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DKNWZ, Dutch 9/11 political party

European Union

It's summertime and the loonies are active again, at least they are in Holland: action group Dit Kan Niet Waar Zijn (DKNWZ, this cannot be true) is going to run in the elections later this year and promises to re-open the American 9/11 investigation.

Good luck. One of the first laws the party plans to introduce is rumoured to be one where airplanes slamming into concrete leave a cartoon-like shape in the building, so future generations will not consider their paranoid delusions to be somewhat reasonable. Lunacy.

Washington gets soft on illegality

Anglosphere

This entry could have been called something like "SCOTUS Lunacy" to keep a Simply American tradition, because the White House has just completely lost it. Near-amnesty for illegal immigrants was heralded before. Now it is time to get soft on illegal combatants as well:

The Pentagon outlined the new standards to the military in a 7 July memo.

The directive says all military detainees are entitled to humane treatment and to certain basic legal standards when they come to trial, as required by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Sure (and I've said this before), but what about article 4A of the third Geneva convention?

Art. 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions: (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Illegal combatants fail those requirements. Whatever law or treaty applies to them, the Geneva Convention explicitly does not. President Bush has made a huge mistake by bowing to Supreme Court pressure. Stay the course my ass.

So tell me, are there any explicit instructions in the Constitution that anyone would like to see ignored?

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