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Jewish World Review Oct. 3, 2006 / 11 Tishrei, 5767 Why Churchill opposed torture By Niall Ferguson http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | LAST WEEK, both houses of Congress approved a bill — the Military Commissions Act — that would permit the indefinite, extrajudicial incarceration of terrorist suspects and their interrogation using torture in all but name. Does that sound shocking? What's really shocking is that this was a compromise measure. When President Bush signs this bill into law, a category of detainees will come into existence: "unlawful enemy combatants" who, regardless of their nationality, will be liable to summary arrest. Those detained will not have the right to challenge their imprisonment by filing an application for a writ of habeas corpus. When — or rather if — they are tried, it will be by military tribunals. Classified evidence may be withheld from the accused if the tribunal judges see fit. My old friend Andrew Sullivan — who used to think he was a conservative until President Bush came along — calls it a bill to "legalize tyranny." At the very least, it has the potential to extend the scope of American martial law far beyond the cellblocks of Guantanamo Bay. Leave aside for now the question of habeas corpus; after all, prisoners of war have traditionally been denied this ancient protection. Much more sinister is Section 8 ("Implementation of Treaty Obligations"), under which "the president has the authority … to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate … administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions." To see what this means, you need to know what the "grave breaches" are. According to Geneva Convention III, Article 130, they include "willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments" and "willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health." Insidiously, therefore, the Military Commissions Act empowers the president to authorize all lesser forms of physical and mental intimidation of prisoners. Suffering and injury are fine, in other words, as long as they aren't "great" or "serious." It is easy enough to understand why most members of Congress assented to this. Five years after 9/11, Americans remain intensely hostile toward anyone who might even be suspected of involvement in terrorism. Not for the first time, war fever is encouraging Americans to set aside the fundamental principles of individual liberty on which the United States was founded. Predictably, Democrats who opposed the bill were accused by Republicans of "coddling" terrorists — a line of attack that Karl Rove hopes will win November's midterm elections. History, however, provides a powerful counter-argument. It is that any dilution of the Geneva Convention could end up having the very reverse effect of what the administration intends. Far from protecting Americans from terror, it could end up exposing them to it. THE FIRST Geneva Convention governing the humane treatment of prisoners of war was adopted in 1929. It is not too much to say that it saved the lives of millions. In World War II, about 96 million people served in the armed forces of all the belligerent states, of whom more than a third spent at least some time in enemy hands. The majority of these were Axis soldiers who became prisoners when Germany and Japan surrendered. Luckily for them, the Allies upheld the Geneva Convention, despite the fact that the Axis powers had systematically failed to do so. Official Japanese policy encouraged brutality toward prisoners of war by applying the Geneva Convention only mutatis mutandis (literally, "with those things having been changed which need to be changed"), which the Japanese translated as "with any necessary amendments." The amendments in question amounted to this: Enemy prisoners had so disgraced themselves by laying down their arms that their lives were forfeit. Indeed, some Allied prisoners were made to wear armbands bearing the inscription "One who has been captured in battle and is to be beheaded or castrated at the will of the emperor." Physical assaults were a daily occurrence in some Japanese POW camps. Executions without due process were frequent. Thousands of American prisoners died during the infamous Bataan Death March in 1942. Elsewhere, British POWs were used as slave labor, most famously on the Burma-Thailand railway line. Attempting to escape was treated by the Japanese as a capital offense, though the majority of prisoners who died were in fact victims of malnutrition and disease exacerbated by physical overwork and abuse. In all, 42% of Americans taken prisoner by the Japanese did not survive. Such were the consequences of "amending" the Geneva Convention. Red-state Republicans may still shrug their shoulders. After all, George W. Bush is no Tojo. Well, maybe not. But even if you don't see any resemblance between Bush's "administrative regulations" and Imperial Japan's "necessary amendments" of the Geneva Convention, consider this purely practical argument: As Winston Churchill insisted throughout the war, treating POWs well is wise, if only to increase the chances that your own men will be well treated if they too are captured. Even in World War II, there was in fact a high degree of reciprocity. The British treated Germans POWs well and were well treated by the Germans in return; the Germans treated Russian POWs abysmally and got their bloody deserts when the tables were turned. Few, if any, American soldiers currently find themselves in enemy hands. But in the long war on which Bush has embarked, that may not always be the case. The bottom line about mistreating captive foes is simple: It is that what goes around comes around. And you don't have to be a closet liberal to understand that. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. BUY THE BOOKS Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is the author of "Empire" (Basic Books, 2003) and "Colossus" (Penguin, 2004). Comment by clicking here. 09/27/06: Insanity on a Global Scale 09/19/06: The GOP will hang on 09/13/06: Long Live Royal Bloodlines! 09/05/06: Red-state Republicans and blue-faced liberals are starting to agree: Green is the way 08/29/06: What if the London Bombers Succeeded? 08/15/06: Testing the Limits of the U.N.: Who seriously expects Kofi Annan to stop Al Qaeda terror attacks? 08/08/06: The coming tsunami of trash 07/18/06: Forget the '60s and ‘Make Love, Not War.’ Today's world is facing a Summer of Rage 07/11/06: When will China pull the plug on North Korea? 06/20/06: Hedge funds vs. central bankers: Will inflation, deflation or recession win in the coming months? 06/13/06: Britain's economy is just like America's — minus the entrepreneurs and growth 06/06/06: The X-Men have taken over Washington 05/30/06: Quit protesting, profs! 05/23/06: World markets' wild ride: Economic volatility is back with a vengeance 05/16/06: The Cold Wars are coming 05/09/06: Many commentators are missing dangerous political shift 05/02/06: Put some sugar in your tank 04/25/06: Hu and the dog that didn't bark 04/18/06: Should Americans be less optimistic? 04/11/06: Globalization's second death? 04/04/06: So many ‘special’ friends 03/28/06: Let's get it right about what has gone wrong 03/21/06: Congress is trying to give the world a globotomy 03/14/06: Lame ducks can still bite back 03/07/06: A 19th Century critique of a 21st Century president 02/28/06: The crash of civilizations 02/21/06: Not the president, but close 02/14/06: Want historic trouble? Look south 02/07/06: Greenspan advising Britain? It's housing bubbles, deficits and potential meltdowns all over again 01/31/06: Missing the Cold War 01/24/06: It's a sick, Thick World 01/17/06: Tomorrow's world war today 01/03/06: Scotland, it's over, but keep the accents 12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq 12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq 11/22/05: Ghost of Napoleon haunts Tony Blair 11/22/05: Can it happen in Britain too? 11/15/05: Red plus blue equals purple 11/10/05: The fires of disintegration 11/01/05: Triumph of an über-wonk © 2006, Los Angeles Times Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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