oct 18, 1942: Hitler orders the execution of all captured British commandos. (World takes occasion to remind "Allies" that German prisoners should get extra bratwurst and beer for "Oktoberfest".)
• Jan 14-24, 1943: Casablanca conference between Churchill and Roosevelt. During the conference, Roosevelt announces the war can end only with an unconditional German surrender (World outraged! Says that Churchill and Roosevelt must be willing to negotiate with Hitler now while they're being attacked!)
• May 13, 1943: German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa. (World demands that relief groups monitor the conditions for German and Italian troops to make sure they're not being "tortured.")
• July 25/26, 1943: Mussolini arrested and the Italian Fascist government falls; Marshal Pietro Badoglio takes over and negotiates with Allies (World fears change in Italian leadership will cause "more instability in Europe.")
• July 27/28, 1943: Allied air raid causes a firestorm in Hamburg. (World condemns "Allies" raid on Hamburg. Votes 454-2 to order all allied forces to withdraw to their own countries and begin negotiating for peace.)
• Jan 6, 1944: Soviet troops advance into Poland. (World condemns Soviet aggression! Demands Soviets stop their "brutal oppression.")
• March 18, 1944: British drop 3000 tons of bombs during an air raid on Hamburg, Germany. (World outraged! Citizens of Hamburg "under siege"! World suggests putting troops inbetween combatants in effort to insure a cease fire.)
• June 6, 1944: D-Day landings. (World goes nuts! This outrageous aggression by the Allies must not stand!)
• June 13, 1944: First German V-1 rocket attack on Britain. (Other nations give mild condemnation of Nazi attack but urge rest of the world to be restrained in their response.)
• Sept 1-4, 1944: Verdun, Dieppe, Artois, Rouen, Abbeville, Antwerp and Brussels liberated by Allies. (World urges Allies to negotiate with Axis for peace! World has moment of silence for the German people who may of been harmed in attacks!)
• Dec 17, 1944: Waffen SS murder 81 U.S. POWs at Malmedy. (World chides Allies that they had better not treat their prisoners like that!)
• Dec 26, 1944: Patton relieves Bastogne. (World outraged! Patton is a "hawk". The fact that the Americans put a man like that in charge of their military shows "they're not serious about peace.")
• Feb 13/14, 1945: Dresden is destroyed by a firestorm after Allied bombing raids. (World calls for all allied leaders to be put up for war crimes trial. World expresses "shock and dismay" at Allies "complete disregard" for civilians!)
• March 6, 1945: Last German offensive of the war begins to defend oil fields in Hungary. (World comments "Who could blame them after all those allied attacks? Wouldn't you do the same thing in their place?"
• April 1, 1945: U.S. troops encircle Germans in the Ruhr(World demands US allow German troops a way out rather than attack.)
• April 16, 1945: Soviet troops begin their final attack on Berlin; Americans enter Nuremberg. (World demands that Hitler not be overthrown! He is the elected leader of the German people!)
• April 30, 1945: Adolf Hitler commits suicide. (World now very upset! Fears someone "worse than Hitler" may now take his place!)
• May 7, 1945: Unconditional surrender of all German forces to Allies. (World upset and concerned about fate of German people. Sends relief groups in to make sure Germans not mistreated!)
• June 5, 1945: Allies divide up Germany and Berlin and take over the government. (World outraged! Demands that the "occupation of Germany" end immediately)
• Aug 6, 1945: First atomic bomb dropped, on Hiroshima, Japan. (World demands Truman be tried for war crimes. Protestors and peaceniks from across the world flock to Japan to act as human shields)
• Aug 9, 1945: Second atomic bomb dropped, on Nagasaki, Japan. (World tells US that dropping atomic bombs will only "create more martyrs" and will encourage more Japanese than ever to turn against the Allies!)
• Aug 14, 1945: Japanese agree to unconditional surrender. (World sincerely hopes the citizens on the Axis nations can forgive the Allies for their uncalled for aggression, imperialism, and oppression in this war.) Thanks to this site. I lifted the dates on the timeline from them. (URL no longer works)

Does Human Rights Law Apply to Terrorists?

by Ted Lapkin
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2004

The United States has faced such challenges before. In early morning darkness on June 13, 1942, a German U-boat surfaced off the coast of Long Island. Four men wearing German naval uniforms piled into a rubber dinghy and headed for shore. They buried their uniforms on the beach and headed toward their objective dressed in civilian clothes.^[2] Four nights later, another German unit came ashore in northern Florida. After hitting the beach, they too discarded their uniforms.

