John Reid thinks international law is getting in the way

The Guardian is carrying a story which if this was last Saturday I would assume was an April fools joke. Now assuming the editor didn't make a monumental screw up and hold the story over from Saturday then it appears British Defence Secretary John Reid thinks the Geneva convention is hindering British troops.

You cant actually argue against his point. The Geneva Conventions do hinder allied troops. International law does tie the hands of law abiding nations.

Mr Reid indicated he believed existing rules, including some of the conventions - a bedrock of international law - were out of date and inadequate to deal with the threat of international terrorists.

"We are finding an enemy which obeys no rules whatsoever", he said, referring to what he called "barbaric terrorism".

But isn't that the point of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars? The people and nations who ignore international law and the Geneva Conventions are terrorists and barbaric. Some one has to stand up to them. What makes the actions of a nation acceptable is following those rules despite the hindrance. If International Law and the Geneva Conventions were discounted then the allied task in Iraq would be much easier, they could just drop some nukes and sterilize all life from the nations that annoy them. But then who would be the good guys and who would be the bad guys?