Forget Rumsfeld; fire Bush.

White House memo shifts abuse inquiry’s focus

A story in the latest edition of Newsweek has shifted the focus of the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal to the question of whether the Bush administration established a legal basis that opened the door for the mistreatment.
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And the Newsweek story reports that U.S. soldiers and CIA operatives “could be accused of war crimes. Among the possible charges: homicide involving deaths during interrogations.

Now, I don't believe Al Queda qualify as soldiers (they're not uniformed, they target civilians, etc.), and I actually don't have too big a problem with high-value subjects getting a little roughed up, assuming it doesn't taint the info we get or chances of prosecution. But to simply throw away the Geneva convention for ordinary, secured prisoners -- 90% of which the Red Cross says are mistaken detentions -- is a grave, grave mistake.

The Geneva convention isn't a straightjacket so much as a protection for our soldiers. When enemy forces know they may face war crime trials after a war is over, it makes them think twice about mistreating our soldiers. And throwing them out makes us just another warring party, not a force of good in the world. Of course, the whole Iraq War II kind of did the same thing.