Clicking on banner ads keeps JWR alive
Jewish World Review Jan. 30, 2002 / 17 Shevat, 5762

Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports

Try this for "troubling"

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- IT is more than ironic that while Amnesty International and other human-rights organizations were bashing American treatment of Afghanistan detainees, a small group of AL Qaeda soldiers was holed up in a Kandahar hospital, threatening to kill themselves or any nonmedical personnel who entered their space.

And human-rights activists call the Bush administration inhumane.

Rather than evacuating the hospital and vaporizing the Al Qaeda soldiers with a bomb, U.S. and Afghan troops tried to starve the soldiers out. While critics called the tactic inhumane, in fact, it was feckless. Apparently, some hospital personnel snuck sustenance to these local heroes who were holding a hospital hostage.

Of the 19 fighters who originally took over the hospital, The Washington Post reported, some escaped during the next 50 days, some were captured and one man blew himself up with a grenade during a foiled escape attempt. On Monday, with six Arabs left in the hospital, Afghan and U.S. troops stormed the building. All of the Arabs died -- at least one had blown himself up. Five Afghans and no Americans were wounded in the assault.

An Afghan police officer told the Post: "We tried to arrest them alive. If we wanted to kill them, we could do it in 15 minutes."

Of course, the United States should treat the 158 prisoners at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay and the 324 fighters detained in Afghanistan humanely. But violent maniacs who believe in killing civilians do not merit, as Amnesty International asserts, the special provisions designed to protect grunts trapped in wars not of their own making, and whose only crime was serving their country's military.

On the contrary, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted yesterday, the detainees are "typically non-uniformed people who moved to Afghanistan -- from more than 30 nations in the case of the detainees in Cuba -- for the purpose of engaging in terror, not for the purpose of engaging in military combat, which is typically what you think of when you think of the Geneva Convention."

Then again, there have been no credible charges of serious mistreatment. A British TV journalist equated blindfolds and earplugs used when moving prisoners with sensory deprivation. British papers have called the 8-by-8-foot cells "cages." Such criticism only works if you know nothing about moving prisoners, or you don't know that the commander of Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay found rocks and stones in the detainees' cells.

Realists understand -- as U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., noted after visiting the detainee center in Guantanamo -- Camp X-Ray cells are larger than cells at San Quentin, where there are usually two prisoners per cell. (Camp X- Ray cells are also bigger than my work cubicle.)

"It's troubling that the detainees apparently are being declared ineligible for POW status" without hearings, Amnesty International spokesman Alistair Hodgett complained to The Washington Post. Actually, it might be troubling, if you didn't know that U.S. forces have turned over "up to 100 or more" captives to their native countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Lt. Col. Martin Compton. (It is assumed that, one official explained to me, those countries released many of those men.) So it's clear that the United States doesn't consider every enemy fighter to be an outlaw.

As for troubling, it comes in three varieties. There's "troubling" -- as in giving good meals and medical care to men who terrorized a nation, but putting off deciding their long-term future until they've been investigated and interrogated. Then there's "troubling" as in holding a hospital hostage and believing that it is holy to kill non-Muslims. And there's "troubling" as in not knowing which of the two "troubling" areas is more troubling.


Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here.


