"We already have a perfect historical analog for your support of non-reciprocal Geneva adherence - the fact that the the US stuck to the Geneva rules in its treatment of Japanese POWs, despite the fact that Imperial Japan not only refused to reciprocate but treated our POWs in the vilest ways imaginable. There would, no doubt, have been widespread public support among the American people for reciprocal mistreatment of Japanese POWs - but the Roosevelt Administration refused to do so for one simple reason: we wanted Japan afterwards to be a peaceful, non-occupied nation, and mistreating their POWs was not the way to accomplish this."....I'm not sure that the Japanese-analogy is valid, nor am I convinced by the second part of the posted e-mail. The Empire of Japan was a sovereign nation with a recognizable military operating under authority and control;
This factor is even more important in the War Against Megaterrorism -- we can hardly occupy the entire Moslem world, even briefly -- but the self-indulgent dimwits currently running the government refuse to see this, and we will all end up paying for it."...
I'm more convinced by Bill Whittle's observations on Unlawful Combatants;
They violate the Sanctuary of the Uniform. They violate the Sanctuary of Surrender. And the most reprehensible of all is the violation of the Sanctuary of Mercy." ...
The old usage "outlaw" meant outside the law and outside it's protections. Perhaps it's time for the International Community to recognize that it's time to review the Geneva Conventions and even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to address those who voluntarily and deliberately place themselves outside the Covenants of Civilization...."I used to wonder why civilizations fell. No longer. I see it now before my eyes, every day. Civilizations do not fall because the Barbarians storm the walls. The forces of civilization are far too powerful, and those of barbarism far too weak, for that to happen. Civilizations fall because the people inside the Sanctuary throw open the Gates".
