Bad Behavior
Right now, fifteen British sailors are sitting in prison cells in Iran. The British government claims they have no reason to be held. Iran claims they were sailing in Iranian waters. The truth is that the boundaries for those waters is vague at best, so it’s hard to argue one way or the other without being a bit full of bluff. But that’s really immaterial right now, because Iran is holding them. And while it’s more likely they are going to attempt to exchange them for several Iranian officers that America is holding in Iraq than anything else, the fact is that right now we have no guarantee of their safety, well being, or humane treatment. Iran is already violating the Geneva Conventions based on the video they have released, and they have presented several hand-written letters from the one female sailor that are clearly coerced.
We have no idea if they are being mistreated, abused or “aggressively interrogated”. And we don’t really have much moral high ground to stand on, since our leaders wiped their collective chickenhawk asses with the Geneva Conventions years ago. People who have never served in the military, and certainly never seen combat, claiming that the Geneva Conventions are a quaint relic of some bygone era of civilized warfare. As if they’d have the first damn clue.
But this situation is exactly and precisely why the Geneva Conventions must be respected. They exist not to protect the enemy, but to protect our own soldiers. They are the line in the sand in terms of human behavior and humane treatment. They are a condemnation of torture by example. And they allow us to persue, to the ends of the earth and before an international judicial body, any government or organization that treats our own soldiers inhumanely. Or at least they did, when we still bothered with them.
Unfortunately, these fifteen sailors neither dictated nor implemented any of this “unlawful combatant” bullshit. But they are the ones that will have to suffer the consequences. It won’t be George Bush or Alberto Gonzalez rotting in some blistering hole in Iran. It won’t be their families that have to watch footage of their loved ones being ushered around like prisoners. It won’t be them on the ugly side of an interrogation cell. And you won’t hear any cowardly mouth-frothing pundits and commentators refering to the treatment of these sailors as “fraternity hazings” either. These kids put their lives on the line for their country and for our war. They deserve every protection we can afford them. And in that, we have already failed.
