Posted on 07/01/2006 6:52:15 AM PDT by Valin
Last week, two American soldiers, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca of Houston and Pfc. Thomas Tucker of Madras, Ore., were taken prisoner in Iraq. They were brutally tortured, and so severely mutilated that their faces were unrecognizable. They were tied together with a bomb between their legs - a booby trap intended to kill whoever tried to recover their remains.
Would you regard such actions as serious violations of the laws of war and fundament. . .human rights? It is not clear that the most powerful human rights organizations see it that way.
Amnesty International, which claims its mission is "to protect human rights worldwide," appears to have nothing to say about the torture and killing of Menchaca and Tucker. As I write this, its Web site features an article on arms control, and another on a "new international treaty to prevent torture and other ill-treatment through a system of regular visits to all detention places." Evidently, "all detention places" does not include places in Iraq where al-Qaida and Baathist forces detain their prisoners.
The homepage of Human Rights Watch suggests the group's main concerns are Indonesia, Burundi and Chad. Regarding Menchaca and Tucker, there is a three-sentence press release noting that "captured combatants must be treated humanely."
At the United Nations Website, I found no statement by Secretary General Kofi Annan concerning the slaughter of American soldiers. However, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, was moved in recent days to accuse the United States of maintaining secret detention centers in which torture is alleged to take place. Reports of such centers - she doesn't actually know whether they exist - are of "grave concern."
"For all the human rights problems in the world in places like North Korea and Iran and so on, to go after the United States and Israel - it is business as usual from the U.N. human rights machinery," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told reporters.
Bolton is right to suggest that, in addition to the United States, Israel is the favorite whipping boy of the U.N. and the so-called "human rights community." These groups gave immediate credence to Palestinian allegations that Israeli artillery fire had killed civilians picnicking on a Gaza Beach. They gave short shrift to Israeli officials who insisted their weapons had not caused the carnage.
Nor does it matter that when Israel does fire into Gaza, it is aiming at militants who are launching missiles at Israeli villages. Such missiles were being fired from within a few hundred yards of that Gaza beach that day.
What explains this double-standard of continually trying to tie the hands of those fighting terrorism while turning a blind eye to the terrorists themselves?
One could argue that it's a kind of compliment; that those organizations expect America and Israel to maintain higher standards. But war is not golf: You don't handicap those you view as stronger players to make the contest more exciting.
One could speculate that these groups do, in fact, deeply disapprove of all torture and killing - they just don't believe that Islamic extremists routinely carrying out such atrocities would listen to them.
But why not? Imagine if Kofi Annan were to say: "Those who consider themselves members of resistance or liberation movements must abide by international law. If they refuse to do that, they should not expect international law to protect them."
Consider what it would mean if Amnesty International would say: "Even those who have not signed the Geneva Convention must respect the human rights of those they fight and, even more, of non-combatants. If you violate the norms of civilized behavior, do not expect us to defend your rights."
Try to hear Human Rights Watch announcing: "We will not establish the precedent that it is an outrage for al-Qaida members to be detained in Guantanamo but acceptable for captured American soldiers to be butchered."
They could make such statements. They choose not to.
_____ Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, writes for Scripps Howard News Service.
The guy in charge of any sort of a place like Gitmo or Abu Ghraib should be a hog farmer, and a cell without (other) pigs in it should be viewed as a reward for valuable information.
The left gets all atwitter at the possibility that some terrorist prisoners were forced to wear panties over their heads.
This is beyond insanity. If we would stoop to using their own tacticts against them, it would have a noticible impact on their operations.....But we are much too "civilized" to do that.
Kill these monsters wherever they are found.
PERSONALLY, I COULD GIVE A RATS BEHIND WHAT THE UN, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ETC. HAVE TO SAY, I AM STILL WAITING FOR MY GOVERMENT TO COME UP WITH A RESPONSE FOR THE MURDERS OF THESE TWO SOLDIERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE TRIANGLE OF DEATH, WHERE THESE YOUNG MEN WHERE CAPTURED SHOULD BE THE TRIANGLE OF RUBBLE!!!!!
Kind of miss the point of the article don't you?
It has been said before and it
bears repeating:
There are organizations in the U.S.
and abroad that truly believe
defeat of the coalition forces
in the Near East would be good for
world peace. In their view, the
United States has too much power,
too much financial influence, and
too much egoism. Individuals
who support these organizations,
like the ACLU and Amnesty International,
are the ilk of George Soros. All these
people have their means of acquiring
influence. Soros's wealth, for example,
was accrued primarily by buying/selling
vast amounts of paper aimed at debasing
the value of the Dollar, the Pound,
the Yen, etc.
I don't pretend to understand the
process used, but evidently it's all
legal or Soros, a foreigner, would not be
free to continue along those lines.
"No, it's not about handicaps, but America and Israel should hold themselves to the highest standards of human rights, because we are civilized. We're not going to torture someone until he cannot even be recognized, even not to those Al-Qaeda animals. The vile Islamo-fascists, on the other hand, take great pleasure in doing so."
And this is why the barbarians always win in the end, because the civilized assume they can still beat the barbarians with one hand tied behind their backs. War is not about who has the best reputation. It's about who wins. As long as we kowtow to our PC crowd, we will continue to be handicapped by their standards--and that is the correct word, for their standards keep us from warmaking as we should, in unrestrained fashion until it's won.
The concept of "asymmetric war" is lost in all these conversations. Yes, the US should always do the right thing, and always treat prisoners "appropriately". But there is no symmetry available to us when dealing with the head-loppers. We need to think in terms of humanity, not in terms where Al-Qaeda will allow the Red Cross will inspect the black-flag-draped head-lopping video studios (fat chance), but also not be burdened by a symmetry-based systems like the Geneva Convention.
Right. Those post WW I & II orgs.
were intended to lay down the basic
rules for nations and Heads of State.
It is ironic that in their "wisdom,"
they defend the terrorists who have
no intention of following the Geneva
Convention of Warfare of any other
RULES committee. Yet those groups
insist on imposing the rules on
the very nations that try to bring
democracy and stability to others.
When was a war ever conducted wherein
there weren't cases of unnecessary
killing/torture of the enemy by
individuals?
I can see how that might be a real incentive, but the four legged pigs don't have any valuable infomation and can't talk, anyway.
And this is why the barbarians always win in the end, because the civilized assume they can still beat the barbarians with one hand tied behind their backs.
In regards to this war, where are the terrorists winning?
Look at a map. Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Indonesia, all territory subsumed by Islamist governments in the last half-century. The secular governments of Egypt and Turkey are constantly under threat, as was Iraq's (as it is now). Islamism still dominates Afghanistan and much of Iraq, too.
All we are doing is fighting a containment action, but there is a difference between Communism and Islamism. Islamism has oil propping it up, and China adding demand to pad its profit margins, while the Soviets had similar natural resources but little upward pressure on prices.
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