If that’s true, and it’s hardly a foregone conclusion that it is, the GC’s have provisions that allow a nation to formally withdraw from the obligations instead of violating them. The latter course as chosen by the Bush administration is dishonest and confirms the growing impression that America cannot be trusted.

/Spinal Tap forever

You’re exactly right. We go against the basic purpose of the Geneva conventions if we apply them to terrorists.

The terrorists have redefined warfare to have no rules. The one advantage that we have in fighting this type of enemy is that their leaders and planners are disbursed among the population, rather than in highly defended military bases. If we can get the right information, we can capture leaders and planners. Since the enemy has chosen to fight this way, it seems imperative to get the information and capture leaders and planners. If we capture leaders and planners, then we protect the civilian targets of terrorist attacks, and also prevent the needless deaths of the low-level terrorists who carry out the suicide bombings. We will also bring about a quicker end to the war, which is most beneficial to the civilian population that the terrorists hide among.

Forget “quaint”; “strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners” being rendered “obsolete” is what this debate is all about.

They are obsolete in that they were not designed to deal with and they are not effective in dealking with the type of enemy or the type of warfare being conducted these days.

Shorter Kimmitt: Duh, me so funny!