Geneva What??

So let me get this right. America is not bound by the Geneva Conventions unless, of course, it's our own people. I'm sure this is old news by now, but still.

Rumsfeld knew about and approved torture techniques that have been used in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq (at the very least). He was well aware of the abuse that would eventually be witnessed by the world at Abu Ghraib. Yet conservatives seem to find this perfectly acceptable. No, the problem is evidently not with the torture, it's with TALKING about the torture, which has now put our troops at risk. And talking about the torture is not motivated by a sense of outrage at the injustice and hypocrisy, no - it's purely political. It's because those Clinton liberals have a "blame America first" mentality.

Personally, I'm all about accountability. It seems to me that if you truly respect human life, you can find other ways to get the information you need. ESPECIALLY when you know for a fact that a large number of the people you're interrogating are not guilty of a thing and have never been so much as charged with a crime, much less convicted.

The above link includes an interesting excerpt from Article 17 of the actual Geneva Convention, written in 1949 and ratified by both the US and Iraq:

"Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number."

"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever," Article 17 states.

Oops. Guess we blew that one.