Geneva? Isn't that a font?

A few helpful notes for people wanting to look beyond the spin on the military commissions law that President Bush just signed:

The Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) states that when a non-military prisoner "is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State." So, the only possible excuse that President Bush would have for violating the Geneva Conventions is that putting a suspected terrorist on trial somehow endangers the state.

So, yes, he technically has a way out, but the Convention also clearly states: "Such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial.... They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person...at the earliest date consistent with security of State...."

GCIV sets a pretty high bar, clearly intending that signatories cannot use the "national security" excuse blithely. It demands a "fair and regular trial," written in the Convention as a "regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensible by civilzed peoples." The commissions, as Justice Stevens wrote in the opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, are clearly not "regularly constituted courts" - not given the abuses of justice allowed at such commissions.

And don't forget, the US is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, making them the "supreme Law of the Land."

And, please, signing into a law a provision that detainees from petitioning for writs of habeas corpus? Nevermind that this measure is very possibly unconstituional (what part of "in cases of rebellion or invasion" does Congress not understand?), but it's just plain wrong. To try people in kangaroo courts in breach of international law is one thing, but to not give them any recourse to challenge their "enemy combatant" status is cruel. Is President Bush that confident that everyone we're holding at Guantanamo is an enemy combatant?