22 September 2006 Social Convention They have cut a deal on the Hill between the Senate and the White House. Senators McCain, Warner and Graham joined in saying to say that some things were wrong, and others not. The White House seemed to have got some flexibility, and conceded that evidence held against accused should be shared with them. It is another of those things I don't fully understand. The agreement seems to extend the protection of the Geneva Convention to people who wear no uniforms and follow no rules of conduct, and who target civilians for brutal murder. My confusion arises from the fact that the Convention was signed by nation-states who agreed to rules of conduct in the course of war, and the treatment of prisoners pending the conclusion of hostilities. Opponents of the Administration, and they are many, argue that the treatment of detainees will have consequences in the next war, if there is ever to be one between actual countries again, where combatants wear uniforms. The North Vietnamese did not follow the Convention, as Senator McCain well knows, nor did the Koreans before that. I don't know why we expect that to be different in the future. Perhaps we should identify the next nation-state we are likely to fight in a conventional manner and go out to coffee and talk about it. Maybe get some take-out Chinese. Maybe it is time for a new Convention. The compromise does not seem to make anyone happy, most particularly those who made be put on the water-board for interrogation. I have sympathy for them, regardless of their murderous ways, since the water-board was an integral part of the resistance training we were forced to take as a condition of forward deployment. I won't claim it was the real thing, but it was not a pleasant week, and the screaming and sleep deprivation and confinement in small boxes was real enough. We knew it would end, even if we didn't know when. We also knew they probably would not really hurt us, though accidents do happen in realistic training. Still, the sensation of drowning is universal, and all these years later, it stays with one. Word at the camp was that it was not always water that the Bad Guys used in their version of the water-board. Sometimes it was kerosene. The Germans were erratic in following the Geneva Convention in the last war that everyone seems to agree was justified. American and British Aircrew who were shot down and generally were treated with Spartan fairness. If they found their way into the German Air Force prison system, that is, and were not killed in that first encounter on the ground with troops or civilians still smarting from the attack as the American airmen were in Vietnam. Ground forces were not so lucky, as the American dead in the Battle of the Bulge might have told you, if they could. The memorial that stands today near the Five Points intersection at Malmedy has 86 names on it, but the accounting is suspect. It may have been a few dozen more than that who were ordered out into the snow-covered field and gunned down by the SS troopers of Battle Group Pieper. There is still controversy about the killing, all these years later. Some say that the SS Commander was cranky, and behind schedule on his advance. He apparently could not be distracted by prisoners and did what he had to do to keep moving. Others say it was premeditated murder, cold as snakes, or the snow that covered the bodies. In any event, they were in uniform, both sides, as they were on the bluffs behind the Normandy beaches where they say some Germans were killed in cold blood. Passion and operational necessity certainly play into these various atrocities, which appear different than murder as policy. Mi Lai seems to be somewhere in between. A dispassionate American airman, flying near that massacre, set his helicopter down and stopped some of the killing. In the Second War, the mostly Royal Air Force prisoners in Hermann Goering's Luftwaffe prisons are somewhere further up the scale. Under the provisions of the Geneva Convention, it is considered an officer's duty to attempt escape. All the prisoners remained in uniform. A dedicated and energetic escape organization was created inside the wire, and over the course of a year, an extensive tunnel system was dug through the soft yellow Silesian sand. It was quite a sophisticated operation, with electric lighting in the tunnels, and escape kits of civilian clothing re-tailored from uniforms. The Luftwaffe prison system was being overwhelmed with American prisoners, and the Germans decided to move them all together. In order to permit the ones who had assisted in the tunneling their opportunity to break out, the tunnels were pushed forward and a mass escape was conducted on a moonless night in March, 1944. Out of 76 escapees, 73 were re-captured. Hitler was furious at the cheek, and demanded that all of them be shot. As a result of delicate negotiations between the Luftwaffe and the Fuhrer's staff, a compromise was reached. A number “more than half,” would be executed. Luftwaffe General Artur Nebe had the responsibility of selecting the two piles of records, which were fifty and twenty-three, respectively. The former were reported as being shot “resisting capture.” The latter were mostly returned to Stalag Luft III, where the news of the murders was met with grim incredulity. Of course, in the context of the industrial murdering that was taking place elsewhere in Germany, this was small beer, But it certainly has an impact on any discussion of the Geneva Convention. I was reminded of that as I padded down the hall to make the coffee this morning. The radio was reporting that Hezballah fighters are flowing back into southern Lebanon. Two of them, in the civilian clothes that is the anti-uniform, were described as standing at the border fence, looking at an Israeli tank. The success of the Hezballah relies on their ability to counter Israeli strength. Part of that is to complicate the targeting problem, and to swim in the sea of the civilians, relying on a modicum of forbearance on the part of the Isrealis to increase their chances of survival to kill again. That carries the risk that civilians will inadvertently be killed, as they were in the last spasm of violence. Worse, it could lead to a standard of shooting first, and asking questions later. We don't want to go there, and I am pleased some sort of compromise on the interrogations has been reached that preserves the Geneva Convention, even if there is no expectation that the Bad Guys will ever follow it. I think the moral high ground is a good thing, and the traditions of justice and due process this morning at least have a nod from the powerful. But the Bad Guys are counting on that to destroy us. It is an interesting paradox, isn't it? Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |