War Handwavium

I succumbed to Bush’s war handwavium without realizing it. The Bush administration refused to use the term “prisoners” because it would tie into the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. Instead, Bush and his pals invented a non-existent class of humans called “detainees” who were not Geneva Convention “prisoners” of war. Thereby justifying through legal handwavium that these human beings captured during a time of war and held in American prisons were not prisoners of war.

It is similar in concept to the way Israel refuses to refer to the West Band and Gaza Strip as “occupied territories” because the Geneva Convention also has requirements as to how a military force must treat civilians in an occupied territory. Israel doesn’t want to follow these requirements, and indeed, has not followed these requirements since it captured and occupied these territories since the 1967 war. So Israel calls them “disputed” territories, not “occupied”, because they don’t want the linguistic connection to the Geneva Convention. Because they haven’t been following the Geneva Convention.

But today, I realized I have been duped. I’ve been referring to people being held in Guantanamo as “detainees” rather than “prisoners”. So, going forward, I will be refering to the people held in Guantanamo, and the even larger number of people held in Bagram, Afghanistan, as “prisoners”. It is an effort to remove the war handwavium put in place by the Bush administration and continued by Obama.

They are prisoners, not “detainees”.