MORAL EQUIVALENCE, REDUX

The inability of presumably intelligent people to make obvious distinctions continues to baffle me. Case in point: this Stephen Green post at Command Post. He links a story point out that the Iraqis are violating the Geneva Convention with respect to the treatment of our prisoners of war and observes, “Really doesn’t require much analysis, does it?” One would think. One would be wrong. Read the Comments that ensue.

UPDATE: Jack Shafer makes the same idiotic arguments in Slate: POW TV – Why Rumsfeld should be careful about lecturing Saddam about the Geneva Conventions. Am I the only one who thinks it’s obvious that beating and/or murdering captured soldiers and refusing the grant nominal POW status to non-uniformed fighters of an illegal regime but nonetheless treating them humanely is, well, different?

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.