Bush should obey Geneva Conventions

November 10, 2004 D. H. McKee

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President George W. Bush should stop flouting federal and international law over the legal status of detainees in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The administration needs to move beyond the impasse that has now dragged on for three years. Bush should abandon his attempt to operate an alternative justice system for enemy combatants beyond the reach of any authority other than his own.
The White House lost the latest skirmish Monday, when federal Judge James Robertson halted the first trial before a military commission at Guantanamo, ruling that it violated both federal and international law. The ruling turned on the same two issues that keep coming back to bite the administration: How to determine who is a prisoner of war and how to handle evidence the administration wants kept secret.
Robertson ruled that under the Geneva Conventions, Salim Ahmed Hamdan must be presumed to be a POW unless a “competent tribunal” finds that he doesn’t deserve that designation. The judge said, too, that U.S. law requires trials for POWs conducted under the rules of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which, unlike Bush’s commissions, don’t give the administration carte blanche to use evidence that a defendant will never see or hear.
Newsday.com – Opinion

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As a guy who occasionally curates art shows and wrangles artists together, I often have to edit and post artist bios, profile pictures, and artwork images. This can be a problem, since many artists and writers aren’t used to selling themselves. Artists rarely know how to present their art for display in a brochure, and writers aren’t used to writing about themselves.

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Like blogs of old, this one is a personal document of the comings and goings of me. Articles I’ve written, links I’ve posted, videos I liked, etc. Here, a first-person perspective is the way to go, at least for now. So, this is my site. I’m D. H. McKee, a sometimes artist, sometimes writer. Mostly just a guy on the internet.