Monday, the day before we all celebrate the independence of our country, the Associated Press put out a story entitlted "Supreme Court decision needs reining in, GOP senators say." This, a reaction to the Court's telling the President that he has overstepped his bounds in creating "enemy combatant" classifications and holding these men subject to special trials,subject to no law. The Court found this a violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Accords. This is not a new gripe. For some reason, we Americans are terrified of being subject to foreign treaties. If this is truly the case, then our Presidents should never sign international treaties and the Senate should never ratify them. But they do. And it is a fundamental tenet of our legal system that these treaties have a binding effect on our country.

What is really disturbing is what scares these GOP Senators. Article 3 of the Geneva Accords prohibits outrages upon personal dignity, "In particular humiliating and degrading treatement," and bars violance, including murder, mutilation, and torture. Mitch McConnel, R-Ky, said "I don't think we're going to pass something that's going to have our miltary servicemen subject to some kind of international rules," McConnel said. Why not? Do we really object to these rules? Don't we wish that our servicemen and women captured in Iraq were shown these kindnesses? They should be. But these terrorists are all about an eye for an eye, and so if we torture their prisoners, they'll torture ours. Other Congresspersons say that "detainees in the war on terror should not have the same legal protections as those in the military." (That because the Court ordered they receive at least the same justice as through military courts--which, mind you, is far less than our domestic criminal courts.) If any of you out there really think that the United States has the right to commit these international crimes on prisoners of war, then I guess you should keep electing these people. But maybe you've also forgot what it means to be human. To have compassion. To turn the other cheek.

I'm not going to go on some kind of post-hippie rant about love, but there is something to those arguments. Look, how many stories, plays, books, and legends have we passed on to each other over the last several millennia that relate the story of "live by the sword, die by the sword," or "violence only begets violence?" How can we stop hatred with guns blazing? We can't. And you cannot shove peace and democracy down people's throats. It doesn't work like that. The U.S. needs to stop meddling in other countries' business and stop nation-building, a promise that George Bush made on his initial campaign trail. We have so many problems in the country, from high crime rates, drug trade, poor education, poverty, and more. Yet we spend how many billions fighting wars that never needed happen? We could have launched enough missiles to wipe out every terrorist camp in Afghanistan and called it a day. And gone on to rebuild our country. To put those billions into our people.

Instead we're out trying to articificially craft others' independence days. Good luck.