A Systemic Response to Abuse of "Enemy Combatants"



Hat tip to The Radical Centrist for pointing me to an impressively dispassionate, pro-American, fact-based analysis of the genuinely deep problem of prisoner abuse, that neither slings mud nor makes facile excuses:

Torture and abuse is not just a moral or legal failure. It is a strategic failure in the War on Terror. Certainly, we will never be nice enough to convince Zarqawi—and the ~20,000 like him—to stop killing Americans. But there are another 55 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan who may still be convinced of our moral superiority to the Islamic fundamentalists, the terrorists and their ilk; another 55 million people whose hearts and minds may still be won.

Only, they may not be won if we keep killing, torturing and abusing them. We can never make them all love us, but we can certainly stop giving them good reasons to hate us.

Nevertheless, there is still the problem of prisoners. To that end, I would suggest that we operate absolutely above-board—even if it means we put ourselves at some risk in certain instances. All detainees should be housed in prisons perfectly accessible to the ICRC and various Human Rights organizations. The Geneva Convention should be observed strictly.

While it might be nice to get that occassional tip out of an insurgent, we can win the war without it. We cannot win the war without the support of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that may be the price of sacrificing our moral high ground to beat up some insurgents.

Posted: Tue - May 31, 2005 at 10:36 AM        

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