Geneva Conventions serve U.S. interests as world leader

Dallas Morning News: If the United States deems parts of the Geneva Conventions no longer relevant, it's hard to imagine how our diplomats will press for human rights reform around the world or how our soldiers captured in combat will possibly be afforded any international protections.
Those would be the consequences if the Pentagon succeeds in omitting from interrogation procedures any references that bar interrogators from subjecting detainees to humiliating and degrading treatment. It's an awful idea.
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The Abu Ghraib abuses in Iraq remain an international embarrassment and have fostered the idea that the U.S. routinely engages in torture. Separately, U.S. Marines are facing an inquiry into an alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha last year.
To its credit, the State Department is completely opposed to the Pentagon's plan. Congress should take the same stand.
After all, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona pushed through legislation last year that banned torture and cruel treatment of detainees and established the Army Field Manual as the standard for treatment of all detainees. Little did lawmakers know that the Pentagon and the White House would try an end run by editing the standards.
Ineffective and wrong
The United States is terribly ill-served if the government continues to undermine accepted rules for military behavior. The war on terror is a high-stakes conflict, and accurate, timely intelligence is the trump card. But thwarting the intention of international and U.S. military rules is not the way to get that information. Forget that such interrogation methods have been shown to be ineffective; they are morally wrong.
This country has enough trouble on its hands with the various reports that a few soldiers may have violated canons of behavior on the battlefronts in Iraq. We sure don't need to be handing terrorists a propaganda victory by rewriting the rules of proper conduct as well.