Read the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War and several anachronisms jump out. Article 26 says "The use of tobacco shall be permitted." Article 60 says the detaining power must provide each prisoner ranking below sergeant a monthly pay advance of "eight Swiss francs." Article 74 says prisoners must be offered cut-rate telegrams.

These oddities reflect the context in which the Geneva Convention was adopted. It was 1949, a time when wars were massive conflicts between major powers. The drafters had fresh memories of the Germans' treatment of millions of Russian prisoners taken in 1941 and 1942, and the hellish conditions of GIs captured by Japan. It would have been regarded as absurd then to suggest that the treaty would be applied to protect a group such as al-Qaeda, a nihilistic, ununiformed terrorist organization with no concrete territorial ambitions. Article 4 stipulates that "organized resistance movements" are covered by the treaty only insofar as their members brandish their arms openly, wear uniforms and conduct operations "in accordance with the laws and customs of war." Al-Qaeda fails each and every test.

So it is strange to see human rights pressure groups brushing off the United States' contention that al-Qaeda suspects held at Guantanamo are "illegal combatants" not covered by the Geneva Convention. In 1942, seven years before the Geneva Convention was adopted, the U.S. Supreme Court declared, in a case involving German saboteurs: "The law of war draws a distinction between ... those who are lawful and unlawful combatants." The latter category was said to include "an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property." He is "generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoner [of] war." And if, as the court found, a German soldier ferried in a U-boat to blow up a U.S. aluminum plant is an illegal combatant, it is hard (not to mention ridiculous) to argue that the same description does not apply to a terrorist cabal striving to rain upon us -- to quote al-Qaeda's October boast -- "a storm of airplanes."

So why do the Red Cross, the UN Human Rights Commission and numerous international NGOs insist that the Geneva Convention applies to al-Qaeda? There are two reasons. First, these organizations are dominated by activists who see the expansion of human rights law as inherently beneficial. Second, they have an inborn hostility to what they consider American "hegemony." Nothing makes their leaders madder than when supposedly hegemonistic operations go down beautifully, as did the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Henpecking Uncle Sam over his treatment of al-Qaeda prisoners is a way to blow off steam, demonize America and humanize its enemies.

This is why Amnesty International lectures us that security on prisoner transport flights from Kandahar to Guantanamo "may violate international standards prohibiting 'cruel, inhuman or degrading' treatment." (I am curious to know how Amnesty squares this complaint with the Geneva Convention, for the U.S. military is merely making sure the passengers do not crash the plane, and Article 20 of the Convention requires captors "take all suitable precautions to ensure [prisoners'] safety during evacuation.")

It is tempting to see the question of whether the Geneva Convention applies to al-Qaeda as a political sideshow. But it is not. The greatest dividend captured terror suspects might yield is information about future terror attacks. If the UN and the Red Cross have their wish, the U.S. military will not be permitted to get this information: Effective interrogation is verboten under Article 17 of the Convention, which says "Prisoners of war who refuse to answer [questions] may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."

Such a prohibition might be sensible as applied to the sort of rank-and-file military grunts who are actually covered by the Geneva Convention; in a conventional war between sovereign nations, the battle-lines are clear, and most soldiers have little intelligence to offer. But al-Qaeda is different. It is a network of free-ranging, one-man human bombs that threaten to strike all over the world. It is foolish to suggest America should be prevented from sniffing out some of the at-large bombs by interrogating the hundreds it has in captivity.