The Senate is debating whether or not the guys who follow the rules of the Geneva Convention can defeat the guys who torture people and shoot them in the back of the head. Even Colin Powell chimed in and said that he believes we must adhere to the Geneva Conventions to protect the safety of our own troops, as if terrorists can play by the rules if they get their hands on our troops.
George Bush, on the other hand, thinks that the Geneva Conventions should be as malleable as clay.
Certainly, there is an acceptable middle ground. After all, the rules of behavior that inspired the Geneva Convention relate to the usual kind of warfare, where there is at least some semblance of honorable conduct. We are in a time when the enemy knows nothing of the traditional rules of combat. They are, as we know, thugs who torture and murder as a way to cause the greatest possible outrage and, perversely, work their barbarities in the name of their kidnapped God.
How can civilization, pacing the road counting daisies while these monsters wait in ambush, have a fighting chance against them? Launching a realistic debate is quite urgent. While erring on the grounds of excessive arrogance, GWB is right about one thing. This is the war of the worlds: our civilization against their paganism, and if we’re going to have a chance, we’d better have the weapons we need ready.
Never to compare our brave and defiant settlers to the inordinate torturers and murderers of radical Islam, but when our Minutemen found it necessary, in their smaller numbers, to hide in the woods and eliminate the Redcoats, who were advancing in the kind of honorable arrangement of battle that worked very well against Napoleon, the British finally adjusted their battle tactics a bit.
Does the whole world have to relearn such a basic and costly lesson? And how many must die while the debate continues?
Or think of it as a boxing match, where the good guy has, as usual, one hand tied behind his back, while the bad guy does everything possible to hurt him, including kickboxing. Forget it. Even pulling a gun out of his trunk or planting a bomb under the other side of the ring.
While we don’t have to reduce ourselves to the most malicious terrorist tactics, we at least have the right to fight with both hands free.