These Nazi intelligence agents sought to sabotage targets within the United States. They were unsuccessful. Several weeks later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested them in Chicago and New York, remanding them to a U.S. army military commission for trial.

Like the "illegal combatants" held today at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, these Nazi saboteurs challenged the legality of the military tribunal process. Their lawyers took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled against them. In a unanimous decision delivered by Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, the court determined that the German agents had violated the law of war and that a "military commission was lawfully constituted" to try them for that crime. Thus, declared the Supreme Court, "the motions for leave to file petitions for writs of habeas corpus are denied."^[3]

Fast-forward almost sixty years. Foreign agents infiltrate the United States. Again, they don civilian clothes to cloak their operations. Nineteen hijackers board aircraft in Washington and Boston, seize them, and crash them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania. On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush stood before a joint session of Congress and declared war against terrorism, "Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom … Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."[4]

The world did not have to wait long to see Bush back his rhetoric with action. Less than three weeks later, U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and Al-Qaeda's sanctuary. While fighting, U.S. troops encountered foreigners who had cast their lot with Osama bin Laden. The ranks of these jihadists included Western converts to Islam such as American John Walker Lind and Australian David Hicks. They also seized immigrant nationals or their children from Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Russia, Spain, Sweden, as well as many Muslim nations. These jihadists neither wore uniforms, nor respected the Geneva Conventions. On March 4, 2002, for example, an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft captured on film the summary execution of captured 32-year-old Navy SEAL Neil Roberts by three jihadists.[5] Accordingly, the United States made a decision to detain these captured Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters as illegal combatants, rather than prisoners of war.

International law has progressed in the six decades since the Supreme Court ruled against the Nazi saboteurs. But, despite the arguments made by numerous academics and human rights activists, the law does not necessarily side with the detainees. In its 2004 Rasul v. Bush decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the U.S. government to detain enemy combatants, even if they are American citizens. The court, however, mandated that non-American detainees could challenge their incarceration in U.S. courts.[6]

The question of how to treat captured jihadists extends beyond Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq: Israel has for years been forced to contend with Palestinian terrorist organizations that dispatch suicide bombers. Both the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan, PKK) and various Islamist groups target Turkish civilians.

But, while the human rights community has been critical of certain United States policies for years, since September 11, the Bush administration has matched or perhaps even surpassed Israel and Turkey as a primary target of such groups as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Many nongovernmental organizations reserve venom for their condemnation of the U.S. policy of detaining captured Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters as illegal combatants. Amnesty International labels the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay a "human rights scandal."^[7] Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemn Washington's characterization of captured jihadists as illegal combatants as a violation of the Geneva Conventions. "In its treatment of the detainees at Guantánamo," declared Human Rights Watch, the United States "has been unwilling to fully apply international humanitarian law… [and] has flouted international human rights standards."^[8] Amnesty International has adopted a similarly critical attitude. In a statement to the sixtieth session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Amnesty referred to "the human rights scandal of Guantánamo Bay" where "international law was flouted from the outset."[9]

Who Do the Geneva Conventions Protect?

But to what extent do the laws of armed conflict really apply in the war against terror? The answer resides primarily in the text of the 1949 Third Geneva Convention,[10] intended to ensure humane treatment for captured legal combatants. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) declared the Geneva Conventions to be the "bedrock of principles and rules that must guide the conduct of hostilities and the treatment of persons who have fallen into the hands of a party to an armed conflict."^[11] The Red Cross has gone so far as to demand mandatory application of the Geneva Conventions "wherever a situation of violence reaches the level of an armed conflict."^[12]

Yet, treaties are more like commercial contracts in that they are traditionally viewed as binding only among their parties. Some multinational agreements have evolved into the universally applicable "customary international law." This development is enshrined in the doctrine of jus cogens, which asserts the existence of a higher law that supersedes both national law and international agreements.^[13]

