<p>The Geneva Convention, which we ratified, however, forbids torture.</p>
<p>"Torture or inhuman treatment of prisoners-of-war (Geneva III, arts. 17 & 87) or protected persons (Geneva IV, art. 32) are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and are considered war crimes (Geneva III, art. 130; Geneva IV, art. 147). War crimes create an obligation on any state to prosecute the alleged perpetrators or turn them over to another state for prosecution. This obligation applies regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator, the nationality of the victim or the place where the act of torture or inhuman treatment was committed (Geneva III, art.129; Geneva IV, art. 146). "
<a href=“http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/24/usint8614.htm[/url]”>http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/24/usint8614.htm</a></p>
<p>and from a Sept. Washington Post article:</p>
<p>"Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said yesterday that he decided to publicly oppose the Bush administration’s proposed rules for the treatment of terrorism suspects in part because the plan would add to growing doubts about whether the United States adheres to its own moral code.</p>
<p>“If you just look at how we are perceived in the world and the kind of criticism we have taken over Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and renditions,” Powell said in an interview, "whether we believe it or not, people are now starting to question whether we’re following our own high standards.</p>
<p>Colin Powell said other nations are questioning whether the United States is following its moral code. …</p>
<p>Powell, elaborating on a position first expressed last week in a letter to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), also argued that the administration’s plan to “clarify” U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions would set a precedent for other nations that would endanger U.S. troops.</p>
<p>"Suppose North Korea or somebody else wants to redefine or ‘clarify’ " Geneva Conventions provisions prohibiting “outrages against personal dignity” and “humiliating and degrading treatment” of prisoners, he said…</p>
<p>But he has reserved his strongest opposition for administration efforts to preserve controversial methods for interrogating terrorism suspects, techniques that others have defined as torture. While it is not clear exactly what techniques the White House wishes to keep, sources have said those previously used include nakedness, prolonged sensory assault and deprivation, the imposition of “stress” positions, and water submersion to the verge of drowning. Bush has said none of those amounts to torture.</p>
<p>Powell strenuously objected to Bush’s February 2002 decision that the United States was not obliged to adhere to Geneva Conventions rules in its treatment of captured al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. …"
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091801414.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091801414.html</a></p>
Rather, I was thinking back to some rather heated discussions which have occurred here in the Parents’ Cafe in the past. Some of them concerned Patrick Henry College’s efforts to place some of its students as Congressional Interns, and how it encourages its student in general to involve themselves in the political process. The cyber panic that was raised by the goals of this miniscule Christian College had me scratching my head. The concerned seemed entirely out of proportion to the actual threat. People were figuratively running around, shouting, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”. But these same people seem to express little concern for the dangers demonstrated worldwide, time and again by Islamic Extremism.</p>