In my last post, I was tempted to argue that allowing the military to ignore the Geneva Convention in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib would have a corrosive effect back home. You know, if we decide that it's acceptable to treat foreign "unlawful combatants" like animals, that will have an effect domestically in the long run. But I couldn't make this argument come together with anything more convincing than a simplistic slippery-slope case.
Fortunately, real events have done the arguing for me. Via Obsidian Wings I see that Dennis Hastert has introduced a provision into H.R. 10, the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004," which, according to Representative Edward Markey, will
[R]equire the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue new regulations to exclude from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any suspected terrorist - thereby allowing them to be deported or transferred to a country that may engage in torture. The provision would put the burden of proof on the person being deported or rendered to establish "by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured," would bar the courts from having jurisdiction to review the Secretary's regulations, and would free the Secretary to deport or remove terrorist suspects to any country in the world at will...
So the "quaint provisions" of Geneva, recently suspended for suspected terrorists in various detention zones, are about to be revoked for anyone living stateside who smells like a terrorist, looks like a terrorist, or walks like a terrorist.
How long until we have torture chambers in every police station in America?