Ann Coulter on the Geneva Conventions

Ann Coulter's opinion about the recent Generva Conventions controversy is well expressed by her first paragraph:

It turns out the only reason McCain is demanding that prisoners like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl and other atrocities – be treated like Martha Stewart facing an insider trading charge is this: "It's all about the United States of America and what is going to happen to Americans who are taken prisoner in future wars."

Or to make her point in a different way:

Or as the New York Times wrote in the original weasel talking points earlier this summer: "The Geneva Conventions protect Americans. If this country changes the rules, it's changing the rules for Americans taken prisoner abroad. That is far too high a price to pay so this administration can hang on to its misbegotten policies."

If you believe that terrorists who couldn't care less about the Geneva Conventions might retaliate against the United States by, say, disregarding the Geneva Conventions, you might be a liberal.

The notion that other nations fighting wars with America might therefore disregard the Geneva conventions to retaliate against the United States is also for the most part unfounded. This is because the Geneva Conventions are grounded not in a single set of papers that various countries have signed on to, but in the common actions of belligerent nations. The protections that the conventions afford are inherent in what nations do. Even if the documents denoted by "the Geneva Conventions" did not exist, nations would still abide by the practices that the Conventions codify provided that their adversaries did so as well.