It’s official: prisoner abuse is OK

As US Republicans and right-wing media outlets have been scrambling to eat humble pie over the last few weeks since the publication of the grotesque Abu Ghraib ‘holiday snaps’, the Wall Street Journal has managed to excel itself by bucking the trend with an editorial that, quite frankly, beggars belief.

According to the WSJ, ‘apart from Iraqi soldiers detained in uniform and certain members of Saddam Hussein’s chain of command–most Iraqi detainees are arrested as civilians and fall under the protection not of the Third Geneva Convention but of the Fourth.’ This apparently entitles the US, as an occupying power ‘to use its discretion within wide parameters to maintain law and order (Article 64), and contains no specific restriction on interrogation, other than saying that “protected persons” not be subjected to “physical or moral coercion” (Article 31). But–note well–protected persons are defined as “persons taking no active part in the hostilities” (Article 3).’ In other words, says the WSJ, ‘the Geneva Conventions do not speak specifically to the interrogation treatment of non-uniformed Baathist or jihadi guerrillas detained in connection with attacks on U.S. forces or Iraqi civilians … With that in mind, we’ll risk liberal censure and suggest that 45 minutes of uncomfortable posture (the guidelines’ limit) and the other techniques … are certainly appropriate. The U.S. holds some very dangerous people in Iraq, and it’s easy to forget that the point of interrogating them is to better protect both U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi civilians that the Geneva Conventions oblige us to safeguard.’

Damn, I feel so stupid now being utterly appalled and sickened by the photographs. If only the WSJ had pointed this out to us earlier we needn’t have worried. Seriously, though, as my good friend Vijay Srinivasan pointed out in his unpublished response to the Editor (see below), one minor oversight on the part of the WSJ is the notion of innocence until proven guilty.