In the wake of World War II, the international military tribunal at Nuremburg declared that the 1907 Hague Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land to be customary international law.^[14] Yet, jurists have reached no such consensus about whether the 1949 Geneva Conventions have made such a transition.^[15]

Unfortunately, the basis for the Red Cross's conclusion appears to have more to do with institutional self-aggrandizement than with international law. Many leftist academics and activists insist that the Geneva Conventions must be universally applied. Yet, that argument is undercut by those treaties' texts. The Third Geneva Convention explicitly states that parties need not apply it to all conflicts, especially when the foes are not parties, and when enemies do not abide by its terms.^[16]

No terrorist group is a party to the Geneva Conventions. They have not signed, much less ratified, those treaties. Moreover, it is evident that Hamas, Hezbollah, and members of the global Al-Qaeda network spurn both the spirit and the letter of international treaties designed to ameliorate the cruelty of war. Bloody attacks in New York, Jerusalem, Bali, Madrid, and Beslan are testament to the fact that these groups seek to kill civilians rather than to take captives. And when Islamist terrorists do seize hostages, brutality rather than protection appears to be the rule.

Iraqi insurgents beheaded 26-year-old American businessman Nicholas Berg and shot 20-year-old Keith Matthew Maupin shortly after the June 28, 2004 transfer of sovereignty. On July 22, Iraqi police found the beheaded corpse of a Bulgarian hostage. The Arabic satellite television network Al-Jazeera had confirmed on July 13 that it had a tape showing his execution.[17] Iraqi captors have also executed Pakistanis, a Turk, and a South Korean, among others. Such mistreatment of prisoners is not a new phenomenon among terrorist groups. In the 1980s, Hezbollah captured a number of Westerners in Lebanon, among them priests, journalists, professors, a librarian, and even the president of the American University of Beirut. Hezbollah tortured and hanged U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel William Higgins. Iraqi insurgents who decapitate civilian hostages have no more international legal claim to protection than did Hezbollah kidnappers.

By violating every tenet of international law regarding treatment of prisoners, terrorist groups forfeit any entitlement to protection under the Geneva Conventions. U.S. forces would be within their legal rights to treat captured Al-Qaeda members as they did Nazi saboteurs during World War II—trial by military commission and execution by firing squad.[18]

A similar argument applies to the Taliban. In 1956, the government of Afghanistan signed the Geneva Conventions. If the Taliban were the legitimate government of Afghanistan, then the United States would be bound to apply the Third Geneva Convention to captured Taliban fighters. Yet, only three governments—Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—recognized the Taliban's claim to power. In fact, throughout this period, the rival Northern Alliance occupied Afghanistan's seat at the United Nations. A typical illustration of the U.N.'s noncommittal attitude towards the Taliban appears in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267 which addressed the group as only an "Afghan faction."^[19] After a fistfight erupted between diplomats at the Afghan embassy in Washington, police simply expelled everyone and shuttered the building.

If international bodies did not recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government, then their militias could not be considered Afghanistan's regular armed forces any more than Hezbollah can be considered the army of Lebanon. Thus, Taliban fighters were not eligible for automatic Third Geneva Convention coverage. The United States is simply not obligated to extend Third Geneva Convention protections to every militia or organization that has pretensions to power.

A subsection of article four does afford automatic prisoner of war (POW) privileges to "members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or authority not recognized by the detaining power."^[20] Accordingly, even if Washington did not recognize the authority of Mullah Omar's regime, U.S. forces would still be obligated to grant POW status to the Taliban had the Taliban been a regular force. But, the Taliban was anything but a regular force. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld addressed this issue at a February 8, 2002 press conference:

The Taliban did not wear distinctive signs, insignias, symbols or uniforms … To the contrary, far from seeking to distinguish themselves from the civilian population of Afghanistan, they sought to blend in with civilian non-combatants, hiding in mosques and populated areas. They [were] not organized in military units, as such, with identifiable chains of command….^[21]

Does International Law Protect Terrorists?

