It sounds like all three at the moment. Putting aside the legal issue of Geneva not applying in Guantanamo and Afghanistan for a moment, the Bush administration publicly is telling the world that Geneva does apply in Iraq. However, it is increasingly clear that it was policy to transfer non-Geneva interrogation tactics to Iraq which was supposed to be covered by Geneva. Remember the denials that Abu Ghraib was "Gitmo-ized"? What kind of professionals are running this effort and what kind of professionals are running the country? Don't we deserve some honesty here?
"The teams were sent to Iraq for 90-day tours at the urging of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then the head of detention operations at Guantánamo. General Miller was sent to Iraq last summer to recommend improvements in the intelligence gathering and detention operations there, a defense official said.
But one member of the 377th Company said the fact that prisoners in Afghanistan had been labeled as "enemy combatants" not subject to the Geneva Conventions had contributed to an unhealthy attitude in the detention center.
"We were pretty much told that they were nobodies, that they were just enemy combatants," he said. "I think that giving them the distinction of soldier would have changed our attitudes toward them. A lot of it was based on racism, really. We called them hajis, and that psychology was really important." - NY Times
After months of demonizing Iraq, how surprised should we be that racism has played a role in this mess?
