Pentagon drops Geneva rules from manual on detainee treatment

The Baltimore Sun reports that the Pentagon has decided to drop some of the Geneva Convention protections from its manual on the treatment of detainees:

WASHINGTON // The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Conventions that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

The decision culminates a lengthy debate within the Defense Department but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed. However, the State Department opposes the military's decision to exclude Geneva Conventions protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, the defense officials acknowledged.

The purpose of dropping the ban on humiliating and degrading treatment is to insure that the detainees are treated "humanely" according to the Pentagon:

The directive on interrogations, a senior defense official said, is being rewritten to create safeguards so that all detainees are treated humanely but can still be questioned effectively.

This adminstration has certainly mastered the art of saying it's doing one thing while, in fact, it's doing the exact opposite. Funny, but that seems to be the only art they've mastered.

I don't know about you, but it almost literally makes me sick to think about what these thugs have done to my country.