Some pundits and journalists condemn U.S. policy as a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions. Writing in the Guardian, a left-wing British broadsheet, professor of human rights law Conor Gearty proclaimed U.S. policy to be "cruel, unnecessary and as dangerous now as it was when first introduced."[22] But Gearty's criticism is more emotional than substantive. Nothing in the conventions requires that all captives receive prisoner of war status. In fact, article four of the Third Geneva Convention stipulates a number of requirements that must be met before a captive irregular combatant can qualify as a prisoner of war.

The drafters of the 1949 Geneva Conventions sought to base the treaty on past precedent. While the 1907 Hague regulations stipulated that "the laws, rights, and duties of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps," those same regulations also presented a four-part test to determine eligibility of those irregular forces for lawful combatant status.^[23] In order to be recognized as legitimate combatants, the Hague regulations required irregular units to "be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; to have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance; to carry arms openly; and to conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."^[24]

The drafters of the Third Geneva Convention adopted this four-part test as part of the criteria to determine eligibility for POW status. The delegates drafting the convention made quite clear in their debates that they did not want to confer automatic POW status on irregular forces. After much negotiation, a special committee of the conference resolved this question by crafting article 4(A) so as to differentiate between regular armed forces, constituent volunteer corps, and militias on one hand, from irregular resistance movements, on the other. The drafters agreed to apply the Hague four-part test to the latter.^[25]

Terrorists groups ranging from separatists like the PKK in Turkey, Chechen rebels in Russia, or the Pakistani-backed Harakat ul-Mujahideen in India; to Palestinian groups like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, to the numerous cells that comprise the Al-Qaeda network all fail the four-part test. Hijacking civilian airliners and flying them into office buildings is not "in accordance with the laws and customs of war," nor is using human bombs to blow up buses, nor is lining up and executing school teachers. On these grounds, as well, the Taliban also forfeited claim to POW status. While they did carry arms openly, they neither observed the international humanitarian law, nor wore any recognizable sign to distinguish themselves from civilians.[26]

During the chaos of combat, confusion often reigns supreme. In battlefield confusion, captured combatants' eligibility for POW status may not be clear. During the mid-1980s, I served in Lebanon as an officer in Israel's Golani infantry brigade. We were engaged in a classic guerrilla war against Hezbollah, Amal, and Palestinian fighters who dressed in blue jeans and toted RPG-7s and AK-47s. At the slightest hint of disadvantage, these combatants would drop their weapons and melt away into the nearest Lebanese village, where they would try to blend into the local population.

The ensuing murkiness is precisely why the Third Geneva Convention demands that a "competent tribunal" determine the status of prisoners where there is doubt as to their proper status.^[27] But, while it mandates that a tribunal be held, the convention does not dictate details of the process.

In its war against terror, the U.S. military adheres to the competent tribunal requirement. No detainee ended up in Guantánamo without a series of interrogations by U.S. intelligence officials. This process was intended to determine whether a prisoner was a bona fide enemy or an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. Questions were asked, explanations given, and evaluations made. Thus, while Australian jihadist David Hicks wound up in Guantánamo and will shortly appear before a U.S. military commission, Afghan Haji Faiz Muhammad was arrested on suspicion of affiliation with the Taliban and was later released. Faiz Muhammad had few complaints about his treatment in U.S. custody, declaring "we had enough food to eat. We could pray and wash with water five times a day."[28]

Facilitating the Fight against Al-Qaeda

Despite being under no legal obligation to do so, the U.S. government treats the Guantánamo detainees in a manner consistent with the Third Geneva Convention. Why does Washington apply the letter and not the spirit of the Third Geneva Convention to the Guantánamo detainees? In principle, the Bush administration believes that members of an enemy organization that flies hijacked airliners into office buildings should not be rewarded for their crimes.[29] The privileges of Geneva Convention status are simply that—privileges. Moreover, in practice, the ability to circumvent the Geneva Conventions gives U.S. forces a substantial advantage in prosecuting its war against Al-Qaeda and other terrorist proxies.

