Terrorist rights liberalism
The fact is that terrorist rights liberals want something better for the enemy than for our side. When have you heard the terrorist rights liberals complain about the enemy's failure to follow the Geneva Conventions? When the subject comes up, they try to deflect it by saying that the US is to be held to a higher standard. This is a false premise. It is not a coincidence that the Geneva Conventions are binding on the "high contracting" signatories. Contracts cannot be unilateral, i.e. binding on only one party. If an opposing force is not bound by the conventions then a contracting party is not bound by them. If the Taliban are deemed to be part of a contracting signatory, then they should be held to that standard and their murder and dismemberment of prisoners should be a matter of outrage, but among the terrorist rights crowd it is just ignored.The most consistent theme running through liberal-left opinion since September 11, 2001, has been concern for the well-being of the enemy. The latest example is the contrived scandal over the CIA destroying tapes of interrogations of two captured terrorists.
The first instinct of responsible members of Congress is to fulfill their duty to protect Americans from attack. Now they are pushed by ideological zealots to not only accord foreign adversaries "rights" that will protect them from effective U.S. counteraction but to harass their countrymen on the front lines in this deadly conflict.
Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen reported in The Washington Post on a secret congressional briefing given by the CIA in September 2002: "For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk ... on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder."
The same two reporters interviewed former CIA officer, John Kiriakou in regard to Zayn abu Zubaida, a top-ranking al Qaeda prisoner. Abu Zubaida's interrogation tape was one of those destroyed. Mr. Kiriakou argued that the harsh technique of "waterboarding" used to break abu Zubaida provided intelligence that "probably saved lives." Information gained led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
The other destroyed tape was of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who planned the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. Unlike their victims, both abu Zubaida and al-Nashiri survived their ordeals and are held at Guantanamo Bay. Within the liberal-left ideology, however, it is not the terrorists who are to be condemned, but those who are fighting them. "For what reason would the CIA destroy these videotapes other than to cover up criminal acts committed during the brutal interrogations depicted on these tapes?" asks Caroline Fredrickson, of the American Civil Liberties Union.
At the core of this perverse outlook is the principle of equality, taken to an extreme. The ACLU says it "works to ensure that the U.S. government complies with universal human-rights principles in addition to the U.S. Constitution." In his infamous 2005 rant comparing FBI interrogators to the Nazis, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin complained they had "no concern for human beings."
So everyone is to be accorded equal treatment simply because they meet the lowest common denominator of being "human." This is the notion in play when presidential candidates say they would not authorize "torture" of a foreign terrorist even if it meant saving American lives. The well-being of the terrorist is no less precious than the lives of Americans, because all are equally human, part of a single extended family descending from some common origin.
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I am always interested when individuals bring up 'rights of terrorists', and then comes the question: which rights are those?
ReplyDeleteThey are not covered under the GC, and have no rights when taken on the battlefield. The US has not signed the '77 GC that attempted to deal with terrorists for some very good Constitutional reasons: that power is given to Congress under Art. I, Sec. 8 and may not be dealt away or even refined by treaty.
Next usually comes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the UN. That is also a treaty. There is some bad news with those pushing this: it has a negation paragraph. If you do any of the things listed in a negation paragraph, you have broken with the treaty as an individual. To signatory states, you have become an outlaw to that treaty and cannot seek coverage under it.
Congress has been a gutless wonder for over 40 years on this question and will not exercise their power to make law in this area to deal with those waging Private War upon the United States. That is on the civil side, for those that give themselves up or are taken by non-military means. Yes this must be handled on the civil as well as military side, so even if Congress could find an atom of guts someplace and draft a single sentence law, that could be covered. But for those of military means we appear to be stuck, no?
I can offer an insight into how to deal with them as a previous President of the United States did put out a US Army Field Manual that actually described the activity we would come to call terrorism! This was operational code and the interpretation of the UCMJ and all treaties plus utilized the Presidential power as Head of State and Head of the Armies and the Navies for what terrorists did. Nothing since that time has changed this view, although the manual itself has changed as that type of activity did not occur for so long that it wasn't needed. Here is the article in question:
"Art. 82.
Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers - such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates."
The President in question? Must have been someone who knew what he was doing, yes? Have that be the operable interpretation of his powers, the law, treaties and the UCMJ for over 30 years... an astounding fellow.
The man's name was Abraham Lincoln.
What Would Lincoln Do?
We have that answer.
Apparently we have become too civilized for our own good and can no longer recognize the simple truth that Lincoln saw and addressed. When civilization becomes so rarified we call it: decadent.
And those don't last too long.