On 13 Jan 2006 at 13:40, Denys Beauchemin wrote:

> That was also my thought when I was unable to find Al Qaeda as a signatory
> of the Geneva Convention.

How would a private enterprise sign a document whose protocol, 
insisted upon by the contracting parties, only admitted recognized 
political states?  Ignoring for the moment that the documents in 
question predate that entity and further discounting the 
possibility that "Al Qaeda" is a little more than a convenient 
handle used by western sources to bundle a large group of distinct 
and often contradictory anti-western interests under a single 
rubric.

The application of Geneva conventions is the responsibility of all 
parties to a conflict, signatories and non-signatories alike, 
because it is the law.  A law recognized by all the member states 
of the United Nations.  Just as members of the Bloods and the Crips 
cannot mutually agree to dispense with the prevailing domestic law 
in their dealings with each other neither can the United States, or 
the parties that it is in conflict with, abrogate the effect of the 
GCs.

The GCs exist because they serve to make more durable peace 
possible.  States ignore this at the cost of engendering trans-
generational hatred.  A some future time the United States will 
have to withdraw from the present conflict and it will only be able 
to do so successfully if it leaves a legacy of respect for its 
dealings with others.  It instead it sows even deeper hatreds for 
all thing western then there will be no peace anywhere for decades 
and possibly centuries.

We should take the golden rule of engineering to heart when dealing 
with conflict.  Make things as simple as possible, but NO SIMPLER.  
Mudding discussions of practical power politics with useless 
sentiment is pointless.  As is bundling a host of problems under a 
single term and thereby evading the underlying complexities.  Force 
is not going to solve the problems that the United States created 
for itself in Iraq.  This will only be resolved by a political 
solution that is embraced by all parties to the conflict.  In is 
not in the nature of such a solution that it can be compelled by 
violence.

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