This would allow more intrusive questioning for captured terrorists than the Geneva Conventions permits for prisoners of war. But, that does not make U.S. actions illegal or mean that the United States is guilty of torture, as some human rights activists have claimed.[30] The U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person."[31]

But, it is doubtful whether sleep deprivation or sensory disorientation constitutes "severe pain or suffering." While all four Geneva Conventions contain a common article three containing an injunction against, "cruel treatment and torture,"^[32] the interpretation of this provision rests upon the definition of torture for which the definitive document is the U.N. torture convention. True, Article 16 of UNCAT states, "Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture." But, international legal language is precise. Obligation to "undertake to prevent" is not absolute prohibition. While lesser categories of coercion should not be routine, they may be available to intelligence authorities in the event of a classic ticking bomb scenario. Can some degree of force be used, for example, on a terrorist who has knowledge of an impending attack? If depriving a captured Al-Qaeda operative of sleep could prevent a bombing such as that which struck Madrid in March 2004, would that be a greater violation of international law than allowing the slaughter of innocents to proceed?

The U.S. government is not only within its rights but is also wise to hold Al-Qaeda members incommunicado. A prisoner's military value does not solely consist of the information that a captive carries in his head. By holding Al-Qaeda members incommunicado, the U.S. military can sow the seeds of confusion and uncertainty in terrorist ranks. If bin Laden's followers do not know whether one of their comrades has been captured, then they also do not know whether any of their operations have been compromised. This is at the heart of the controversy about whether U.S. officials prematurely revealed that they had captured an Al-Qaeda computer specialist named Muhammad Naim Nur Khan who had assisted authorities in entrapping other Al-Qaeda operatives who were unaware of his capture.[33] Yet, if the Third Geneva Convention were applied to terrorists, the treaty's strict rules on reporting the capture of enemy POWs would make such a ruse de guerre impossible and would lead to the death of more civilians.

Thus, U.S. policy in its war against terror is consistent with the Third Geneva Convention. But, human rights advocates, such as Anthony Dworkin of the Crimes of War Project, argue that U.S. detention of suspected Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan or suspected insurgents in Iraq nonetheless violates the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.^[34] The terms of this convention are expansive and seek to prevent unnecessary hardship to civilians in occupied territory. Nevertheless, any argument that U.S. policy violates the Fourth Geneva Convention can only be based on a very selective reading of that treaty. After all, regardless of how ambitious the convention's terms are, they still recognize the exigencies of war and the necessity to govern captured territory. The convention, for example, allows combatants to deny protections to an occupied territory's residents if those residents threaten security.^[35] Thus, when the United States and Great Britain accepted formal occupying power status in Iraq under the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483, the international community gave them the ability to detain civilians for the overall security of coalition troops.

Israel, too, as an occupying power, has every legal right to pursue Palestinian terrorists and detain Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza. And, while these detentions cannot be open-ended, provisions to release terrorist suspects "at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power" are open to interpretation. When car bombs target Iraqi civilians and politicians on the streets of Baghdad, and when suicide bombers attack Israeli buses on the streets of Jerusalem, neither U.S. nor Israeli authorities are under any obligation to release detainees. When push comes to shove, drafters of the convention recognized that the demands of legitimate military necessity always trump the extension of the treaty's privileges.

Human rights organizations and activists have also demanded that the U.S. government apply the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to Guantánamo detainees. According to Amnesty International, U.S. detention of illegal combatants violates ICCPR clauses against arbitrary arrest or detention.^[36] This is disingenuous, however, since the ICCPR also contains a clause that permits governments to suspend its application:

In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States [and] Parties to the present Covenant may take measures derogating from their obligations under the present Covenant to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, color, sex, language, religion or social origin.^[37]

On November 13, 2001, President Bush promulgated a military order entitled, "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War against Terrorism." This presidential directive declared that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were "on a scale that has created a state of armed conflict that requires the use of the United States Armed Forces." The order went on to "proclaim a national emergency" in order to prevent terrorists from inflicting "mass deaths, mass injuries, and massive destruction of property" which could "place at risk the continuity of the operations of the United States Government."^[38]

The Bush administration has carefully positioned itself within the bounds of international law. Bush's proclamation satisfied both the procedural and substantive prerequisites for suspending the arbitrary arrest clauses of the ICCPR. Human rights advocacy groups may not like it, but international law is not always consistent with their political agendas.

