Will West Point Simply Trash the Geneva Conventions?
by Joe?Pulcinella
They would if Dick Cheyney has his way. He recently spoke to West Point's latest graduating class and all but condemned the Conventions. wholesale?Meanwhile, I'm not really sure where West Point stands on teaching them in the future.
"This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind '24,'" wrote Jane Mayer in the [New Yorker] magazine. "Finnegan, who is a lawyer, has for a number of years taught a course on the laws of war to West Point seniors - cadets who would soon be commanders in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He always tries, he said, to get his students to sort out not just what is legal but what is right. However, it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, even when terrorists did not. One reason for the growing resistance, he suggested, was misperceptions spread by '24,' which was exceptionally popular with his students. As he told me, 'The kids see it, and say, ''If torture is wrong, what about '24?''"
Hmmm, I'm not getting a good feeling from West Pointers who are confused between what they're taught in a military academy and what they see on Fox TV. But then again, I wasn't so keen on a Veep that carelessly blows away a hunting partner.