One week, two seemingly disparate events. Eighteen Afghani men are freed from the Guantanamo internment camp, cleared of charges in both the United States and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, disturbing footage of American prisoners of war is shown on the Qatar-based TV station Al-Jazeera.

The footage is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits captors, among other things, from torturing POW’s and tossing them into the circus ring of public curiosity. President Bush rightly called for humane treatment of POW’s, while the International Red Cross warned both sides to respect the human rights of prisoners of war.

Back to Guantanamo. From the very start, the more than 600 detainees have stood on shaky legal ground, the United States calling them “unlawful combatants,” a term that has no legal protection, while much of the world referred to them as prisoners of war. The detainees were captured in Afghanistan during post Sept. 11 U.S.-led attacks on the country.

Under the Geneva Convention, the United States is permitted to hold prisoners without charge during the course of a war. At the cease of war, however, the United States would have to either prosecute the prisoners for war crimes or repatriate them. The remaining detainees have yet to be charged with crimes. Because President Bush denies their status as POW’s, however, the detainees are denied usual POW protections.

Earlier this month a federal appeals courts ruled that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over any claims of the detainees because the U.S. military base is on sovereign Cuban soil. The ruling came in response to a bid by Kuwaiti, Australian and British citizens held at the camp to question the legality of their internment. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft called the decision a victory in the war on terrorism. The United Nations Human Rights Commission called it a possible far-reaching and dangerous precedent, one that could later be used to justify detention without trial simply on the basis of geography.

The 18 Afghani detainees released last week reported mixed conditions in the camp; some said they were treated well as long as they agreed with the guards, others complained of beatings. Regardless of their treatment, their mere presence in the camp more than a year after being detained casts the United States in a negative light, causing international allegations of hypocrisy when President Bush asked that U.S. POWs in Iraq receive fair and humane treatment under the Geneva Convention.

The United States may have found a legal loophole that allows prisoners to be kept indefinitely with no access to lawyers or families, but in doing so, it has flaunted international human rights conventions and treaties, setting itself up for disaster when the tables are turned.

Editorial Board: Cavan Reagan, Amber Billings, Ayrel Clark, Charlie Weaver, Katie List