The Right to be a Prisoner
Following intense criticism, the Bush administration announced this week that it would reconsider its previous decision that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba not be covered by the Third Geneva Convention. The move is a welcome one. The 158 detainees should be granted prisoner of war status and be entitled to the corresponding protections.
The United States has a huge stake in upholding international standards for human rights. If the military uses the Afghanistan strategy of deploying highly-trained Special Operations forces in future disputes, American soldiers may be captured by foreign armies. The government would want those soldiers to be accorded P.O.W. protections. But if the Bush administration does not honor the Geneva Convention in the case of Taliban and al-Qaida, the United States will lose leverage.
In addition, support from allies is an invaluable asset. Throughout Europe and around the world, heads of state, newspapers and ordinary people have responded with outrage that the United States is sidestepping the Geneva Convention. The objections of the international community are too important to ignore.
Leading officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft contend that the Guantanamo prisoners are not the conventional soldiers protected by the Geneva Convention and that granting them P.O.W. status would mean they could not be interrogated for information about possible future attacks.
But those arguments fall short. The Geneva Convention applies to "resistance movements," not just soldiers fighting for a recognized state. Moreover, while the Geneva Convention stipulates that P.O.W.s need give only their name, rank and serial number, no one can be made to talk -- P.O.W. status or otherwise.
In the interest of foreign policy, human rights and its own self-interest, the Bush administration must grant the captives P.O.W. status under the Geneva Convention.
A World Divided
President Bush's State of the Union speech on Tuesday cast an ominous cloud over terrorism with the newly-dubbed phrase, "axis of evil," a term used to describe Iran, Iraq and North Korea, three countries supportive of terrorism. The term, which hearkens back to the Axis powers of World War II, dramatically broadens the scope of the war on terrorism.
Yet this new mission is overly hawkish. It strains the allegiance of many of America's coalition partners and threatens to divide both our historical and more tentative allies. The war in Afghanistan ended overwhelmingly in our favor, creating a new respect in terrorist-harboring countries.
The United States must not lay down its arms and should use its military capabilities wisely in order to deter hostile states. But it must not be so bent on war, instead focusing on opening diplomatic relations with countries purported to harbor terrorism. Bush's address endangers the progress of diplomacy with Iran and North Korea.
The way to end American-directed hatred is not through polarizing rhetoric and might. We must work with foreign governments to promote understanding. Only if this strategy fails should we consider force.
Teach to Dartmouth's Diversity
A group of students has initiated a campaign to add Asian American Studies to the College's curriculum. It is not an entirely new idea, but as Dartmouth's Adviser to Asian and Asian American Students Nora Yasumura noted, this is the first "cohesive" effort. We hope that the movement carries its initial momentum through to the creation of an AAS minor.
A major addition to the course prospectus has two fundamental challenges: it needs enough student demand for the program to be viable, and it needs to offer a substantial improvement to Dartmouth's liberal arts education. On the first count, an AAS program has a baseline audience built-in -- students of Asian descent constitute the largest minority group on campus. But the campaign's organizers have wisely chosen to incorporate a push for awareness into their efforts, so the new program will appeal to students of all ethnicities.
Will AAS enrich the College's curriculum? It might be argued that the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies program is sufficient. But this would ignore a set of issues and a history that are distinct to Asian Americans. Columbia, Brown, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania -- four Ivy League schools that offer Asian American majors -- will testify that the field of study can stand on its own.
