On the Treatment of Prisoners

Via Instapundit I read this over at The New Editor:

The Geneva Convenience

Convenient for AP's reporting, that is. Now that's it's British captives rather than Islamic terrorists behind bars:

The third Geneva Convention bans subjecting prisoners of war to intimidation, insults or "public curiosity." Because there is no armed conflict between Iran and Britain, the captives would not technically be classified as prisoners of war.

Yet somehow, the fascist jihadists in Guantanamo deserve both Geneva Convention treatment and the rights of an American citizen who has been accused of a crime...

Indeed. And this reminded me of the arguments made by Sen. McCain, among others, that our treatment of prisoners would affect the treatment of American prisoners in the current, and possible future, conflicts--in other words, "let's not give them any excuse for bad behavior."

The only problem with that, of course, is that none of our enemies, save one, in the last 70 years has treated American or Allied prisoners in any way except with brutality and death! Let's review:

Japan, WW II--starved, tortured, enslaved and murdered American and Allied POWs, as well as civilian captives.

N. Korea and Red China, Korean War--starved, tortured, murdered and 'brainwashed' American and Allied POWs.

N. Vietnam, Vietnam War--starved, tortured and murdered American and Allied POWs. Sen. McCain knows personally all about this.

Iraq, Gulf War--tortured and brutally abused American and Allied POWs. May not have actually murdered any, but unclear (see Andy McNab's Bravo Two Zero for just a sample).

So while America has been treating POWs according to the treaty for the last 70 years, most of our enemies have disregarded it, treating our people with murderous subhuman evil. It doesn't mean that we should treat the current crop of cowardly baby-killers like they treated us, but for me it sure pulls the rug out from under the "McCain Argument."

The only enemy missing from this list is Nazi Germany, which mostly treated American and British POWs according to the conventions.

That doesn't forgive the rest of their murderous actions in regard to others of course, but it's certainly a choice piece of irony.