Up


01/25/02: Camp X-ray or Club Med?
01/23/02: Let's stop the deluge of porn e-mail
01/21/02: No 'Little Boy Lost'
01/16/02: Son of Supercar
01/12/02: Beware the European view of the death penalty
01/09/02: Other people's children
01/07/02: It doesn't fly
01/03/02: Going from the Atlantic City Boardwalk to Berkeley
12/31/01: In America, punishment should fit the crime
12/28/01: What I'd like to see in 2002
12/24/01: Don't heckle ink monopolists
12/21/01: Mumia finds safety in numbers
12/19/01 The self-help PBS shopping network
12/17/01 Caught on tape
12/14/01 Know when to hold 'em
12/10/01 Old friends
12/06/01 I read the news today, oh boy
12/03/01 It's not cricket
11/28/01 Admissions and omissions
11/26/01 Guns and abayas
11/21/01 Depraved minds think alike
11/19/01 Guilty, a la carte
11/14/01 Interpreting the entrails of Election 2000
11/12/01 Life and liberty
11/09/01 Safety is as safety does
11/07/01 More hot air on global warming
11/05/01 Bumped Pakistani's molehill
11/01/01 Freedom snuffed out
10/29/01 Give war a chance
10/26/01 Airline bill needs liftoff
10/22/01 The Riordan Principle
10/19/01 Before America gets tired of the war on terrorism
10/17/01 Patriot games
10/15/01 I was a 'McCainiac,' and I have seen the light
10/12/01 University of Censorship's fall semester
10/11/01 Poor little rich boy, Osama
10/07/01 Don't feed Israel to the beast
10/05/01: bin Laden is not our Frankenstein monster
10/04/01: Where no man has gone before
09/26/01: Who's bloodthirsty?
09/26/01: What's to understand?
09/20/01: Barbara Lee's line in the sand
09/14/01: You gotta love this country
09/13/01: ENTER TERROR
09/11/01: You can't clone ethics
09/06/01: NOW's goal: equal rights for women without equal responsibility
08/30/01: What's love got to do with it?
08/24/01: A clean, well-lighted place for junkies
08/20/01: Bush should stand up for justice
08/08/01: Don't give Peace (Dept). a chance
08/03/01: Lose a kid, pass a law
08/01/01: Welcome to France, killers
07/30/01: Why it's easy being green (in Europe)
07/26/01: If disabled means expendable
07/23/01: Condit should not resign
07/18/01: Feinstein should learn her limit
07/16/01: A drought of common sense
07/13/01: The catalog has no clothes
07/05/01: It's Bush against the planet
07/03/01: The man who would be guv
06/29/01: Wheeled, wired and free
06/27/01: O, fearful new world
06/25/01: End HMO horrors
06/21/01: Either they're dishonest or clueless
06/18/01: Freedom is a puff of smoke
06/15/01: In praise of going heavy: Yes, you can take it all
06/13/01: McVeigh: 'Unbowed' maybe, but dead for sure
06/11/01: Gumby strikes back
06/08/01: Los Angeles' last white mayor?
06/07/01: Kids will be kids, media will be media
06/04/01: Draw a line in the sand
05/30/01: Just don't call him a moderate
05/29/01: Operation: Beat up on civil rights
05/24/01: Of puppies, kittens and huge credit-card debts
05/22/01: Bush needs an energy tinkerbell
05/18/01: Divided we stand, united they fall
05/16/01: Big Bench backs might over right
05/15/01: Close SUV loophole
05/11/01: Kill the test, welcome failure
05/09/01: DA mayor's disappointing legacy
05/07/01: If it ain't broken ...
05/03/01: They shoot civilians, don't they?
04/30/01: Executions are not for prime time
04/12/01: White House and the green myth
04/10/01: The perjurer as celeb
04/04/01: Bush bashers don't know squat
04/02/01: Drugging our oldsters
03/30/01: Robert Lee Massie exercises his death wish
03/28/01: Cheney's nuclear reactor
03/26/01: Where California and Mexico meet
03/16/01: Boy's sentence was no accident
03/14/01: Soft money, hard reform
03/12/01: Banks, big credit lines and consumer bankruptcy
03/09/01: Free speech dies in Berkeley
03/02/01: When rats have rights
02/28/01: Move a frog, go to jail?
02/26/01: They knew they'd get away with it
02/20/01: How Dems define tax fairness
02/16/01: The jackpot casino Carmel tribe?
02/14/01: You can fight school success
02/12/01: Hannibal -- with guts this time
02/08/01: A family of jailbirds
02/05/01: Reality's most demeaning TV moments
02/01/01: Justice for the non-Rich
01/26/01: Hail to the chiefs of D.C. opinion
01/24/01: A day of mud and monuments
01/22/01: Diversity, division, de-lovely D.C.
01/19/01: Parties agree: Give back the money
01/17/01: Get tough with the oil companies, or forget pumping more Alaskan crude
01/15/01: Mineta better pray that no attending confirmation senator has ever driven to San Jose during rush hour
01/12/01: Europeans should look in the mirror
01/10/01: Dems' reasons for dissin' Dubya's picks
01/08/01: Jerry, curb your guru
01/03/01: A foe of Hitler and friend of Keating
12/28/00: Nice people think nice thoughts
12/26/00: The Clinton years: Epilogue
12/21/00: 'Tis the season to free nonviolent drug offenders 12/18/00: A golden opportunity is squandered
12/15/00: You can take the 24 years, good son
12/13/00: Court of law vs. court of public opinion
12/08/00: A salvo in the war on the war on drugs
12/06/00: Don't cry, Butterfly: Big trees make great decks
12/04/00: Florida: Don't do as Romans did
11/30/00: Special City's hotel parking ticket
11/27/00: No means yes, yes means more than yes
11/22/00: The bench, the ballot and fairness
11/20/00: Mendocino, how green is your ballot?

© 2000, Creators Syndicate