Typical Bush Administration behavior:

An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.

Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment. […] Language in the administration’s draft, which Bradbury helped prepare in concert with civilian officials at the Defense Department, seeks to protect U.S. personnel by ruling out detainee lawsuits to enforce Geneva protections and by incorporating language making U.S. enforcement of the War Crimes Act subject to U.S. — not foreign — understandings of what the Conventions require. (emphasis mine)

First of all, I’m not surprised that the legislation referred to was passed a decade ago. It has become fact in modern U.S. politics that no matter how similar the two “major” parties act their members see their own party as being infallible & the opposition to be pure evil — hence the “concern” over war crimes during the Clinton Administration and reversal under Bush.

So this is what they do. Simultaneously while claiming unquestionable moral superiority, loopholes and exceptions are carefully placed to make undermining the claim that much easier. Yet common sense begs the question of why the contempt for restraint* results in nibbling around the edges, rather than tossing the entire thing. For example, instead of making exceptions at every turn, why not just withdraw entirely from the Geneva Conventions?

If you’ve been paying attention, you know this one already: the trappings of “international law” are a convenient excuse for whatever you were going to do anyway, nothing more.

Notice that interwoven in the bleatings of loyalists over the “war on terror” are references to others violating “international law”? Despite that never being legitimate reason to do anything, it’s used as an excuse: “well they don’t follow it!” Funny thing is, on that charge they’re correct….and beside the point. If others violating it makes it pointless to follow (which it does), then it is the same way for everybody. The collective actions of much of the rest of the world destroys any foundation that it ever stood on, the only reason this is not completely acknowledged in the US is because without the window dressing of globalism all the portrayal of it as a clash of civilizations — or “World War 3″, as the neos are pulling out — rather than the US versus some nutjobs would sound even dumber than they do now.

You cannot have it both ways. Either the rules are legitimate and should be followed, or they’re bullshit and should be dropped entirely.

(* - I would withdraw from all such pacts — for different reason, obviously.)