Not to mention the stern message that military justice swiftly applied would have sent to the enemy. Somehow, video games and English lessons doesn’t have the same impact on a religious fanatic and ecstatic murderer as a prison cell or the gallows. Gee, perhaps if we want to see effective action taken we should hope al Qaida starts selling nickel bags of pot to chemotherapy patients or gets a burqa-clad woman to bare a breast on national television. Those activities seem to concentrate the minds of national policy makers far more than joining a psychotic, transnational, Islamist death-cult at war with the United States.
President Bush and senator Kerry should be asked how the U.S. should deal with the terrorists who violated their parole and what the punishment for that crime is under the laws of war ?
(Hat tip to Richard Jensen of C-Net)
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Dave Schuler:
October 25th, 2004 at 4:44 pm
I believe that the Administration has erred in its dealing with the Guantanamo detainees. Most should have been released or executed long ago. I don’t buy the idea that they’re still getting useful intelligence from them this far out. Most of these guys were cannon fodder and didn’t have much to offer when they were apprehended. How useful can what they knew be two years later?
I think the honest truth is that the Administration doesn’t like any of their alternatives and sincerely wishes the whole issue would just go away.
I have a rather harsh contrarian view: no uniform or insignia, fired weapon, summary trial and execution. The Administration (understandably in my view but not particularly prudently or courageously) doesn’t want to take the heat.
mark:
October 26th, 2004 at 4:12 pm
Dave wrote:
“I think the honest truth is that the Administration doesn’t like any of their alternatives and sincerely wishes the whole issue would just go away.
I have a rather harsh contrarian view: no uniform or insignia, fired weapon, summary trial and execution. The Administration (understandably in my view but not particularly prudently or courageously) doesn’t want to take the heat.”
I think you are 100 % correct. A shortsighted political choice that seemed like a minor concession at the time has escalated into a bad precedent for the course of the war – and future wars since our craven response only legitimizes further 4th Generation attacks on our civilians.
It’s a very bad sign for a civilization when even the most hawkish of it’s elites balk at taking necessary steps to defend it from the barbarians. During WWII the USG would have taken the self-evident course of action in these cases reflexively and without question – and did in fact.
Sure the Euros would have screamed but they would have been molified by our waiving capital punishment for the occasional Euro-citizen jihadi goof like the erstwhile Shoe-bomber.