Senator John McCain is without question an authentic American hero.   After his Naval aircraft was shot down over North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, he was a prisoner of war and frequently tortured by his captors. He bears the scars of the torture this day.   The Senator has been a stalwart supporter of President Bush during the Iraqi conflict.  But (and all to often involving Senator McCain, there is a but), with regard to the question of clarifying the rights of enemy combatants captured by American forces vis a vis Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, the Senator is tragically wrong.

President Bush has proposed legislation to clarify the rules imposed by Common Article III concerning the treatment of enemy combatants.  The president believes that Congress must codify procedures as guidance for our operatives and to shield them from legal jeopardy.  Senator McCain, joined by Senators John Warner and Lindsay Graham, along with all Democrat senators,  object to the president's legislation.   Their objections appear to be based on two grounds: (1) they consider the legislation a unilateral amendent of the Geneva Contention by the United States, and (2) they fear that captured American servicemen will be mistreated by their captors if the United States fails to implement liberal procedures for treatment of enemy combatants.  Neither objection holds water.

The language of Common Article III is so general and vague as to be useless as any meaningful guide regarding the proper treatment of captives.   Distilled to the essence the Article proscribes degrading and abusive treatment of detainees.    What constitutes such treatment?   No specifics are offered.   Indeed, the broad generalities of the article dictate that each signatory will necessarily arrive at their own interpretion - purportedly  the vice that Senator McCain purports to object to.   Codifying the American interpretion of Common Article III will not send other signatory nations down the road to individual construction - they are already there.  On the contrary, articulating a more specific and defined interpretation will encourage other signatories to codify their own  approaches or adopt the American view.    In either event, nations will be pushed toward a shared understanding of the meaning of the Article, certainly a positive consequence.   

Senator McCain also objects to the president's proposal because he fears that captured American servicemen will be subjected to abusive treatment unless the Congress enacts the most liberal procedures for the treatment of enemy combants.    This objection is frankly incoherent.   The leaders of the foreseeable enemies of the United States, whether nation states, terrorist groups or criminal organizations, care not a wit about the views or enactments of the American Congress regarding the treatment of captured combatants.   The implicit assumption that they will be restrained in their treatment of captured American soldiers if we will treat their operatives in our custody with "kid gloves" contradicts experience.    Our adversaries and potential adversaries consider the use of women and children as suicide bombers to murder noncombatants as legitimate means of warfare.   It is fanciful to think that enactments of the American Congress ensuring liberal treatment of their captured operatives will affect their behavior. 

The treatment of American soldiers in captivity will be determined not by what the American Congress does or fails to do, but by whether their captors believe their superiors or (more likely) the American military will hold them accountable.   If the leaders of our adversaries belief that their country or organization, as well as themselves and their underlings will pay a stiff penalty for abusive treatment, that fear will be far more effective in protecting our soldiers than Congressional enactments. 

To the extent our enemies pay attention to the debate in Washington over the treatment of detainees, they view the debate as proof we are divided, weak and unserious about waging war.   No doubt they are contemptuous of the McCain-Warner-Grahm "Golden Rule" approach to treatment of enemy combatants.

Fundamentally, this debate is less about how we treat captured enemy combatants than how serious we are about the war against Islamic Fascists.   On that basis it is apparent that virtually all Democrats and too many Republicans still do not grasp the danger posed by the enemy confronting us.   We debate legalisms;our enemies debate more effective means to kill us.