A tortured read

61 million Bush voters can't be wrong about our treatment of prisoners in the war on terror:

...they are men whom, if we so wished, we could put up against a wall without a hearing and shoot them ... That we keep them alive at all is tribute to our extreme generosity.

Mark Noonan's basic argument is that because those we wage war on are not following the rules of engagement, we are free to do whatever we want to whomever we capture, and the Red Cross shouldn't be poking it's nose in America's business. Of course, that would presuppose that every person we capture in these battle are terrorists, and not just people fleeing the air strikes or battles that occur around them on a daily basis.

We went over to liberate the people of Iraq because we thought they deserved better than a tyrant who would kill at will. Mark Noonan's words seem to suggest that we become that tyrant. By employing Noonan's ideas, we give the people of Iraq no greater hope than they enjoyed under the heels of tyranny. We can kill anyone who looks at us funny. Iraqis are lucky if we only wound them or torture them for information. Mere speculation of guilt gives us the right to kill anyone who may get in our way.

Certainly there are perpetrators of death and violence in Iraq that we have captured. But one of the things that makes us the great country we are is that we attempt to respect the rights of every citizen in the world. We believe in a universal Bill of Rights, and we should not toss aside those beliefs because it might serve us well in a time of war. Observing the rules of engagement may tilt the battlefield slightly, but it ensures our troops and the people and ideas they fight for remain on the higher end.

Another of Noonan's arguments is that those captured have no legal standing when it comes to the Geneva Conventions and they should not be considered "prisoners of war." The fact that a number of cases are currently working their way through our court system throws doubt on Noonan's assertions, and this doubt allows for these prisoners to be treated under the "prisoner of war" blanket until a proper determination can be made. A federal judge ruled as much almost one month ago.

Noonan closes his rant with the following:

Having the United States not win is more important than anything else - groups like the ICRC (and Human Rights Watch, etc) have entirely degenerated; they are now groups which just want to tear down the United States - it doesn't really matter what we do, whatever it is will be deemed unacceptable by the international elite.

Of course it matters what we do. They speak out not because we treated hundreds of prisoners fairly, but that we mistreated countless others. And for our own sake, we should treat these prisoners according to rule of law because if we don't, there is no reason for future enemies to treat our soldiers by it. We show the world that we follow these codes, and we expect all future and present enemies to do the same.

To lay down our moral arms in the name of terror does damage to the United States that terrorists never could. It is images such as those from Abu Ghraib that tear down the United States, weakening the moral fabric that those on the right have been quick to champion since the last election. The real reason we do not put these men against a wall? We are better than that. We just need to make sure we continue to act that way.