They changed America's modern history and the American consciousness. The rest of the world has had to live with terrorism, accommodating its shocks and demands. No other country has ever believed itself invulnerable. Only the United States possessed a conviction of invulnerability, which it lost on Sept. 11. At the same time, an American sense of impunity was reinforced, which lies behind its unilateralist policies today.

The international controversy over the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay has posed important legal and human rights issues, but it also is contributing to the definition - or redefinition - of the moral identity of America, not only in the eyes of the world, but for Americans themselves.

Common sense would say that if there is indeed a war against terrorism, then the prisoners are prisoners of that war, unless Washington is prepared to assert that its war against terrorism is in some way not a war.

The administration's position is that the combatants of Al Qaeda are outside the law because they carry out, or defend, terrorism. However, the combatant who places himself outside the law nonetheless falls under the jurisdiction of law when he is captured and held by a nation of law.

This would seem to be true even if the prisoners fall into one (or both) of the categories of combatants excluded from the Geneva conventions: forces that do not themselves observe the laws of war, such as terrorists and death squads, and civilians who engage in hostilities.

The United States has claimed that because its prisoners were not uniformed members of the forces of a generally recognized government, they have no rights in international law; and as they are not U.S. citizens and are not on American territory, they have no rights in American law.

The Geneva conventions provide that if "any doubt" exists as to the status of prisoners, they must be treated as prisoners of war until a "competent tribunal" decides. U.S. Army regulations contain a similar requirement. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the State Department want the United States to observe the Geneva conventions.

President George W. Bush has said that his government will never "call them prisoners of war," but that he will "listen to all the legalisms."

Law, however, is one thing. Something else is involved here. Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that these prisoners deserve extraordinary treatment because "these are the worst of a very bad lot. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans - innocent Americans."

Mr. Bush said Monday the prisoners "are killers, these are terrorists, they know no countries."

From the beginning, the rhetoric of this administration has identified the enemy in terms of absolute evil, the war as expression of a metaphysical combat between good and evil, and Al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban allies as people not to be defeated, but destroyed.

The shackled, hooded prisoners photographed at Guantánamo Bay seemed a fulfillment of this rhetoric of demonization and dehumanization. That is why the photograph was such a shock to international opinion. The administration's unwillingness to concede the prisoners a legitimate status in international law has reinforced the notion that the United States considers them less than human.

Dehumanization of the enemy nearly always occurs in war and is responsible for its worst atrocities. The Nazis identified Jews as an enemy to be exterminated, and told their soldiers that Poles and Russians were subhumans to be treated as slaves.

In democratic countries it is the responsibility of leaders to govern their language. National policy must respect the humane values defended in the constitution, and treat even enemies with the dispassion required in a nation that has willingly submitted itself to the regime of law. Otherwise the democracy betrays itself.

Copyright © 2001 the International Herald Tribune

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