broadening the definition

Mick Smith has a question:

One of this blog’s US readers, Don Walker, asks the question, posed previously here, as to how long we can operate alongside US troops without finding ourselves guilty of war crimes simply for helping them carry out practices deemed perfectly legal by President Bush but which under UK and international law remain illegal.

“If Bush amends the definition of torture under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, as is expected, can British troops continue to interact on the battlefield with the US?,” Don asks. “Would British troops condone torture by turning prisoners over to the US? If the US removes the right to habeas corpus , a right found in the Magna Carta for prisoners, should British troops turn prisoners over to the Americans? Persons captured by the British and turned over to the Americans could disappear into the black hole of prisons.”

And as if on cue:

… The legislation broadens the definition of enemy combatants beyond the traditional definition used in wartime, to include noncitizens living legally in this country as well as those in foreign countries, and also anyone determined to be an enemy combatant under criteria defined by the president or secretary of defense.

I’m not sure what the exact legal position on this is, but it strikes me at least as a possibility that we might be breaking the Geneva convention simply by operating joint military and intelligence actions with the United States, since these are bound to lead to the capture of whatever category of persons that the President decides are “unlawful combatants” subject to secret detention and torture. At the very least, we’ve got to the point where support for the United States and opposition to torture are alternatives you have to choose between. In practice they always were, to a certain extent, but now it’s official.

If you’re not already, you really should be reading Jim Henley on this.

Comments

[Syd Webb]

One of this blog’s US readers, Don Walker, asks the question, posed previously here, as to how long we can operate alongside US troops without finding ourselves guilty of war crimes simply for helping them carry out practices deemed perfectly legal by President Bush but which under UK and international law remain illegal.

It's a good question, Jamie. This was being discussed in the Australian back in 2003 as the Aussies in Iraq and Afghanistan had no facilities for holding PoWs and were handing prisoners over to our gallant American allies as standard operating procedure.

There's another, even broader question. 'Waging aggressive war' was held to be a war crime at Nuremburg. While there is some argy-bargy about what Security Council Resolution 1441 did or did not empower, there is a case to be made that Bush and Blair's failure to get their sought-for formal Security Council endorsement of the invasion may mean that the whole pre-emptive war was a war crime from to go-git.

Of course any subsequent war crimes are only making it worse.

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