Do Human Rights Groups Undermine International Law?

During the past century and a half, the world has witnessed almost 100 attempts to implement international agreements that would constrain the violence of war.[39] While many, if not most, of those conventions have fallen by the wayside through general disregard, a few have served to ameliorate the suffering caused by armed conflicts. What separated relevant from irrelevant agreements was pragmatism.

The authors of the 1949 Geneva Conventions were realists who recognized that by attempting to ban everything, they would stop nothing.

Distinction between permissible and impermissible violence is the keystone of international humanitarian law. The international consensus that certain weapons and tactics should be outlawed depends upon this distinction. Chemical weapons, for example, are clearly illegal. The practical implementation of the rules depends upon soldiers' ability to discriminate between what is military and what is not. In the words of an International Committee of the Red Cross educational pamphlet, "It is a basic principle of international humanitarian law that persons fighting in armed conflict must, at all times, distinguish between civilians and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives."^[40]

Anything that obscures the distinction between combatant and noncombatant undermines the entire foundation of international humanitarian law. Any erosion in the ability to differentiate between civilians and soldiers on the battlefield inevitably would automatically place noncombatants at greater risk. If soldiers are distinctively marked or uniformed, then troops are less likely to mistake civilians for armed combatants and fire upon them. Yet, by seeking to ban detention of illegal combatants in facilities like Guantánamo Bay, this is precisely where the recommendations of the human rights industry would lead.

Political corruption of international law is a serious issue. The U.N. Human Rights Commission, especially under the tenure of Mary Robinson, placed politics over sound legal principle. It is precisely because international jurists and human rights experts remain unaccountable and free to pursue political agendas that the U.S. government has remained vigilant.

The Protocol Additional to the Geneva Convention provides a textbook example of the dangers of such ideological pollution. Drafted at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet bloc and its Third World allies sought recognition for those who fight "against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes."^[41] But, the most perniciously politicized provisions of the protocol appear in article 44, which bestows automatic POW status on all combatants, including so-called freedom fighters, even if they violate the laws of war.^[42] Another clause would permit fighters to retain legal combatant status even if they fight in civilian clothes.^[43] Thus, in one fell swoop, the drafters struck a body blow against the entire system of international humanitarian law. Not only did the Soviet sphere try to emasculate any incentive for combatants to abide by the law of war, but they also sought to obfuscate the vital distinction between combatants and noncombatants.

While the Carter administration signed the 1977 Geneva Protocol, the Reagan administration understood the damage the treaty would do. Because of the drafters' overt political agenda, the United States declined to become party to the additional protocol.[44] The Bush administration is fortunate that the Senate did not ratify the treaty. Had it done so, captured Al-Qaeda terrorists could shield themselves with the very same civilized guidelines that they hold in such contempt.

Many academics, pundits, and politicians have sought to transform the Geneva Conventions into something they are not. The fundamental violations of international law committed by terrorists, be they in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Spain, or Russia, render them ineligible for Geneva Convention protection. To apply the Geneva Conventions universally would be the undoing of those treaties. If there is no price to pay for doffing their uniform or shuttling combatants in Red Crescent ambulances, then soldiers would figure such illegalities to be worth it. Serious violations of the laws of war would become the equivalent of jaywalking. Those advocating universal application of the Geneva Conventions to detainees in Guantánamo Bay are, in effect, encouraging future combatants to transform hospitals into ammunition depots and schools into machine gun nests. The entire regime of international humanitarian law would crumble, and the protections it provides to noncombatants in war would disappear.

The laws of war are imperfect instruments, often "more honored in the breach than the observance."^[45] Yet, despite their inherent limitations, they are humanity's best chance to restrain the savagery of war. The key to their effectiveness—and the ability of Western democracies to fight terrorism—lies in their ability to establish a clear differentiation between licit and illicit means of conducting armed conflict. To blur this distinction and to unnecessarily apply the Geneva Conventions to illegal combatants would erode that distinction and constitute not only a legal mistake, but an ethical one as well.

Ted Lapkin is the associate editor of The Review, the monthly journal of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.

