EMAIL OF THE DAY

“Terrorists are not POWs by ANY international legal precedent. ALL of the prisoners at Gitmo AND Abu Ghraib fail the test. They are not uniformed members of organized State-sponsored regular military units with an established recognizable chain of command. In World War II and Korea such free lancers were routinely treated to summary execution as saboteurs, spies and provocateurs. And what you think you see in those photos from Abu Ghraib are MOSTLY humiliation techniques — albeit done gleefully by oafish ghouls who are being punished. You seem to mistake this for a law enforcement endeavor like most Democrats. Containment did not end the Cold War and has not served us well in the War on Terror. Preemption is the only viable strategy for success. Humiliating a few cutthroats in order to preempt the death of another Westerner does not bother me in the least. The enemy repeatedly refers to this as a jihad. You need to understand what that means for your kith and kin. You can’t be a hawk on the war and then selectively shrink from the bloodshed inflicted by our side, and from the non-violent coercive means of extracting useful information from TERRORISTS. You are not in a position to critique the proceedings from any base of personal experience; and your knowledge of military history is apparently nil. But there you go trying to hamstring the experts. Makes you a chicken hawk from where I sit.” My favorite phrase from this email is “non-violent coercive means.” Like what happened to Sean Baker in an exercise? And even “unlawful combatants” are supposed to be treated humanely. Murdering them doesn’t fall into that category, in my book. But what do I know? And yes, I can support a war but criticize illegal torture – which ultimately undermines that war. And no, it’s difficult to be a “chicken-hawk” when the military bars any gay patriots from serving in the first place.