This story came out on FoxNews yesterday and covers some ot the comments by military lawyers made to a Senate panel reviewing our dentainee operations.
Military Lawyers Testify to Abuse at Gitmo
Military lawyers on Thursday elaborated for a Senate panel how they arrived at the decision that "aggressive" tactics on terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were humiliating and degrading, but not illegal. ... The military lawyers said detainees at Guantanamo Bay were not covered by rights accorded prisoners under the Geneva Conventions, because they fought for the Taliban or Al Qaeda, neither of which accepted or applied Geneva Conventions, or fell under the definition of regular military forces.
Friends, this is the key point! These terrorists are not "regular military forces" and don't "deserve" the same level of protection afforded by the Geneva Conventions. They don't fight like military forces. They are terrorists.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (search), defended practices at Guantanamo, arguing that detainees are dangerous and have provided valuable intelligence in the War on Terror. "You've got folks that are very, very bad — crimes against civilization, crimes against humanity, would kill your sister or brother or grandchild in a heartbeat, they don't care," Myers said.
This is exactly why we need to be very aggressive first, for those we don't hold captive, about finding, fixing, and killing them; and second, for those we do hold, about extracting all intelligence of value from them, trying them by military tribunal, and promptly executing those found guilty. General Myers is telling us the way it is! This is a war, friends, and we need to treat our enemies like enemies. They are the bad guys and we're the good guys.
Even so, senators rejected the idea that Guantanamo detainees aren't covered by the Geneva Conventions. "I find that enormously troublesome myself, why we have a dual standard," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. Kennedy was referring to Geneva Convention standards that applied at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, but not at
Guantanamo Bay. Similar tactics such as sleep deprivation, menacing detainees with dogs and tormenting them in sexually suggestive ways were used in limited cases in both facilities, but were not authorized at Abu Ghraib.
Does this surprise any American? Senator Kennedy finds it "enormously troublesome" that we have a "dual standard". This is the classical bleeding heart liberal at work! I find it enormously troublesome that our enemy has a far different standard than we in that they will use terrorist who operate outside any law of war and that they are, essentially, determined to kill everyone infidel Christian or Jew in the world out of pure hatred. That is indeed a "dual standard" and, indeed, they need to be treated accordingly.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain (search), who was subjected to torture for five and a half years while in captivity in a North Vietnamese prison, said these techniques endanger U.S. fighting forces. "What happens next time when a conflict with an American not in a uniform on some kind of clandestine operation — such as our people who were in Afhganistan in civilian clothes — is captured? What kind of protections do you think that that American service man or woman is going to get?" McCain asked.
I certainly respect the suffering that Senator McCain and others took from the North Vietnamese as prisoners of war. We definitely need to honor the Geneva Conventions with respect to any regular military force in part for the reciprocal handling on our own but mostly because its the right thing to do. That's one reason our troops received relatively good treatment from our German enemies during World War II.
However, we can make all the agreements we want but terrorist like the Taliban and Al Qaeda are not going to respect them much less follow them. They will torture and kill anyone to meet their needs regardless how we treat them or what standards of conduct are in place. Senator McCain knows we treated both VC and NVA prisoners in Viet Nam according to the Geneva Conventions even though it could be argued that the VC were not regular military forces. He also knows that didn't change how he was treated by his Communist captors. We need to treat terrorists like terrorists.
"The Congress has been AWOL here. We've criticized and we've appaulded but we've been absent when it comes to designing policies," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who also is a lawyer for the Reserves. "It seems to me Congress has been derelict, derelict in not meeting it's responsibilites," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Congress probably does need to "clean up" the rules a bit on how to handle the terrorist prisoners. They need to make it real clear how we'll deal with them. They deserve no quarter because they will give none. Hopefully, Congress can show resolve, and support the cause.