[1] CNN.com, June 19, 2004, at http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/18/saudi.kidnap/.
[2] Ex Parte Quirin, 317 US 1 (1942), U.S. Supreme Court, at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/quirin.html.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Address to a joint session of Congress, United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html.
[5] BBC.com, Mar. 6, 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1857599.stm.
[6] Rasul v Bush (03-334) 321 F.3d 1134, reversed and remanded.
[7] "Guantánamo Bay: A Human Rights Scandal," Amnesty International, at http://web.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobay-index-eng.
[8] "United States: Guantánamo Two Years On," Human Rights Watch, Jan. 9, 2004, at http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/01/09/usdom6917.htm.
[9] "The Human Rights Scandal of Guantanamo Bay," Amnesty International, AI Index: IOR 41/024/2004, no. 098, Apr. 20, 2004.
[10] Geneva Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/6fef854a3517b75ac125641e004a9e68?OpenDocument.
[11] "International Law and the Challenge of Armed Conflicts," 28^th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Dec. 2-6, 2003, p. 5.
[12] Ibid., p. 8.
[13] The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969, 1155 UNTS 331, art. 53, at http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/treaties.htm.
[14] "Judgment of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg," Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 1946, p. 65.
[15] Yoram Dinstein, "Application of Customary International Law," in Michael Bothe, ed., National Implementation of International Humanitarian Law: Proceedings of an International Colloquium Held at Bad Homburg, June 17-19, 1988 (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1991), p. 31.
[16] Geneva Convention (III), art. II, para. 3.
[17] CNN.com, July 13, 2004, at http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/13/iraq.main/.
[18] Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942).
[19] Text at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/other/5110.htm.
[20] Geneva Convention (III), art. 4(A)3.
[21] Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Department of Defense news conference, Feb. 8, 2002, at http://usinfo.org/usia/usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/02020818.htm.
[22] The Guardian (London), July 7, 2004.
[23] Final Record of the Diplomatic Conference of Geneva of 1949, Federal Political Department, Bern, p. 467.
[24] Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Hague, 18 October 1907, at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/0/1d1726425f6955aec125641e0038bfd6?OpenDocument.
[25] Final Record of the Diplomatic Conference of Geneva of 1949, p. 422.
[26] Rumsfeld, news conference, Feb. 8, 2002.
[27] Geneva Convention (III), art. 5, para. 2.
[28] BBC News World Edition, Oct. 29, 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2371349.stm.
[29] Theodore B. Olsen, solicitor general of the United States, "Brief for the Respondents," Rasul v Bush (03-334) 321 F.3d 1134, reversed and remanded.
[30] U.S.-based Australian lawyer Richard Bourke claimed that Australian Guantánamo detainees David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib were being tortured. Radio National PM, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Oct. 8, 2003.
[31] Text at http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm.
[32] Geneva Conventions I, II, III, IV, art. 3-1A, at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebCONVFULL?OpenView.
[33] Associated Press, Aug. 9, 2004.
[34] Anthony Dworkin, "America's Interrogation Network: Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners in International Law," Crimes of War Project, at http://www.crimesofwar.org/onnews/news-prison2.html.
[35] Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, art. 5, para. 1, at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5?OpenDocument.
[36] "USA: Guantánamo Detainees—The Legal Black Hole Deepens," Amnesty International, Mar. 12, 2003.
[37] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, part 2, art. 4, at http://www.mediator.online.bg/eng/iccpr-2.htm.
[38] White House news release, Nov. 13, 2001, at http://www.state.gov/coalition/cr/prs/6077.htm.
[39] "States Parties & Signatories, by Treaties," ICRC, at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebNORM?OpenView.
[40] "International Humanitarian Law and Terrorism: Questions and Answers," ICRC, May 2004, at http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/5YNLEV.
[41] Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1), art. 1, sec. 4, at http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/f6c8b9fee14a77fdc125641e0052b079?OpenDocument.
[42] Ibid., art. 44, sec. 2.
[43] Ibid., art. 44, sec. 3.
[44] "Letter of Transmittal from President Ronald Reagan to the United States Senate, 29 January 1989," reprinted in American Journal of International Law, vol. 81, no. 4, p. 910.
[45] William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 4.