Terrorists are People too...

Or atleast that's what the Deputy Defense Secretary is saying now:

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In a memo released by the Pentagon this morning, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, citing the Supreme Court's decision, ordered all Pentagon personnel to "adhere to these standards" and to "promptly review" all policies and practices "to ensure that they comply with the standards" of the Geneva Convention's Common Article 3.
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Hmmm I am really interested to know what brought about this change in policy, because although they are now recognizing the Geneva conventions I honestly don't believe that anyone in the military gives two shits about how they treat the detainees at Gitmo. So this must be some sort of wayward PR move. After the Supreme Court's ruling that detainees need to be tried in military tribunals, I believe that this is one of those Orwellian attempts by the Bush administration to pretend like it was their idea all along to treat prisoners humanely, when that is clearly not the case. But ultimately it's probably too litle too late, and there's going to be a big hulabaloo about the sweeping changes that will be made, and of course nothing is going to happen.And O yes, I did just use the word hulabaloo whilst talking about politics.
Just in case you're unfamiliar:

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The Geneva Conventions are a series of treaties and protocols, formulated in Geneva, Switzerland, setting standards for humane treatment of combatants and civilians during time of war. The United States, Afghanistan and Iraq are among the signatories
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Honestly, I have never understood why we chose not to observe the Geneva conventions. In America I thought that we were supposed to be this bastion of democracy and fairness. If we're trying to spread democracy throughout the world, shouldn't we hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct. Since this "War on Terror" began we have been fighting to for the respect of the rest of the world and I'm pretty sure mistreating prisoners of war isn't the way to earn that respect.

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