Editorial: A Senate quartet stands against torture

09/19/2006

The Geneva Conventions pose no threat to America.

Star Tribune
Published: September 19, 2006

On the question of what interrogation methods should be allowed against enemies who would employ terrorism, the basic principle at issue can become temporarily hazy. So let’s cut to its core: The president of the United States is arguing that this nation cannot afford the humane treatment of detainees required by the Geneva Conventions. That is a repugnant notion, unworthy of this great nation.

The Bush administration claims we face a grave threat to our existence from Al-Qaida and others who use the tactics of terrorism. That, President Bush argues, is why the Geneva Conventions cannot be honored, why Congress must pass legislation allowing their circumvention. He’s wrong.

The threat from Al-Qaida and other terrorism-inclined groups is real, but even allowing for the success they had on Sept. 11, 2001, a few hundred hate-filled jihadists do not pose an “existential” danger to America. We give ourselves too little credit for our size, our strength and our will. We also fail to appreciate fully how important is the global civilizing influence of our demonstrable effort to live by the values we’ve always proclaimed, including humane treatment of detainees.

To examine a real threat to our existence, look back to the one that was developing in 1949, when American officials were ardent supporters of the principles on treatment of detainees that the conventions articulate. They were motivated by fresh memories of the horrors our troops had suffered in World War II, and they weren’t deterred at all by the fears of Armageddon that the Cold War already was spawning.

To our knowledge, over the ensuing half-century of mortal nuclear danger, no president ever expressed a worry that the Geneva Conventions posed a risk to the survival of the United States. Nor did a president claim, as Bush did until hauled up short by the Supreme Court, the executive authority to waive the conventions’ requirements without consulting Congress.

Two decades ago—and probably two decades hence—Bush’s desire to sweep aside the conventions would have been seen almost universally as odious and indefensible. Today, thankfully, four courageous Senate Republicans see it that way and are defying Bush’s desire to sweep them aside. The pity is that it’s only four.